tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57818427614176324512024-03-13T23:10:23.675-07:00Yatib's humble translation attemptsYatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-48257423619293200092012-04-29T02:56:00.000-07:002012-04-29T02:56:02.252-07:00Miroslav Válek - The gloomMiroslav Válek - The gloom<br />(Skľúčenosť)<br /><br />I would like to be the pharaoh with an achate eye<br />I would like to retain in supply<br />my lead, my distance from the affairs<br />After all that play is still too complicated<br />and you never know if you are the one who seeks or is sought for.<br />The ingenuity of a hideaway, distances, even the time mean so little that only coincidence or a momentary distraction of fate<br />allow the things to disappear from memory,<br />but what has happened, lasts, it remains within us,<br />we are in a way involved in the flood of the world,<br />even the improbable becomes sometimes obvious.<br />Do you remember ?<br />In the burning air, in the fire of lilies,<br />when, hidden from all<br />we saw the souls of things dazzlingly shine,<br />you stretched your hand saying :<br />"I feel the sunspots"<br /><br />(I)<br /><br />Run, Gaius Iulius Ceasar<br />I will count to thousand and find you.<br />I see you, sweet Cleopatra.<br />To your hair the raven was sinking and until now<br />his wings remain in the sky - severity of eyebrows<br />and beneath it quietness so dark<br />that you must believe in blue eyes of thunder<br />and ask the height, albeit kneeling,<br />to let it happen.<br />The planet ?<br />Some joke <br />of some god !<br />Go, seek !<br />There is always something hidden<br />behind the back of something.<br />Dig under the poplar in which swears<br />the lame demon of the tree,<br />where groundwaters falls asleep on the sand's forearm,<br />where the clavicles guard their secrets<br />and shy naked worms tie hands of corpses.<br />It thundered in the boulders<br />where the herds are worried,<br />as if the air listened heavy headed by the rain,<br />as if the grass dodged before some voice :<br />Enter the things and tell what you have seen !<br />You saw the love contradict its cause,<br />denying connection between sex and fetus,<br />preparing its green beds,<br />her ceremonial riding corps entering the purple,<br />covering itself,<br />with its dog tongue licking the Moon down from the sky<br />- dynamite -<br />her bloody beds hanging on every shrub !<br />Drink from the footprints of bees, learn from the wisdom of insects,<br />which flying browses the eternity<br />so incredibly fast that it forgets<br />even before he gets the knowledge.<br />Oh, you already know,<br />where water becomes tear,<br />why the axe enters the memory of seed<br />and how the glory of body<br />is locked behind !<br />And where is the skull of Minotaur ?<br />Where is that tender lover<br />Where are the children of Herod ?<br />Where are the men who entered the fire as men<br />and left it as a wave ?<br />Maybe in the future. I don't know.<br />What is past and what is future ? <br />I can not distinct<br />the sound of falling water from the falling water.<br />I am the cause as well as the consequence<br />just as the butterfly is the future of the caterpillar<br />and the caterpillar is the future of the butterfly.<br />And love ? And hatred ?<br />Ugliness and beauty ?<br />The are too similar, much too similar<br />and conspired<br />up to the sweat of the mirror,<br />they show to our eyes every our mistake.<br />Do not regret.<br />The life is only carrying a lamp from place to place<br />in a dark room :<br />Always a bit of light from slightly other side,<br />but it is still the same face which we see.<br />Do not say what you suspect.<br />I believe,<br />that a spoken word may still list the universe.<br />I emphasize<br />the infinity of sex<br />as well as sexlessness of death.<br />Death speaks to us in soprano,<br />sleeps in the ear of the music,<br />listens to our hoarse bass and suffers<br />with feeling of inferiority.<br />And yet every day it comes down and asks<br />to be allowed to create the total compliance,<br />something between yes and no,<br />some sort of strong relationship between what was and what is.<br />Death, which likes the absence of wind so much<br />that every our breath causes ache in its back,<br />death, which feels the movement of a future fetus<br />as a storm in its knee,<br />paints the hurricane to the corner of its eyes, comes,<br />death since the creation of the world comes in this way<br />and investigates :<br />What is the man ?<br />Oh, the man !<br />A sun shield for sunflower,<br />A shelter from storms for earthworms,<br />A crutch under the armpits of clay !<br />Nevertheless -<br />Is there but one death ? Is not there a thousand of deaths ?<br />Don't wonder about it. Don't worry.<br />Of course it is still possible that happens only <br />what has already been thought,<br />yet unspoken repeats, forgotten returns.<br /><br />(II)<br /><br />Before the Christmas in the year nineteen sixty four<br />the head of Holofernes travelled by a train<br />so lovely cut off,<br />that a small merry-go-round full of good people<br />revolved around it.<br />It was a bright day<br />and a razor blade lied between them,<br />which they were passing around from eyes to eyes<br />At the same time Ramses II lay <br />beneath the concrete pavement of the Poplar street,<br />because his wife loved a chaffeur,<br />who at first was not willing. Then he rang.<br />My lord ! How could it happen ?<br />She is innocent.<br />She only walked down the street<br />with black horns in her eyes.<br />Sometimes it seems to me that the Earth as well is a head<br />separated from a huge trunk and thrown<br />to something which is approximately known as the universe.<br />So the swords on the throat,<br />violence, blood<br />and all the assassinations<br />are only imitations<br />of that primordial gesture ?<br />And meanness and treachery<br />and wars<br />and plague,<br />and our embraces under the seal of the moon,<br />oaths whispered to the sleeve of night,<br />in the cat silver of stars,<br />yes, that love, that lie,<br />all that already have been ?<br />Is it only inertia what makes us<br />keep returning to ourselves, to begin<br />in the same way as before ?<br />Oh, before !<br />I recollect you in fire by which I remembered you in pink<br />and in which your hair were suffocating me like smoke !<br />And you kept your hands above it,<br />you were incantating it,<br />your fingers were counted by the fire,<br />you tamer of snakes ! <br />In your hands also Pompeii as well as Hiroshima were burning,<br />your hands,<br />lit by the white rays of flour,<br />even in the hour of death were protecting the yeast.<br />You were the everyday bread of the world !<br />This happened,<br />it was written,<br />you already know it.<br />So why do you allow me to enter your shadow<br />with my naked leg ?<br />I am only a knife,<br />in your vicinity<br />crossed with lightning.<br />Choose the lightning !<br />My hands are to the elbows worn from your skin,<br />I touch you as an animal,<br />I open you by memory with my teeth,<br />you burn my tongue like a bad spirit.<br />You crazy lamb !<br />With hoofs pointing to the sky you will be sacrificed !<br />Save yourself ! Run away !<br />Oh, before !<br />How many thousands of years your blood has been dropping ?<br />From how many tiles you were secretly wiping it away ?<br />And it you wanted,<br />you could deny even the crack in the heaven's vault,<br />if you wanted,<br />you could keep even a hair between your thighs<br />you would deny even deer and trains.<br />You are the water<br />I am the thirst<br />The night is coming<br />The sky overgrows with black hair<br />and it dawns as if inside horse's teeth.<br />I can hear a tiny pin fall under your skin.<br /><br />(III)<br /><br />Close to the stop of trolley number 18<br />Bones were carried away from a cemetery.<br />It was July the thirteenth, the judgment day<br />and the sun was so orange<br />and so terribly beating to the heads,<br />that from a grave<br />incredible dancers ascended,<br />medics with skin of melted copper in a yellow pillar of fire<br />and students of the conservatory<br />with such a music in their calves<br />that even the wood has forgotten its perfect pitch<br />They sounded to the men in their eyes,<br />sowed seeds,<br />with a bare thumb<br />itched clay on its wrist,<br />they ate bread<br />and as if from a dream smiled.