Miroslav Válek - A Story with a Wasp

Miroslav Válek - A Story with a Wasp
(Poviedka s osou)

He was turned face to the wall so as he could think
Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.
A wasp in the air
kept bumping into the air,
buzzing like an old monoplane,
bumping, falling,
it sounded like knocking on the windows pane with a nail,
as if by every knock someone was called out of the room
for a drink or for a chat,
which always began in the same way :
"But this joke you can't know, my dear colleague ..."
And ended with a sneeze or laughter,
from which the whole house rang
as from the chains cleaning.
The summer was hot ad humid,
the time progressed incredibly slowly,
the wasp kept bumping and falling into the glass,
with every fall one of its crew left,
the ambulance shrieked hysterically behind the window
the dandelions faded away faster
and on the floor one parachute next to the other.
The day of tobacco ripening and waters retreating has begun,
the air was getting yellow and the wasp was dark-yellowishly stupid.
But who of us thinks of glass transparency
and at the same time its adamancy
Who, lifting his leg, considers at the same time its reverse movement ?
It would be unexpected,
as if we met the house crossing the street.
But, all the same - who knows ...
"Dear friends", said he, lifting the glass,
"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 :
Don't tell it to anybody.
I've discovered the secrets
guarded by seven wives of Bluebeard.
I can make the sun from the orange thrown to the air,
by the wind's scent I know the taste of women's kisses in the countries it comes from.
Don't tell it to anybody.
The best are the kisses of Vanessa,
they all smell with vanilla.
Vanessa is a poor seamstress from our town.
Poor but honest, she sews with everybody,
but it must be love ringing with pure gold.
The love that doesn't ring is severely punished !
This little rhyme we found in the pocket of a student before ...
And because - not at all by chance - our names were identical,
I sent it immediately to her."
Then, because there was in a way a bit of philosopher in him, he added :
"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
- and except
- and except
- and except,
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 !"
In certain situations we can believe in ability of water to speak Hebrew,
as well as in other, more strange things.
But who has never seen a weeping willow weep to her handkerchief,
would not believe in the ability of trees to fly at nights.
Why should he believe if he hasn't seen ?
And who has ever seen a chromatic harmonica of autumn winds ?
Who has ever seen a shining root in the grave of an electrician
of the darkness in his own grave ?
Who ? Who ? Who ?
He, facing the wall to be punished, has seen it :
The wasp when he was left alone,
the wasp who finally has flown through the commiserative glass,
leaving in it as a reward her rings like circles on the water,
vanishing and made of false gold.
And what next ? He could talk.
He could say everything. But no.
He was turned face to the wall so as he could think
Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.
So he was silent to finally realize : "I have bad luck !,
to turn around and shout :
"Please, I have bad luck, Please let me draw another question. "
But there was no other question.
There was only silence so complete he could hear it,
when he by blink of an eye swang a bell in his head.
He had bad luck !
He had bad luck !
He had bad luck !
There was no other question, but the one he got.
And the first four minutes have already elapsed.
He was turned face to the wall like a thing.
At that moment azaleas at the park began to scent,
the big moon rose somehow too early,
women walked from the green gates,
with pink fingers fastened their shirts,
the street sounded like a big xylophone
it smelled with some cleaning stuff and milk,
a large-buget big movie was on in the cinemas,
in which the fabulous Theo Lingen as a valet
was seducing a boutiful baroness ...
What a chance that during the entracte he spotted the acquainted blonde
for whom he had been longing so long ! She sagged at her waist like a wasp,
laughed and cried :
"Oh, I can't stand it !"
"Oh, I'll get mad !"
"Oh, I'll die !"
Inspired by the film, he told her :
"I'm going to die with you, my beauty, whatever may happen !"
"What ?" - shouted she. "You better look in your mirror at home, sir !"
He was turned face to the wall like a mirror,
like a mirror turned to the wall in a bad moment,
when you don't feel like looking at your own face,
when seeing one's face is almost the same as ringing at the door of your own flat, asking :
"Excuse me, please, is Mr. Walter Krist at home ?"
and hearing Mr. Walter Krist answer :
"It must be a mistake, I don't know him. Mr. Walter Krist never lived in this house."
So it is better to look at your back,
to stand behind yourself, have a distance,
walk in the crowd headed by a boy with an apple and ended with a man
- he still has the taste of that apple on his tongue -
waiting for the death to lean toward him from above his arms :
"Lieutenant Walter Krist ! Only one minute left !"
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.
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.
He was turned face to the wall so as he could think.
He was turned face to the wall like a soulless thing
He was turned face to the wall like a mirror.
Oh, the sad twilight of the averted things with a one dimensional soul,
that need the human eyes !
He was watching into himself, he was reflecting himself.
The lights of summer in distance vanishing,
the trembling breath of candles,
but also the laughter of this mad town,
which crushed him like a china cup,
the well known soprano of the woman, maybe embarrassing at the same time :
"Oh, I can't stand it !"
"Oh, I'll get mad !"
"Oh, I'll die !"
He remembers : A nasty evening. The night kept swelling like a toad.
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."
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."
He smiled and threatened him with his finger :
"Walter, Walter, be strict treating him !"
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 :
"Aye, aye, I understand, Herr General."

