Miroslav Válek - Killing rabbits

Miroslav Válek - Killing rabbits
(Zabíjanie králikov

On Sunday after the breakfast
When the air is about half-way to the ice,
The thin flutes of mice whistle in the chimney,
On Sunday after the breakfast
To walk on the fresh snow
Towards the cages.
To put down the gloves for the pink feast,
To spike them on the fence
Like palms freshly chopped off
And to smoke through the door.
Then only to insert the seeking hand
And with the smoke in teeth say sweet things,
Flatteries and sweet words,
To commiserate a little.
Grasp firmly by the skin
And lift off the warm straw.
On Sunday afternoon
Smell the ammonium.
For a while hold by the left hand, head down,
Watch the ears go purple,
To stroke tenderly behind the neck,
Blow on it, carry away
And suddenly with the right hand hit to the rear.
Once more feel the bounce
for the needless jump,
Feel heaviness in the palate,
hear how opens heavens of the hares
and how fall of them
handfuls of hairs.
Viennese blue,
Belgian giant
French ram,
Czech spot,
but as well the bastard of whatever breed,
all of them die with the same speed
and without single word.
On Monday have blue under the eyes, be silent,
On Tuesday reflect on the world's fate,
On Wednesday and Thursday invent the steam engine
and discover stars,
On Friday think of something else,
but first of all about the blue eyes,
all the week round pity the orphans
and be among the flowers fans,
On Saturday on her mouth
On Sunday after the breakfast
kill a rabbit.

Jan Skácel - A brief description of summer

Jan Skácel - A brief description of summer
(Krátký popis léta)

Wild fires
From the four sides the summer burns

Soporificallly bloom acacia groves
Green soul of wine smoulders in the vineyards
Poppy flowers in the wheat bleed

The darkness comes
and the moon walks on the silver bridge

The world is like bread withdrawn from the oven
that the night is eating away

Jan Skácel - The dead

Our dead are all the time along
Thus we can never be alone
And they come here like shadows
In their hair ash and clay of meadows
Their faces are like erased
But we're by mutual knowledge graced
After the cornflowers of last summer's spell
Their hands very faintly smell
They greet me quietly like their own
A hunchback whom the presence has shown

Miroslav Válek - The land beneath your feet

Miroslav Válek - The land beneath your feet
(Zem pod nohami)

Deep oceans of mud. Roaring rain. The skies of lead
fell on the plain. My lonely rook, where do you want to land ? Where is the firm ground, where is the land ? Your land is what you must not lose. The taciturn man are absorbed in booze. They drink for courage, they drink for they fear. Until the pub becomes a smear. The heads are light and empty, but the liquor purges. The yellow sad candles burn in churches. The deaf heavy water falls since the morning. And land only sleeps replete with graves and mourning. The faces are hid, from the tears rid, but the bitter wails last. As at the beginning, the same at final blast.

*

A minute before sleep, in the total immobility of time, facing you, I retreat.
That is where the green sun from my childhood drawings sleeps,
A three-legged dog speaks in the clear human voice,
A blackbird of ink quietly whistles on the blotting paper.
The genuine aspect and meaning of things appears.
Far away, but all the same it used to be,
Untouched and clean, because everyone's childhood is locked with a key lost forever.
When we feel hard, we come here,
Bang on the gate and request : Open !
But the house on magpie's leg would not stop,
Only the mute blacbird foolishly flies right to the sun.
Locked. Locked for million years, forever.
That is why when we talk about the past,
our children weep and ask us : Stop !
Stop the terrible story where everything is so sad.
Sad dreams, sad sunrise, sad sinking stars,
torn from the night sky.
Thus the death kept coming, lighting the blue fires of liquor in fathers' heads.
The black slice of bread, hanging over the mouth like a fantastic moon,
But waning a hundred times faster,
And the desperate planets of children's eyes, clinging to it until total destruction.
The sweet mother tongue and the bitterness of two
quite innocent words : Mom, give.
What is the sound of a tear falling
in the absolute darkness, clear, transpatent ?
Head in palms, I wonder if it might be true.
Where are you, the plain of landowners' buggies
Marking your face like the pox ?
Where are you, the plain of seasonal workers,
full of mud, tired,
the plain of hoboes and local fools,
humiliated and naked,
trembling under the poor cloth of its poverty,
before the eyes of the just god
bought for three sacks of valid indulgences
We have forgotten you,
we have forgotten the hands buried alive,
the jobless hands, without any concrete meaning, unnecessary.
In the wonderful darkness of a night in July,
in the strained quiet before the fruits ripen,
while putting the last tile on the roof of your house,
while closing your eyes before sleep,
you all, who praise your day,
call for the waters.
Call for the waters that have flown away,
speak to them in every form :
Come back, ancient rivers,
flow again in your old troughs.
Circles on the water, get more narrow until
the fatal fall of suicide's body.
Green up, blind eyes of wells,
wipe your mirrors containing the words :
diseases, poverty and famine.
Bloody sweat, raise from the Earth depths,
praising the hands that sowed you in.
Have mercy, oceans,
return your salt to the tears of women and mothers,
who were sinking under the life's gravity.
Join together, waters of recent and ancient past,
render the testimony for the alive,
who, touching the sun,
need the certainty of knowledge,
the solid point,
land beneath their feet.

Miroslav Válek - By Letters

Miroslav Válek - By Letters
(Po písmenku)

I'd weep, but I am not much frustrated
I'd care, but no baby is really mine
By letters this new song is created
It makes me drunk like a bottle of strong wine
The letters pour in massive quantity
But much more than contains the alphabet
Is amount of treason and perfidity
Oh well, there is no reason to look back
Everything is now so clear between us
Two many desertions, but too little love
Similar to a stone, our life is tough.

Miroslav Válek - A sad streetcar in the morning

Miroslav Válek  - A sad streetcar in the morning
(Smutná ranná električka)

A sad streetcar in the morning
I'm within I'm within
Fully imprisoned
In its glass coffin

The mournful bells ring before us
The mournful bells ring also behind
The mournful bells in sad session
A mournful funeral procession

Whenev'r I come to you
Whenev'r I come before your jury
I weep as if I was on funeral
I regret my life one day elapses
Something in me always collapses
I have always something to bury

All town today is sad
Sad parks, the mournful mall
And I am mourning as if mad

I come to you in case you call
I do the same if you don't call

Jan Skácel - A song about the closest guilt

Jan Skácel -  A song about the closest guilt
(Píseň o nejbližší vině)

There is a spring replete with blood
And everyone has drunk of it
And someone killed only a sparrow
And someone horribly offended

And afterwards he repented
And let the water his palms stain
And watched it against the sunlight
And his fear he couldn't sustain

And held but not long upheld
The water in his fingers, oh my Lord
And crushed the rock in empty quarry
And prayed : stone me or use Thy sword

And held but not long upheld
And his fear he couldn't sustain
And the spring is replete with blood
And all of us now have its stain