<br />Close to the stop of trolley number 18<br />behind the fence of the cemetery<br />an old woman was looking for bones<br />Close to the stop of trolley number 18<br />an old woman<br />into her black skirt heartrending was crying.<br />There was sun, it was orange<br />there was too much sun for such a day<br />She could not see<br />neither a little hole in the skull,<br />nor the little finger,<br />as if it even had not been buried<br />nor her own hand before her eyes<br />she could not see.<br />And the sun was so orange<br />and so terribly beating in the head !<br />An occasional gravedigger lay in the grass<br />drinking cheap rum and singing :<br />"And who has seen,<br />and who has seen,<br />the Jewish god,<br />in a red cap,<br />without his rod ?" <br />How many things are there we have not seen,<br />which we will never see<br />and before which we are blind,<br />confusingly rampaging in the driving lane ?<br />So the time passes, so will pass alongside<br />loves and chances,<br />opportunities and friendships.<br />Only occasionally<br />the good luck will strike us with a shiny fender<br />and falling we will see in it our sudden portrait,<br />a terrible face,<br />as if photographed through the pupil of the devil.<br />So the time elapses<br />the rain uncaringly counts its drops for insomnia of the nights,<br />we hurry home, put the life down like the pants,<br />which have traces of knees so clearly visible<br />as if we have been kneeling on the stairs<br />of some secret Calvaries,<br />we hurry up,<br />switch off the lights,<br />in the moonlight drink our bromine<br />and cheer up<br />by the obedient babble of gas.<br />So good bye.<br />You are falling to a blue corolla's glow<br />only your fingers still shine yellow<br />only the styles above the level of indigo scents.<br />That is where a tear in the eye of tear cries<br />that is where you white switches in your teeth crush,<br />that is where the darkness checkmate of your complexion unbuttons,<br />that is where the wood's clay aches because of hard stones,<br />that is where it with little tongues, stained with snake venom, blows from the emptiness of bones.<br />That is where, a little nowhere, a little in eternity<br />you will be alone.<br />Walled up in the walls kneeled<br />while the band returns from the funeral.<br />A horse in snow. People like soot, black and crass.<br />Night with dark face falls on the brass.<br />The air is like glass <br />Where did the robbed woman pass ?<br />The woman in black skirt, who walks<br />like a clear dew on the water's paths,<br />behind every coffin, in each procession,<br />already so transparent,<br />that she more resembles non-water,<br />already almost dew of dew, a mere nothing<br />carries inside her a whip crackling <br />and with steps short only like the hands of grass<br />even a bit shorter,<br />she walks the whole eternity.<br />The blind circle she revolves on her finger like a key,<br />she locks the world, opens for her the heaven,<br />in the loneliness of her life she tortures her god :<br />My God, you have not risen from the dead.<br />My God, you have already disappeared.<br />My God, have you never been ?<br />And again the sound of trumpet behind the window lights beats down.<br />Some crazy jazz. The drunken saints<br />lie on the pavements.<br />Silence.<br />Mother, don't you sleep ?<br />Darkness. Wind tunes in his palm the violin.<br />Tonight, naked and bloody<br />I lashed out of the fire and flew up.<br />I know : the certainty<br />I will hang on the nail my black hat black like tar.<br />(Not because you will not be, but because you now are) <br />Do not lift it.<br />Cover it with your hand.<br />Under the hat<br />darkness.<br />Love will subsist us from the pure water,<br />Be always with me<br />and more than yourself love me.<br />So to live on. To stand on your feet,<br />to resemble the sea,<br />not to count the ebbs.<br />I know : the fear.<br />The unpatient count to thousand.<br />You already feel strange contours within.<br />Run away ...<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-28381358495322952032012-04-29T02:54:00.002-07:002012-04-29T02:54:37.748-07:00Jan Skácel - How calves come to this worldJan Skácel - How calves come to this world <br />(Jak přicházejí na svět telátka)<br /><br />From time to time the cow wistfully boos<br />and looks back<br />with her eyes on achate.<br />Streams of milk jangle on the pails<br />in the draft wave golden strings of manure,<br />Every time when the door opens,<br />the morning comes within.<br />The cow-house is full of sturry night.<br />We are waiting.<br />Suddenly tiny hoofs appear,<br />touch the light,<br />shake down the warm darkness,<br />all with tender force pull the rope,<br />until the wet calf<br />through our lap slips into the straw.<br />So we have, damn it, at least the common joy<br />and go hastily home to shave ourselves,<br />to furrow the stubble, the white grass for the night.<br />A little stick full of song flows in the sky.<br />(So come to this world calves <br />and everything lovely.)<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-1722625816796033892012-04-22T02:39:00.002-07:002012-04-22T02:39:09.437-07:00Miroslav Válek - From the absolute diary 1Miroslav Válek - From the absolute diary 1<br />(Z absolútneho denníka 1)<br /><br />(2)<br /><br />When you will hang on a thin wire<br />and your legs will dangle in the draft<br />you will understand,<br />that these are but next steps to emptiness,<br />So stop it, the fair is already over<br />and you sold yourself alive ...<br />You were always a tiny toy donkey, who runs in a little case,<br />you were always closed<br />it was possible to wind-up you with a key<br />and, carrying your load, you were carried,<br />but in other direction.<br />It is the very mechanic of motion,<br />it is the famous gig of a fool<br />who comes to make sure he is not here any more.<br />but, returning, he sees that he has not left yet<br />and so he sits there, wails on the stairs,<br />desperately crying against the roaring laughter of the audience :<br />"For my Lord's sake, who am I and where am I rushing ?"<br />The amount of time decreases like flour from a sack.<br />You could be a beautiful cadaver,<br />you could lie in the grass, look under the skirts of the world,<br />have a cricket in your ear,<br />become yellow by music,<br />you could be cited,<br />a confectionary could be named after you ...<br />And what are you ?<br />A null. A little bunch of bones. In the best case<br />a thing sometimes useful for lessons of anatomy.<br />You are already decaying<br />you and that old umbrella which is so often left behind,<br />nothing, mere skeletons in a dark cabinet ...<br />Below the basket of your thorax<br />let us play basketball with the Moon !<br />Nothing. Darkness, dust and chalk !<br />Only gradually<br />appear poplars and grasses, starfish,<br />the Earth tears apart, the continents separate and flow away from each other ...<br />Where were you at that time, homo sapiens ?<br />To try it again with you ? <br />Cover you with the silk shine ?<br />Oh, black umbrella,<br />the full stop after the life !<br />I want to be unbinding with you,<br />to play you from one ear to another like a banal music,<br />to decompose you in my head,<br />a meteor would become of you<br />you would excite the town !<br /><br />(4)<br /><br />We fall as if after run, we spit out bloody towns,<br />we leave them, suffocate them with our own hands<br />and in front of the mirror<br />we uncover the sex of underaged word,<br />ready to sleep with every better poem.<br />We envy each other, we hate each other.<br />We devour our narcotics like you your steaks<br />in order to see a butterfly going to the state of rose.<br />We worry women, we let ourselves to be worried by women,<br />we write, we write,<br />the last petticoat of the night is for a long time full with writing<br />and no one knows what the poetry is.<br />Some people define it as an accepted proposal to termination of virginity<br />and others as coitus interruptus of emotion with reason,<br />but it is a fatal error !<br />The poetry wears a motley shirt <br />and doesn't care about the good manners !