Yes, death.
Pronounced by single breath like the proverbs.
Yes, death - good for what ?
Similar to what ?
Death good for breaking the bread,
for sharpening knives,
for a bad dream
and memory howling during the endless nights.
Death, similar to itself,
Death inevitable
like the sunset
and death needless
like a swimmer beneath the water and his beautiful profile !
"A wonderful evening ! And the air like honey !"
"So let him answer, truly and at once !"
"Dear colleague, this joke you certainly haven't heard ..."
"Oh, what a chance, what a chance !"
Stand up facing the wall !
Don't be bad to me !
Oh, you are so pale !
As if in you a chalk fell and raged a snowy gale.
Pain ? No, no such things !
Only a wasp and its rings !
One of them they put on my heart !
The air like honey !
Fire !
Wasp !
You were all my world -
dances, rings -
of false gold.
His death resembled a skein of thread,
patiently unwound by somebody.
But who is on the other side ?
Mother, mother, is it you ?
Your needle beneath my nails,
mother, a tree burns in my entrails !
It rains. The sky tearful like an ophan's eyes.
His death resembled a skein of thread.
The lights of summer in distance vanishing,
A ring on the heart flourishing.
He hurries as if he still lived.
But the sky everywhere empty like the lunatic's eyes.
He sat down.
Took off his legs to the black nothingness,
tangled the end of the thread
to the end of the world !
The lights of summer
in distance vanishing.

Oldřich Mikulášek - Spring drumming

Oldřich Mikulášek - Spring drumming
(Jarní bubnování)

The weather was so lovely
The sun played
Even for old men
in their tie-knots on pin.
The women's apples around
hit their skirts
and the skirts - nothing but invitation -
so the men, even the most sad
let melt the snow
in the shadows of collapsed cheek
when this drumming
was passing by
and the spring was walking nearby.

Even the trams looked more red !
And from the holes
from the holes in the houses' walls
like from little hangars
after the war cruise
the sparrows started
for their love raids.

The weather was so lovely
in the Brno town
and everything came out
somehow evenly,
that an old wizard
scratched his beard
wanting to mend the old injustice -
said, my buddy,
do wish at least something,
to be like a tram
a little more red.

And I did wish !
The only wish :
let the sound of that drumming
never perish
and the spring never leaves me !

Oldřich Mikulášek - The finale

Oldřich Mikulášek - The finale
(Finále)

When in the evening I was making my bed,
I found a hair of yours -
everything, left to me of your head.

And scent of your body in the feather blankets -
everything, left to me of your love.

Since then, my head is getting heavy.
And my heart bends me when I walk,
because you are still in it.

Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass

Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass - to Oldřich Mikulášek
(Dejiny trávy - Oldřichovi Mikuláškovi)