<br />From this point of view<br />the comet in your head<br />and the moon behind your fingernail<br />can be quite suitable for a poem,<br />but the poetry is something else, dear friends !<br />It begins when you notice that the skeletoned man moved in your entrails,<br />that he reached your pocket from inside and inspects<br />the year, the month and the day when you were born,<br />the colour of your eyes,<br />your special signs ...<br />It is the time of a poem.<br />Shiver bacause it is coming<br />message in the form of seed,<br />pain and blood,<br />oil into fire.<br />So the white-hot nakedness hisses<br />everywhere around<br />merry-go-rounds of trees are revolving <br />and revolving ...<br />Every poem has its time,<br />but the time of the poem is shorter than you think.<br /><br />(7)<br /><br />Oh, aquamarines of the night are cold,<br />your eyes hurt me, orange flames !<br />Brown, the smell of burned leathers,<br />rope around the neck. White, skin<br />of lily-of-the-valley, knives and feathers !<br />Don't bother me, I know it,<br />you also used to wail<br />to the hair of a perfumery clerk.<br />At that time you were rich<br />and beloved !<br />Good morning, miss.<br />Honey shines in your premises,<br />madness of salvia,<br />purple, fire,<br />musks.<br />And where is the poem ?<br />Sorry, we haven't got it !<br />Oh, aquamarines are cold !<br /><br />(9)<br /><br />Poor poet who loots<br />the treasuries and the churches,<br />Faithful ox of plowing words,<br />with Andromeda in his muzzle !<br />Occasionally you will be booed out,<br />you will go to the fire,<br />all shames of the world in you will be counted<br />and their sum will add up to your debit.<br />Your humiliations will be categorized as the first and the second<br />And the first will enter the second,<br />to fulfil them while themselves fulfilled by them.<br />Oh, tender member !<br />Your name is loss of semen<br />and your pregnancies will never end by the cry of offsprings.<br />Anybody will spit on you<br />and women you loved will be present,<br />with their eyes so much narrowed,<br />that razor blades will shed tears under your feet ...<br />It is not like when you drunk<br />by various music of a casual body<br />to the necklines small moons vomitted !<br />Where is the woman who does not strip herself<br />in the iris of your eye ?<br />And anyway -<br />who, helpless before the mysteries of flower's stigmata,<br />prayed for patience ?<br />Who refused to eat lilies ?<br />Who even the naked dew did not lick ?<br />Who believed that all grains of pollen are counted ?<br />Who pitied the light dandelions ?<br />You swindler !<br />Nobody knows what you carried, but you carried it in such a way<br />so that all might believe you have a small carriage<br />into which you store<br />silver hoofs of lost happiness.<br />Gradually, you told your entire biography,<br />but you purposedly forgot some trifle thing,<br />that became the key point of the poem<br /><br />(10)<br /><br />The amount of time decreases - only look forward to the future.<br />You are the runner with a young fox under your shirt !<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-2312879770014600652012-04-22T02:21:00.002-07:002012-04-22T02:21:27.062-07:00Jan Skácel - Where our mothers goJan Skácel - Where our mothers go<br />(Kam odcházejí maminky)<br /><br />And I know where our mothers go,<br />in July they will begin to ramble<br />at first but a little and during the day,<br />so as not to darken.<br />Then they are absent for a long, long time,<br />they were far away.<br />They say that once upon a time<br />lived a blind blacksmith in their home.<br />And that everyone once threw a stone.<br />They are limping a little like wounded birds.<br />One day we must go and look for our mother<br />in the night grass. By the morning we reach<br />a small gate overgrown with weed.<br />There stands up dewed<br />in old man's beard a strange childhood.<br />We meet a girl who we know from somewhere.<br />I would like to ask, but I am not allowed. <br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-73369482279699728932012-04-12T04:39:00.002-07:002012-04-12T04:39:59.260-07:00Miroslav Válek - Drumming to the other sideMiroslav Válek - Drumming to the other side<br />(Bubnovanie na opačnú stranu)<br /><br />Short before death I buy a chromed bike<br />ringing to all sides of the world that you are lovely.<br />Perhaps in March<br />when there are smokes above the earth like from crematories<br />the soil burns the dead body of the last year's weed,<br />perhaps in March, getting off a tram,<br />I fell in love with you in the time of germination.<br />At that time the submarine fleet of cereal grains<br />only hesitantly extended out its periscopes,<br />the spring was a cold fever<br />it shook the aspens all evening,<br />a silly rain was falling<br />already by heart and with no effort.<br />On that day you found a mirror and a drowned kitten<br />with a tie of silk<br />- oh, beautified death, more cruel <br />than the other ordinary killings -<br />You combed your hair kneeling<br />and against the riding train's direction<br />a small star rose on the top of your head.<br />*<br />I adore soldiers,<br />the smell of their belts and soured bread,<br />I like you,<br />generals of riding corps<br />and commanders of regiments' band,<br />all of you who have a star less,<br />I humbly love.<br />The pink nostrills of your horses excite women<br />and your drums, their laconic thundering<br />- like a woken-up gorilla running across the dark forest !<br />And then silence and then again and again<br />they drum on the old leather of the world :<br />Formation of mountain ranges and perishing of oceans,<br />move of nations and sudden slide of rocks !<br />At the end only a little meaningless rumble,<br />aldermen march hitting their bald heads with hands :<br />How could we ... How might we allow ...<br />But the progress of humankind started already a long time before them.<br />Drums passed through centuries,<br />Drums were predicting the future,<br />drums of rebellions and storms of drums beneath the sky,<br />boomerang of drums driving herds to the walls,<br />bulldogs of drums against the slaves,<br />dear baby of drums, I am swinging you,<br />orphan, I will put you like a frozen bird on album<br />of a senile retired general,<br />bubbles of drums,<br />what a shame,<br />a drum caught rust and went bust !<br />So it happened as I supposed :<br />We have forgotten the accidental love,<br />her name, her taste,<br />we have found others, so it goes<br />and maybe after seven hundred years<br />during deep plowing,<br />her canine tooth will shine on, yellow like a wasp in raspberries.<br />Excuse us, lovely Brunhilde.<br />And that is the opportunity to repeat it all again.<br />So once more,<br />I like you,<br />generals of riding corps,<br />oh, Marshal Ney,<br />Scipio Africanus,<br />Genghis Khan,<br />inventors of unpunishable death,<br />devourers of fire,<br />jugglers,<br />throwing their knives against history.<br />And the Earth spins more and more furiously,<br />the sun sets behind the horse manes,<br />hoofs on the glass<br />drumming on the other side of the world,<br />crazy charleston, <br />stamp of avalanches,<br />jungle !<br />Where is your whip, tamers of pardals and pumas ?<br />The death - a rusty mare - neighs so urgently,<br />cultivate that tender beast,<br />that clean flower,<br />until it becomes the absolute rose,<br />suitable for birthday but also for a deep sleep,<br />or for a sentence :<br />"Dear parents, I will be a little late, because ..."<br />The perfected death to every family !<br />The hygienic death for future mothers and their babies !<br />The death,<br />tiled, white, the final form of the flowing time<br />And everything in it is strictly divided :<br />FOR LADIES - FOR GENTLEMEN<br />But the gentlemen will not come here to perish,<br />they shave themselves with an exclusive shaver Philips<br />and drink gin.<br />An electric bee buzzes next to their ears but gives them no honey.<br />Why should it ? Their life is sweet enough anyway.<br />Oh, yes, lovely lady with the mouth like honey, tonight<br />for your breasts below the neckline<br />our Hiroshima perfume spray<br />and your happiness will persist,<br />tonight,<br />at the big moment of the 20th century<br />when the capitalism begins its unique striptease.<br />It alrady shakes its breasts,<br />all the California apples roll and ring loudly.<br />Oh, my beauty, your smile is a blinking neon,<br />a golden fish in the aquarium,<br />a rainbow cocktail in your eyes.<br />Lean back your head towards the stars, another veil falls<br />like a butterfly, jazz, jazz,<br />the mass crash of armored fleets.<br />Pink hips are appearing<br />Iron muscles of straddled legs,<br />Oh,<br />Y,<br />The known ball above the horns of a bull,<br />the earth globe in full blossom, happy and fat,<br />America<br />dancing like an elephant<br />on plantations of the world,<br />America in its nuclear hat,<br />a bit hysterical sobbing miss.<br />Uneasy because of that, the world frowns, <br />America,<br />do not play with that blouse !<br />One more button and you will become saint,<br />you will come alive to the heaven's door<br />America, burn at four !<br />Wailed the limousine, the sad moon of mandoline<br />shone on the land.<br />America, dance !<br />America, play !<br />Midnight.<br />Miss, we turn off the neon in hair.<br />Twilight plays it tight right behind the net,<br />placing all where you do not expect it,<br />saxophones stick out their tongues,<br />stretching their burning necks towards the Moon,<br />they howl their wolfish sorrow.<br />In the artificial night<br />artificial stars fall on us.<br />Sex and bells,<br />burning cinnabars,<br />On the fire blade dancing, white, alone,<br />only the mirrors from all sides<br />work nervously with passion,<br />they catch her in every position,<br />throwing away their sketches just to begin the new.<br />Everywhere is a plethora of her lips,<br />of her smiles,<br />of her hair<br />her fingers drop down pepper,<br />her breasts, her calves,<br />the naked, flexible air,<br />waves of Atlantic,<br />fishermen collecting the shells,<br />high tide, pearls.<br />And then bump like a gong<br />like a small, dim sun on the motionless sky,<br />we realized her belly<br />perfectly rounded,<br />the scale of a glittering fish,<br />the circle of Archimedes,<br />a disk above the pedestrians' heads.<br />She touched it with her hands, we saw from the short distance : <br />It is satiated.<br />Filled by the slaughterhouses of Chicago, <br />the slaughterhouses of Laos,<br />the slaughterhouses of Vietnam<br />and the slaughterhouses of Malaysia,<br />it is satiated.<br />And here the comb of the Moon has broken,<br />the sky is full with stars,<br />as if scythed, it foundered down upon the table.<br />Immediately stood up bank managers,<br />money forgers<br />and owners of steel trusts,<br />as well as archbishops<br />and automobile kings,<br />ran away to darkness of ink,<br />their chins shivered,<br />their heads burned like furnaces full of coke.<br />The belly of America was found,<br />they slap it with their red hands,<br />they beat it <br />like box champions,<br />it is the known rumble,<br />as if in the centre of the Earth the thunder was born.<br />And it is a drum,<br />the belts are jarring,<br />steel bullets already burrowed into the earth return<br />to their barrels,<br />the submarines shift beneath the ice,<br />riding regiments since the creation of the world saddle their horses,<br />archaeanic layers ascend to the Earth's surface,<br />a lightning on the bottom of the sea lifts the weight of the waters,<br />a snake sizzles like a bottle of fizzy water,<br />metals oxidize.<br />A horseshoe burns oils,<br />wanting to return to the hoof of its horse,<br />barrels rattle on the cobbled road<br />and they are drums,<br />here are their foreheads without a wrinkle,<br />here they go with their tremendous heads<br />against thw wall.<br />Their rhytm is what makes us sleepy,<br />and behind our head drums beat like a clock, <br />when we sleep :<br />Death, death, death.<br />Oh, drum, the cataract of the sky,<br />what do you see behind the horizon of blood ?<br />Oh, drum, the millstone of the world, do not turn so fast,<br />do not yet sprinkle the flour upon our mothers' heads.<br />Oh, drum, inside you we are sewn like kittens<br />and as well silly.<br />From your leather, drum, we must once cut free,<br />burn it, fly away<br />and feel the blow of thunder behind our heels.<br />*<br />Short before death I buy a chromed bike<br />ringing to all sides of the world that you are lovely.<br />Short before death, but nevertheless in the half of my travel,<br />like a man who knows he cannot make it to the top of a hill,<br />but he does not give up nor interrupts his ride<br />The last competitor is alrady out of his sight for a long time<br />he has no connection, receives no letters,<br />He did not fall in love with a brunette behind the window<br />nor drank from the others' wells.<br />He feels himself behind him and he escapes <br />to meet himself he has but himself,<br />his another form,<br />which he suspects only dimly,<br />like an appletree suspects an apple,<br />like the air suspects a bird.<br />And maybe it is just the sense of it all,<br />of that stubborn and hardheaded ride.<br />But maybe centuries have passed since then and <br />the world has changed.<br />We know that : <br />"The square above the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle ... etc"<br />We know that the Earth is round<br />and love is eternal.<br />We have discovered America and dynamite.<br />We have reconstructed the gramophone, <br />the prototype of the parrot,<br />the representative of diluvial artistic circles.<br />We have constructed metaphor and alcohol,<br />the fuels of the senses,<br />we have manufactured porcelain<br />we know how to crush the atomic nuclei.<br />Stop the rider behind his own shadow !<br />He is ridiculous to everyone, that blind polisher of the stars,<br />He is ridiculous to everyone,<br />with that rainbow above his head <br />wearing that ancient jersey.<br />Dogs from the entire planet are biting his calves,<br />already two thousand years he has been racing in his own blood.<br />Stop the man,<br />he lives but<br />a thousand,<br />two thousand<br />a hundred thousand,<br />it does not matter how many thousands of eye winks.<br />It is but a gesture,<br />a snapping of fingers, <br />a helpless movement of a shoulder.<br />And all that suffices is pneumonia,<br />all that suffices is fall down from stairs,<br />a crazy white horse<br />and a beat on a drum<br />- the sun will tear off,<br />the hot sky will get under your nails,<br />it will be all.<br />The man has anyway always a short time before his death,<br />the man is mortal,<br />the man lives anyway always with one leg in his grave.<br />I liked your hair, beautiful Brunhilda,<br />I wondered about the little star <br />that was rising among them,<br />although several centuries have passed since then<br />and everything is different. <br />We recognize ourselves in the stretch-faced rider during his turn,<br />we feel in our legs the steep ascending sharp as a storm,<br />the hum of bells in our head.<br />That is the travel which must everyone do in himself<br />and all in common, on their trajectory.<br />That is the wonderful perpetuum mobile,<br />conversion of energy, division of the cells,<br />infinity of the man,<br />his blood, his glory.<br />We have discovered the immortality of life,<br />we know how to tune the thunder,<br />we put our hand on the drums' leather<br />to let it grow over with grass.<br />In the name of life we call on the dead,<br />who, even at death, are in their proper place, by their names :<br />Comrades, listen to the last music,<br />see how burns the bow on the only string.<br />It is not tooth-grinding :<br />"The imperialists are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting. There is no force in the world to stop the progress of mankind ..."<br />The man is eternal !