You would like to see the phosphorus !
The meadow glowing like a watch,
when it shows the spring !
Her calves are still soft,
her muscles will ache
but already on the slope you can see its green cabriolet,
Oh, grass acceleration !
And chlorophyle !
And spring sprouting !
And twenty hundred thousand of other nonsenses !
From this you cannot catch a headache
and the grass already enters the next round.
Sing something joyful,
sing, but fast !
Headless like deer,
We grow older before the grass eyes.
And it is no longer a racing car,
roaring of spring engines,
the madness of tribunes !
It is only a sad truck with beer,
from which a green bottle with neck full of foam throw
foals, grasshoppers,
imitating the gallop.
One, two,
lift high your knees,
sing !
And so the man lived a thouseand years.
He had only to run,
outrun with foam in his neck,
nobody asked him "Why ?" and "Where ?".
And who has ever asked the grass where she grows and why ?
Who has asked about her inner life ?
Who has ever translated but a blade of grass
to the human language ?
Nothing, only fire and rain.
And the grass works :
above moles' corridors,
above the grave,
above the grave,
it listens to sea's lament,
to the murmur over the aorta,
it converts
sun's fire,
water's delirium,
it converts
the dead things to living,
it worries in her inside,
seeking the right shape for them :
We have written :
Histories of wars,
histories of philately and football.
No one has ever writen a history of grass.
From the grass' point of view it is meaningless.
Its history is long and continuous.
Express trains traffic in it
and raiders bite manes of their horses.
A gold-haired head sinks to it
and more than one young cock lost his crest in it,
oh, she knows the wandering stars !
The grass knows what may cause bleeding.
She holds in memory all the summer loves,
adulteries
and bestial murders.
But the grass is patient
and sensitive.
Grass covers everything.
Silently.
Don't overlook it.
The grass knows why the teeth of the dead ache,
the grass knows everything about life and death.
The grass owns the exact list of hopes and tears.
It has calculated your definitive appearance,
it has underlined you with its green pen and now it waits.
One day when I understand everything
I will reveal you the hidden connections of things.
Come,
let's go to the darkness and listen
to the birth pains of grass,
the ruthless riot of roots,
the cracking of cells,
the boiling of juices.
Now I understand everything
As if I myself were the grass.
Put your hand on the nights' back,
listen well to me :
Nothing, but fire and rain !

The balance

Jan Skácel - Forbidden Man

Jan Skácel - Forbidden Man
(Zakázaný člověk)

All I have is turned inside
And it is from the other side as the neckties
On the back wall of the wardrobe

Slowly I get used to silence and smells

I can lift a feather from the mud
without throwing it away

Sometimes I tell myself a story
And the other time I sing a little song
About my legs good only for pain
And my soul for sustain

And again I am unhearable like light

So meticuously I am engaged with silence
I cut by touch the fear's throat

Of others and of myself


And so when the blind look back
It's as if I belonged to them

We push themselves together in the needle's eye

Miroslav Válek - Quadripedes

Miroslav Válek - Quadripedes
(Štvronožci)