<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-70570480343296069832012-04-12T04:38:00.002-07:002012-04-12T04:38:36.652-07:00Jan Skácel - The ashesJan Skácel - The ashes<br />(Popely)<br /><br />He wrote with finger to the dust and has not left it<br />and the wind sings something recently long ago<br />and at the oil derrick the herd of deer<br />stood motionless<br />and fairly listened<br /><br />What of it is and will not be<br />that was once written<br />why speak out loudly that the grass was squeezed<br />and it raises up<br />when falls the rain and something else<br /><br />Who is at least a bit like us<br />will wait<br />no really nobody can<br />lift blades so heavy<br />And the hand oh lord what another hand<br /><br />He wrote with finger to the dust and has not left it<br />and the wind sings something<br />recently long ago<br />Such a hand oh lord what another hand<br />will lift a town and perish in ashes<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-30630900907143048002012-04-08T03:57:00.002-07:002012-04-08T03:57:26.561-07:00Miroslav Válek - The autumn<br /><br />Miroslav Válek - The autumn<br />(Jeseň)<br /><br />Go crazy<br />or drink yourself to death.<br />Autumn puts her empty hands on your shoulder<br />and asks for fire,<br />on the autumn's sleeve sits a mouse<br />and the autumn prays :<br />"Don't go away, buy some rubies from me."<br />You deny, so she will buy you.<br />And you will not get rid<br />of those stealthy steps behind you<br />and of those leavings with no reason - and, by the way, where ?<br />Even sleeping<br />you can hear the autumn wind its clock up,<br />angrily smoothen its velvet,<br />how it fears to be late ...<br />The train is whistling,<br />over the courts<br />flies the last square root of a bird.<br />Write it down everything, you silly little calculator :<br />that you were too lucky,<br />very afraid<br />- and all that gold<br />in your pockets !<br />Write it all down,<br />The autumn will count it before it is sold.<br />The vine-taverns switched off the lights. <br />Darkness for a half of year.<br />The spendthrifts<br />come home with rubies.<br />Everything is clear :<br />The trees have anchored,<br />deep in the clay chains are clashing<br />the bridge over waters is dry like a wooden chip.<br />So much weights the unspoken word,<br />that you begin to fear.<br />Someone here claps his hands.<br />From palm to palm <br />the autumn strews its coins.<br />The sold children are going to sleep.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-51588059758733808362012-04-08T03:52:00.001-07:002012-04-08T03:52:23.080-07:00Jan Skácel - The teacher of the second deathJan Skácel - The teacher of the second death<br />(Učitel druhé smrti)<br /><br />On a long bench along four whitewashed walls<br />were sitting the children who had died<br />only recently<br />Now they were waiting<br />for their second death.<br /><br />They were sitting in well-mannered way and with their little hands in their laps<br />Totally motionless and so quiet<br />that behind the open window the chains<br />of autumn merry-go-rounds were heard<br /><br />With their little necks they were touching the wall<br />and were waiting until the teacher came<br />and were waiting patiently<br />like never before in their lives<br /><br />Then steps on the corridor were heard<br />the teacher entered he came in with no face<br />as if there was no threshold<br />and the children greeted him without a word<br />And because all of them were already after death<br /><br />no one of them was trembling with fear<br />They all knew<br />that once was not enough<br /><br />Then when he started to call them out by alphabet<br />they stood up one after another<br />and after a slight bow<br />of their hardly fluffed head<br />with little steps left the classroom<br /><br />Tiny they were All from the first grade<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-18172281678328875552012-04-06T03:59:00.002-07:002012-04-06T03:59:11.234-07:00Miroslav Válek - The wingsMiroslav Válek - The wings<br />(Krídla)<br /><br />So it is summer. The blind men in Bahon <br />are lifting their heads above the wall, <br />above the barbed wire,<br />they are watching the trains, long and slim like whistling,<br />they are ripping the weeds, coughing.<br />Near Cifer a girl is sunbathing<br />with her hands above her head,<br />the heavy derricks of oil industry<br />are crawling to the railway, all are waving<br />thinking the same.<br />According to calendar it is August 15th, Mary, <br />4 o'clock in the afternoon,<br />The sun is in beer, the thunderstorm is in the air,<br />the park is full of lush green, and you are nowhere.<br />I have been saying you all the time :<br />Come in the right time,<br />come when the drums are rumbling,<br />at high noon,<br />when the swallows in the air give away their autographs<br />and the things are silent,<br />come full of anger,<br />when you are sad as well as when you would rather laugh.<br />The heads will be again in the windows, the things in order,<br />everything will be in its proper place again,<br />we will make an evening party in your family garden,<br />I will snap my fingers, the apricots will ignite,<br />their yellow fires will bend over us :<br />Then as well the grass was bluish and cold like a well,<br />the rain, punctuated like a tie, hang obliquely from the clouds,<br />the lightning started in the sky <br />and extended as far as our kiss.<br />When the thunderstorm lasted for too long<br />and too loudly the metal of thunder was beaten,<br />you said that they would look for you ...<br />I saw you fly above the yard in darkness.<br />During that night the earth moved in its bearings,<br />all stars were created,<br />the universe trembled like a lamb<br />and looked for its centre.<br />The second day after the world's creation the radio played,<br />they were walking in the rooms,<br />they were walking, they were talking,<br />they were breaking bread,<br />they were ringing with spoons,<br />ringing,<br />but nobody noticed your wings, transparent and light.<br />We caught you, the blindness of mature age,<br />we were fine,<br />and what has happened :<br />On Saturday after fifteen years<br />an Abel with whom I used to buy the football tickets<br />said me that we had lost it all long ago,<br />we had no wings<br />and it was a sad thing.<br />So I am at home,<br />grasping the land,<br />the land goes with me everywhere,<br />my land,<br />the plain of small people,<br />workers at Kovosmalt and at the atomic power station,<br />who represent the god six days a week<br />on the world's construction so sinfully behind the schedule,<br />beacause all the saints,<br />responsible for order, took bribes,<br />and the god's mills worked only for the rich.<br />I am at home. Eyes full of land and hands full of hands,<br />I rise inward myself.<br />Summer in the air. Summer everywhere.<br />Summer yellow as a wasp chasing us.<br />Behind the blood-coloured line of the horizon,<br />in the god's gardens,<br />where according to theologians should be the paradise,<br />where the devil's anger hisses, pomegranates explode<br />and the angels in gas masks,<br />burning swords in their hands, close their blind circle,<br />the destiny of man is written.<br />But we, since we learned that matter is <br />only a form of energy,<br />spread our wings easier,<br />move as well in space as we do in time<br />and know that this particular place is here with us, <br />on the ground.<br />We have a message for you,<br />you sweet, supposed, coming from our blood :<br />Think of us,<br />we were your destiny,<br />exactly as you are the destiny of those,<br />who will come after you to cross<br />the border line line of life.<br /><br />And who think the same.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-62797764540167092502012-04-06T03:49:00.002-07:002012-04-06T03:49:50.375-07:00Jan Skácel - The last thirstJan Skácel - The last thirst<br />(Poslední žízeň)<br /><br />So long ago did we pass away<br />and so much of thirst<br />so much of lovely thirst<br />we did leave at home<br />It is so long ago<br />and so many years elapsed since then<br />It is unbelievable<br />and all the same after quartzite does taste<br />and after sulphur<br />that thirst forever that thirst for the last time<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-91360852362513400792012-04-01T04:14:00.002-07:002012-04-01T04:14:24.628-07:00Miroslav Válek - The sensitiveMiroslav Válek - The sensitive<br />(Citliví)<br /><br />The mirror should be behind your back,<br />your hand in a glove,<br />your leg under the table.<br />Do not look.<br />They are hunchbacks,<br />with one leg shorter,<br />with one arm ending at the wrist.<br />They sit, they listen.