We were but two. We looked for a pair.
On Thursday night god suddenly died in despair.
In his 4-D eye trembled
four violet angels.
Something is on
Some terrible things lurk above the road.
Please excuse the overload.
Someone is calling someone
In some town a bell started ringing
A deaf man
A deaf phone keeps clinging.
Sorry !
It has not happened.
Everything's so quiet like death.
As if in the night air
someone walked holding his breath.
Some invisible naked leg
made the house swing.
Somewhere some intelligent myopic bug makes a whizz
Under the TV-god supervision
I'm solving the millionth quiz.
And in the god's eye the sun sets
In his eye of glass the univeral fatigue like a lead
Century,
your absolutely wise head
is getting mad !
Your empty sleeve over the crowds,
your flag, oh, your invisible and secret hand,
is terrible, it squeezes like some presses
In my inner premises
make havoc the incredible horses
of your psychoanalyses.
I'm breeding myself. Alas, it's heard !
I neigh you my love but you do not understand.
I am but herd.
And I am also a lonely voice in silent night,
lamenting for the killed.
I am the pain of grass under the hoof filled
Eternity in the god's eye
is already getting narrow
Some crowd in me is walking
Some crowd crosses the river under the sun.
Strange men.
Some improbable and strange men on the run.
It's me -
and something within me,
something with a fledged soul of police informer,
he shams,
he wails from great distance,
and opens his chequered notebook.
Aleaia, aleaia, aleaia,
alas, alas,
aleaiactaaest!
But the universe
keeps throwing the seeds,
the universe
makes love while its prostheses jar.
Walk on, beutiful bride
in burning air, in the asbestos gown.
Some phantoms raised above each town
and flowers of sulfur disperse !
Lift your arm,
make your leg overcome its pride,
run to the window
and press all your four faces to the glass,
press, so that they could burn
like four candles in the house of suicide.
O, lord, the heaven !
Trembles the circus tent
Above the head of merry buffoon
(Twist, twist ...)
The night, with teeth of an alligator
Is charmingly bleeding spoon by spoon
Four times I have begun myself
Four pianos barked at me.
I spit you, eternity !
You choke me like blood !
Harmony of spheres, my mouth if full of your stems
I lean back my head :
Four millions of solar systems
and four stars
falling at quarter to four.
Something I miss. Something I regret.
All is in order. Everything counted up :
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ...
On Thursday evening I fear :
Indigo of night behind the window
Behind it four skies.
And four sunsets !
I hear you howl in four voices.
The world has four legs !
You,
ballerinas,
rope walkers,
roofers
- lay hands down !
The time has come to lay upon your own legs.
Hands down !
Surrender !
(Night shoed by the moon.
Full moon. The devil's hoof, nasty and rough
rakes in the high trough.
Fall of a shot-down star
Fall of a star.
Fall.
Our Father in heaven,
let's have a drink at seven !
Twist. Hallelujah. Twist.
Fallen angels and nuns who took it light.
Sweet chant from the height :
Give away rags and booooones !
The town full of statues and turpentine
Is cleaned of someone's guilty line.
So much blood from the sun's spots
And so much sun from kisses
that it goes to the trees' canopy slots,
In the air where the statues gamble
for the tiny beast of your hips,
my electronic eye blips.
Insert the right coin, smile and push,
and my orange wail springs from the bush.
Oh no, the tree no more tears its amber fury,
it is depressed
and for the yellow bees yellow tears makes pressed.
Oh no, you are already different
The time flies and from the summer nips.
On the pavements
The autumn already gnashes with its gold
Oh, Julia
the eternal passion to the automaton sold !
Universal lovers on the streets junction
propose to you every morning
the forty-forth position
of universal love with an occasional tulip of mourning.
Under the metal your skin blinked.
I can neither understand nor comprehend
Your men in absolute pubs,
drank the beer, were drowsy
All my life will I remember the fire
whose flames licked you - so lousy !
What is that machine doing to you !
Oh, fires,
oh, burning columns of Sodom
now only the pure pleasure
in his exact wisdom.
I am at home alone, waiting for you and it rains.
Horizontally. Like from the sleep
So furtively. So anxiously.
As if somewhere grew
elephant ears of fears
As if all the world at this moment
kneeled on the peas.
It keeps raining.
Horizontally - as if on the hair of the dead.
Where are you so long ?
And what are you like ?
We were but two. We looked for a pair
On Thursday night god suddenly died in despair.
In his 4-D eye trembled
four violet angels.
Something is on
Some terrible things lurk above the road
Please excuse the toad.
Somehow silently.
Somehow too silently. As if after the creation of
nothing.
As if someone was choking.
As if someone all his life inhaled the gas.
(Even the sky that summer was too blue ...)
Where to go tonight ? Where to go tonight ?
I look into the newspaper :
End of the world, nothing is on !
Someone is ringing ? No one is seen.
No, no, no !
I fall, face in my hands.
Silence translucent like polythene.
Who is ringing without being seen ?
I am silent as if from some other lands.
Oh, deadly choking !
Oh, to four pieces chopping !
And beneath the mountains of ashes,
Oh, beneath the mountains of ashes,
Beneath the hooves of tiny kids,
Beneath the sweet smell of lamb skin,
Beneath the fire, beneath the fire,
beneath the burnt hairs
- my fingerprints in two pairs !
And quadripedes,
and quadruplets,
quadruples of lovers yell : "Kill !"
Whom ?
Four times conceived
love already rakes
with its chicken leg.
And tin weathercock
to four sides spreads its breath.
Oh, invisible wings
of footless death !

Jan Skácel - The Day Suitable for Dying

Jan Skácel - The Day Suitable for Dying
(Den vhodný k umírání)

In the hour of our death
When the day suitable for dying
Comes
We will pluck the cockle weed
From the spring of childhood
We will lift a holy picture
And hardly touch the water
From the spring of childhood
In the hour of our death
When the day comes
The day suitable for dying
The humble leprous king will smile