<br />From the conversations that do not concern them,<br />from the words that do not belong to them,<br />each of them choses a thing for himself,<br />for instance :<br />... one should rather have his eyes back ...<br />... he lives on a high leg ...<br />... count it on your fingers ...<br />Oh, why does all the world touch the things that molest us ?<br />Why must we carry our visible marks,<br />while the same or even worse deformation of soul<br />is hidden from everyone ?<br />After death all of us will have a lovely hunch.<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-45934329276761827852012-04-01T04:12:00.000-07:002012-04-01T04:12:20.046-07:00Jan Skácel - Daughters of songJan Skácel - Daughters of song<br />(Dcery písně)<br /><br />My night is the darkest<br />where morning begins<br />and the little birds' horror beneath the windows<br />starts in full wolume.<br /><br />Then I get up<br />And deprived of the previous day<br />I go to the bathroom.<br />Going there I am ashamed among my furniture.<br /><br />Once again I am only myself<br />robbed to such extent<br />that to eternity I hang on a thread.<br />Everything embarrassingly reminds me<br />that yesterday I was verbatim perpendicular.<br /><br />Water sets me free for a moment<br />From the white porcelain with my nail <br />I scratch out a hair <br />Too much yours.<br />It is again bad, even worse.<br /><br />But then I remember again<br />and drinking my coffee I recite the verses,<br />slowly, hardly, to make them sustain :<br /><br />"On bird-twitter he gets up<br />and all doughters of song cry."<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-6931518135641317372012-03-30T05:05:00.003-07:002012-03-30T05:05:29.762-07:00Miroslav Válek - The touchesMiroslav Válek - The touches<br />(Dotyky)<br /><br />Since the morning the telegrams keep coming to your home,<br />the sea of letters floods the house,<br />telephones began to ring all at once.<br />It is nothing to worry about, it is nothing to worry about,<br />it is only that I am calling you incessantly,<br />re-establishing the broken connection.<br />I am so lucky they have believed me <br />at the post office and at the phone switchboard,<br />that I had a million greetings for you,<br />that I had a million requests on you :<br />Do not be angry and,<br />it is horribly important,<br />I am almost crazy because of that,<br />I am horribly in love with you,<br />leave everything as it it is,<br />let the water burn in the bathroom,<br />let the gas flow in the kitchen,<br />let the foolish mirrors in your room turning,<br />and come to me by the first train,<br />come here to the vast plain !<br />Seven black horses will wait for you at the station,<br />all of them with a star on its forehead,<br />the jasmine will blossom,<br />the pollen will fall from the apricots<br />softer than your powder Soir de Paris.<br />Hurry up, on the corner<br />the evening is already hooting,<br />blue painted like a vintage car,<br />the town sun, a screechy worn out vinyl record<br />shifts down bellow the horizon,<br />but the one of ours,<br />the shiny casserole of copper,<br />sets down delightfully,<br />and when it touches the earth, it is all heard.<br />The black bull in the coopertative-farm stable<br />in a velvet voice finished its lyrical intermezzo,<br />the plain falls on its knees and prepares to sleep.<br />The time of shaking off the boots has come,<br />stamp like some festive parade,<br />because here in every house the men are like iron<br />and the sound has space enough for start,<br />thus everyone's dreams are heard ...<br />Dreams about :<br />glass,<br />stones,<br />metals,<br />caresses of hands,<br />bent index finger knocking on a window,<br />the fleeting smile you were waiting for<br />Dreamt are things unspeakable,<br />things wonderful and simple like a snowdrop<br />and my eyes on the bottom of your eyes,<br />we dream dreams<br />and everything is like a content of the magician's hat.<br />The night, the black hat with a wide brim,<br />overturns inside out into the morning.<br />Only now you can see how palpable the dreams are<br />The nervous fingers of TV antennas puncture the darkness,<br />double rows of new houses trot to the villages,<br />the morning is stuffy like an after-ball ballroom,<br />the single sad rook in the sky revolves like a fan,<br />the fat wheat-ears faint with astonishment,<br />when the local village radio calls in harsh voice :<br />Come to harvest, come to harvest !<br />In a moment the village is empty like a blown out egg<br />Only the grandma sits at the door and silently sings for herself :<br />"She was sieving the flour<br />Straight to the wooden floor ... "<br />Grandma, the poor blind thing !<br />She used to milk the cows in Herz's farmstead.<br />She used to pray for long life and lucky death.<br />Her life has elapsed like the stroke of a whip - it was exactly so painful.<br />And now she does not know this world at all.<br />She does not remember the names of her grandchildren, she starts with fear when there is a laugh in the house,<br />the evening brings her a strange smell of the burnt diesel, <br />but the earth she takes to her fingers is still good.<br />It is the same soil as then ...<br />The dress of silk, sixteen years of age and the long braid<br />are already gone,<br />but the plain is still here to stay, the plain is eternal<br />it only breathes faster and louder.<br />At the time of feast roast geese fly here,<br />a sparrowhawk starts to the sky vertically like a rocket,<br />in autumn the violet rains rain to the gardens,<br />heavy drops of plums knock on the tired soil.<br />The plain has given away its frut, it has no more to say and it is silent.<br />Sleepy, blinded by syrup and sugar, it puts on a quilted coat.<br />On St.Martin's day comes the first snow.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-81437111762183483942012-03-30T05:04:00.000-07:002012-03-30T05:04:02.438-07:00Jan Skácel - The night travellersJan Skácel - The night travellers<br />(Cestující v noci)<br /><br />The thefts of gods' property woke us around midnight<br />We blindly touch around us<br />and sleepy request the news<br />how much cool is the night<br />The dream persists<br />like an unbroken egg on a rock<br />And it is the moment when we dream about ourselves<br />And the centaur has the turtledove's head<br />With what autumns will we share<br />the meals of deer<br />we<br />who travel at night<br />and ask in such sleepy voices<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-10032439653424136582012-03-22T04:45:00.002-07:002012-03-22T04:45:07.634-07:00Miroslav Válek - A minute before falling asleepMiroslav Válek - A minute before falling asleep<br />(Minútu pred usnutím)<br /><br />I saw a purple-fledged bird<br />My eyes are full of beautiful dissonancies<br />In the night ignited by its wings<br />I am always alone<br />I am worried<br />I am crying<br />I am making up<br />a while with you among roses<br />there I am learning you by heart<br />there I am breathing you<br />until you say 'stop'<br />I know that it is prohibited<br />But wherever you touch my body<br />it turns into a distinctly vibrating tone<br />So stop Stop at last<br />I am your music<br />the melody that will not leave your mind<br />you can whistle me<br />thinking of something else<br />You are whistling me<br />You are thinking of something else<br />it will not leave my mind<br />Allow me to fall asleep<br />allow me to fall asleep<br />fantasy the purple-fledged bird<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-66182341643770717362012-03-22T04:42:00.003-07:002012-03-22T04:42:26.434-07:00Jan Skácel - AlwaysJan Skácel - Always<br />(Pořád)<br /><br />Tirelessly the snow falls all day<br />as if some hooligans beat to death<br />with beer bottles<br />a swan in the sky<br />and its sad feathers were falling down.<br /><br />I am so afraid of deadly silence,<br />of the weight on trees and eternity,<br />that in the humans ceased.<br />And I am not a bit ashamed<br />for my anxiety, lord, you know it.<br /><br />It falls on me silently, without a word,<br />as regret in vain,<br />at least of that we are capable,<br />waiting for a kind word.<br />While out behind the window it falls.<br /><br />And all the time more and worse.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-50073993479279955852012-03-22T04:36:00.001-07:002012-03-22T04:36:08.830-07:00Miroslav Válek - An appleMiroslav Válek - An apple<br />(Jablko)<br /><br />An apple rolled down from the closet to the floor.<br />So pack your things and you can go.<br />She leaned with her back to the door<br />and cried with her eyes :<br />For god's sake I beseech you, no !<br />But I knew for good that I had enough;<br />I stood up,<br />picked up the apple,<br />dusty and still green,<br />and I laid it on the table.<br />She kept beseeching, she came to the table, <br />crying.<br />She looked at me, wiped the apple,<br />crying.<br />I told her at last : Put that apple down and go !<br />The events happened as I supposed.<br />No matter, that in different sequence !<br />She opened the door,<br />I ran down and said : Stay !<br />But she packed her things and left.<br />An apple rolled down from the closet to the floor.<br /><br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-44646607763906964382012-03-22T04:33:00.002-07:002012-03-22T04:33:15.742-07:00Jan Skácel - Seeking cobwebsJan Skácel - Seeking cobwebs<br />(Vyhledávání pavučin)<br /><br /><br />Decaying tiny spooks live in their stumps<br />they enjoy living there<br />as if the time was still made of wood<br />And all soup spoons<br />all bridges<br />and all oak ridges<br /><br />Behind the wasp nest if you don't ask<br />you may find that squelched place<br />where on the lea dances<br />the god of ants<br />It's him who with his dance destroys the world<br /><br />On his six legs he dances from time immemorial<br />and for the dance that he performs<br />he threw away his hands<br />He has nobody<br />who would wipe sweat from his forehead<br /><br />He is alone and he alone thumps himself down<br />to the bottom of creation<br />and little snails<br />on the borders of the lea are inching<br />to their slimy distances<br /><br />Already millions of years the god of ants<br />all covered with sweat<br />and with worried face<br />does that hard work<br />On his six legs with his dance he destroys the world<br /><br />And all soup spoons<br />all bridges<br />and all oak ridges<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-54705294910648898072012-03-20T06:05:00.003-07:002012-03-20T06:10:34.402-07:00Miroslav Válek - A treeMiroslav Válek - A tree<br />(Strom)<br /><br />A black ghost rambles in the woods<br />Alone like a finger<br />he tramples the ground<br />He shakes his head<br />having no peace<br />He finds a bridge<br />crosses it gets to the town<br />tramples on the lawns<br />slams into the walls<br />destroys the houses<br />covers his eyes<br />cries for help<br />Hair up with scurry<br />you say :<br />Has he gone crazy ?<br />Such a good tree !<br />You say ! You say !<br />There are also other things,<br />you simple-minded good guys !<br />What does a man<br />uprooted from the soil in which he lived<br />deprived of roots<br />alone like a finger<br />desperate ?<br />Looks for his pleace on earth ?<br />Looks for piece<br />Looks for a nice branch that will not break down<br />looks for a tree ?<br />A black oak rambles in the woods<br />Avoid him !<br />
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<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-46242530584615815242012-03-20T06:03:00.002-07:002012-03-20T06:03:29.976-07:00Jan Skácel - ProverbsJan Skácel - Proverbs<br />(Přísloví)<br /><br />I worried about the world so much<br />that I began to make up proverbs.<br />There are long truths as well as the short ones.<br />And if the punishment doesn't come immediately,<br />you have to serve a term of your own life for your guilt.<br />And no one can ever undo what has been done.<br />And no one can write a song<br />for a blind girl and for a wingless bird.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-2754178334559469192012-03-18T05:46:00.002-07:002012-03-18T05:46:15.946-07:00Miroslav Válek - The paradeMiroslav Válek - The parade <br />(Prehliadka)<br /><br />It's eight o'clock in the morning,<br />the apple trees blossom, the dogs guard next to the doors<br />and the winds sleep.<br />I don't feel like thinking of rhymes,<br />I inspect my conscience,<br />like the old album with your photos,<br />which you no longer resemble<br />and which you forgot long ago.<br />Don't worry, I'm not going to disturb you long.<br />Everything is in order,<br />lay down your arms !<br /><br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-10928438965346564392012-03-18T05:44:00.000-07:002012-03-18T05:44:10.613-07:00Jan Skácel - A MomentJan Skácel - A Moment (Chvíle)<br /><br />For no truth of the world<br />But if you like,<br />for a little dime of silence.<br />There is a moment that halves the land.<br />A while of humility,<br />when someone breaths on us.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-48694995444270822642012-03-14T04:59:00.002-07:002012-03-14T05:19:20.146-07:00Miroslav Válek - A Story with a WaspMiroslav Válek - A Story with a Wasp <br />(Poviedka s osou)<br /> <br />He was turned face to the wall so as he could think<br />Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.<br />A wasp in the air<br />kept bumping into the air,<br />buzzing like an old monoplane,<br />bumping, falling,<br />it sounded like knocking on the windows pane with a nail,<br />as if by every knock someone was called out of the room<br />for a drink or for a chat,<br />which always began in the same way :<br />"But this joke you can't know, my dear colleague ..."<br />And ended with a sneeze or laughter,<br />from which the whole house rang<br />as from the chains cleaning.<br />The summer was hot ad humid,<br />the time progressed incredibly slowly,<br />the wasp kept bumping and falling into the glass,<br />with every fall one of its crew left,<br />the ambulance shrieked hysterically behind the window<br />the dandelions faded away faster<br />and on the floor one parachute next to the other.<br />The day of tobacco ripening and waters retreating has begun,<br />the air was getting yellow and the wasp was dark-yellowishly stupid.<br />But who of us thinks of glass transparency<br />and at the same time its adamancy<br />Who, lifting his leg, considers at the same time its reverse movement ?<br />It would be unexpected,<br />as if we met the house crossing the street.<br />But, all the same - who knows ...<br />"Dear friends", said he, lifting the glass,<br />"because the war is the poetry of life and all of us are but servants of the Muse, I'm going to tell you a delightful poem. You'll laugh a lot. Listen :<br />Don't tell it to anybody.<br />I've discovered the secrets <br />guarded by seven wives of Bluebeard.<br />I can make the sun from the orange thrown to the air,<br />by the wind's scent I know the taste of women's kisses in the countries it comes from.<br />Don't tell it to anybody.<br />The best are the kisses of Vanessa,<br />they all smell with vanilla.<br />Vanessa is a poor seamstress from our town.<br />Poor but honest, she sews with everybody,<br />but it must be love ringing with pure gold.<br />The love that doesn't ring is severely punished !<br />This little rhyme we found in the pocket of a student before ...<br />And because - not at all by chance - our names were identical,<br />I sent it immediately to her." <br />Then, because there was in a way a bit of philosopher in him, he added :<br />"But I'm telling you quite confidently - as soon as I explored her soul deeper, I began to call her Wasp. That Little Wasp has not only a slim waist, but also a well-sharpened tongue, except the other more attractive qualities, for instance - came a little closer <br />- and except<br />- and except <br />- and except,<br />that's probably the most important of it. As you can see, the life is complicated and exact as a clock, but does not exclude the possibility of unexpected accidents and encounters. That's all, have a good time ! Let's drink on ! Let's drink again !"<br />In certain situations we can believe in ability of water to speak Hebrew,<br />as well as in other, more strange things.<br />But who has never seen a weeping willow weep to her handkerchief,<br />would not believe in the ability of trees to fly at nights.<br />Why should he believe if he hasn't seen ?<br />And who has ever seen a chromatic harmonica of autumn winds ?<br />Who has ever seen a shining root in the grave of an electrician<br />of the darkness in his own grave ?<br />Who ? Who ? Who ?<br />He, facing the wall to be punished, has seen it :<br />The wasp when he was left alone,<br />the wasp who finally has flown through the commiserative glass,<br />leaving in it as a reward her rings like circles on the water,<br />vanishing and made of false gold.<br />And what next ? He could talk.<br />He could say everything. But no.<br />He was turned face to the wall so as he could think<br />Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.<br />So he was silent to finally realize : "I have bad luck !, <br />to turn around and shout :<br />"Please, I have bad luck, Please let me draw another question. " <br />But there was no other question.<br />There was only silence so complete he could hear it,<br />when he by blink of an eye swang a bell in his head.<br />He had bad luck !<br />He had bad luck !<br />He had bad luck !<br />There was no other question, but the one he got.<br />And the first four minutes have already elapsed.<br />He was turned face to the wall like a thing.<br />At that moment azaleas at the park began to scent,<br />the big moon rose somehow too early,<br />women walked from the green gates,<br />with pink fingers fastened their shirts,<br />the street sounded like a big xylophone<br />it smelled with some cleaning stuff and milk,<br />a large-buget big movie was on in the cinemas,<br />in which the fabulous Theo Lingen as a valet<br />was seducing a boutiful baroness ...<br />What a chance that during the entracte he spotted the acquainted blonde<br />for whom he had been longing so long ! She sagged at her waist like a wasp,<br />laughed and cried :<br />"Oh, I can't stand it !"<br />"Oh, I'll get mad !"<br />"Oh, I'll die !"<br />Inspired by the film, he told her :<br />"I'm going to die with you, my beauty, whatever may happen !"<br />"What ?" - shouted she. "You better look in your mirror at home, sir !"<br />He was turned face to the wall like a mirror,<br />like a mirror turned to the wall in a bad moment,<br />when you don't feel like looking at your own face,<br />when seeing one's face is almost the same as ringing at the door of your own flat, asking : <br />"Excuse me, please, is Mr. Walter Krist at home ?"<br />and hearing Mr. Walter Krist answer :<br />"It must be a mistake, I don't know him. Mr. Walter Krist never lived in this house."<br />So it is better to look at your back,<br />to stand behind yourself, have a distance,<br />walk in the crowd headed by a boy with an apple and ended with a man<br />- he still has the taste of that apple on his tongue -<br />waiting for the death to lean toward him from above his arms :<br />"Lieutenant Walter Krist ! Only one minute left !"<br />But his moment has not yet come, although he heard those words quite clearly. And he indeed pities the other guy. He isn't a murderer and doesn't want to kill him.<br />After all, every death is in a way absurd. Anyway, he got enough beating from them, they cornered him, he can't even follow his crowd anymore. All his faces fled away and now turn to him with silent reproach. So let him speak. Let them make him speak. What a wonderful evening. The air full of honey. Only one minute left.<br />He was turned face to the wall so as he could think.<br />He was turned face to the wall like a soulless thing<br />He was turned face to the wall like a mirror.<br />Oh, the sad twilight of the averted things with a one dimensional soul,<br />that need the human eyes !<br />He was watching into himself, he was reflecting himself.<br />The lights of summer in distance vanishing,<br />the trembling breath of candles,<br />but also the laughter of this mad town,<br />which crushed him like a china cup,<br />the well known soprano of the woman, maybe embarrassing at the same time : <br />"Oh, I can't stand it !"<br />"Oh, I'll get mad !"<br />"Oh, I'll die !"<br />He remembers : A nasty evening. The night kept swelling like a toad.<br />They laughed. She as well. But he could not recognize himself. His palm itched. She was entirely different. A black Opel-Captain was waiting for them. "Look, he has higher rank than you but he's obedient". She said "Darling" and pulled the curtains down. "I didn't want you to spot it. Do whatever you like ! I've been loving him for so long ! And maybe he slept here million times. And maybe he still will, who can know it. It's boring. Let's sleep. I'm falling off my legs."<br />He closed his eyes as if he was falling asleep. It seemed to him he said "Burn the order, as if you only dreamed about it." <br />He smiled and threatened him with his finger :<br />"Walter, Walter, be strict treating him !"<br />He was. But he gave him a possibility to decide for himself. He hesitated only a second when he stood there before him. Then he lifted his eyes to the skies :<br />"Aye, aye, I understand, Herr General."<br /><br />Yes, death.<br />Pronounced by single breath like the proverbs.<br />Yes, death - good for what ?<br />Similar to what ?<br />Death good for breaking the bread,<br />for sharpening knives,<br />for a bad dream <br />and memory howling during the endless nights.<br />Death, similar to itself,<br />Death inevitable<br />like the sunset<br />and death needless<br />like a swimmer beneath the water and his beautiful profile !<br />"A wonderful evening ! And the air like honey !"<br />"So let him answer, truly and at once !"<br />"Dear colleague, this joke you certainly haven't heard ..."<br />"Oh, what a chance, what a chance !"<br />Stand up facing the wall !<br />Don't be bad to me !<br />Oh, you are so pale !<br />As if in you a chalk fell and raged a snowy gale.<br />Pain ? No, no such things !<br />Only a wasp and its rings !<br />One of them they put on my heart !<br />The air like honey !<br />Fire !<br />Wasp !<br />You were all my world -<br />dances, rings -<br />of false gold.<br />His death resembled a skein of thread,<br />patiently unwound by somebody.<br />But who is on the other side ?<br />Mother, mother, is it you ?<br />Your needle beneath my nails,<br />mother, a tree burns in my entrails !<br />It rains. The sky tearful like an ophan's eyes.<br />His death resembled a skein of thread.<br />The lights of summer in distance vanishing,<br />A ring on the heart flourishing.<br />He hurries as if he still lived.<br />But the sky everywhere empty like the lunatic's eyes.<br />He sat down.<br />Took off his legs to the black nothingness,<br />tangled the end of the thread<br />to the end of the world !<br />The lights of summer<br />in distance vanishing.<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-71867185938954120232012-03-14T04:56:00.002-07:002012-03-14T04:56:41.239-07:00Oldřich Mikulášek - Spring drummingOldřich Mikulášek - Spring drumming <br />(Jarní bubnování)<br /><br />The weather was so lovely<br />The sun played<br />Even for old men<br />in their tie-knots on pin.<br />The women's apples around<br />hit their skirts<br />and the skirts - nothing but invitation -<br />so the men, even the most sad<br />let melt the snow<br />in the shadows of collapsed cheek<br />when this drumming<br />was passing by<br />and the spring was walking nearby.<br /><br />Even the trams looked more red !<br />And from the holes<br />from the holes in the houses' walls<br />like from little hangars<br />after the war cruise<br />the sparrows started<br />for their love raids.<br /><br />The weather was so lovely<br />in the Brno town<br />and everything came out<br />somehow evenly,<br />that an old wizard<br />scratched his beard<br />wanting to mend the old injustice -<br />said, my buddy,<br />do wish at least something,<br />to be like a tram<br />a little more red.<br /><br />And I did wish !<br />The only wish :<br />let the sound of that drumming<br />never perish<br />and the spring never leaves me !<br />
<br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5781842761417632451.post-81606829535248543722012-03-10T03:50:00.003-08:002012-03-10T03:50:57.905-08:00Oldřich Mikulášek - The finaleOldřich Mikulášek - The finale<br />(Finále)<br /><br />When in the evening I was making my bed,<br />I found a hair of yours -<br />everything, left to me of your head.<br /><br />And scent of your body in the feather blankets - <br />everything, left to me of your love.<br /><br />Since then, my head is getting heavy.<br />And my heart bends me when I walk,<br />because you are still in it.<br /><br />Yatib-thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586546629570616532noreply@blogger.com0