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SMILING FATHER
He seemed alive.
But my father was alive assuredly
when in Sasinkova Street mortuary
they brought him from the freezer on a trolley
to show to me and my wife.
In life he'd merely clouded,
like he'd left death far behind.
And he had too –
since his brief life
slipped from his hands when scarcely he'd reached fifty;
history's course changed almost all in him,
then illness cancelled out the rest.
The dissident brain, linked
to the pain-killing diversionists,
steadily camouflaged his goal –
he wanted what he didn't,
he didn't want what he did.
After death the surgeon took it out –
and my father came to life.
It was him again,
court president, with great bald head,
calling his family jovially, "Let's go!",
as if the trolley before the freezer
was an old Tatra, model '57.
And because he'd come in a rush, it seemed,
and in the euphoria the razor slipped –
here was his smile again!
(If such a name can be given
to the jagged and masterful scar
the autopsy left on his crown.)
CHILDREN’S REVOLUTION
"A child's face too is a weapon?"
the beaten batons wondered.
Bloodily they flamed
with longing for revenge.
Thus began that gentle
revolution of our children.
Years and years we lived
spellbound in silence, meekness, fear,
so that we could bring to the world those children
who today advanced
with faces against batons
to free us from that curse.
And freed,
instantly we advanced with them!
And the batons shamed blood-red
took to flight.
DIFFERENCE
The man tries to spit out the lie
but it sticks to his palate
and grows in his mouth,
and when he finally spits it out,
as if on invisible chewing-gum –
the farther that spittle flies
the more vehemently the lie returns to his mouth
and the man does not get rid of the lie,
and he knows that what he is not rid of
is a lie.
The woman lets go the lie with ease
as if blowing a bubble to the wind,
and without it she could cross to the other side,
but she goes after it
and tries to catch it in her mouth again,
for the lie escapes her
and the woman thinks that what flees from her
is truth.
And all the while truth goes
on beautiful long legs.
MAKING LOVE BEFORE SLEEP
Somewhere smoke issued from a bachelor's house
and twilight fell.
We are making love, and the thoughts
run round in our heads
as if they had places to go.
We make goodbye love, we make slumberous love.
The first smile flies from you – the butterfly
that mated this evening
with the butterfly of your lips – those are winging
behind him.
Your scent too is going off to sleep among the roses.
And your eyelashes slowly go on little legs
to the anthills of night.
I hear your nails grow southwards.
A streamlet leaks from the corners of your mouth:
today's last
voice.
The two waves of your breasts have risen
and become swans,
they have spread their snow-white wings
and are dragging the bed to Denmark, so 'tis said,
along with us, who are making love before sleep,
to hear the golden coach.
But your eyes, restless twins,
those are not yet sleeping,
and while the story's happening
they change places under the eyelids
like sun and moon.
We wake – and you're a virgin once again.
TWO AT ATABLE
We two at a table are silent and I say:
– How quiet you are, except that you're crying.
How hurried your legs are, under the peaceful
muscles.
How blue are your nails, as they grow
in time to the music.
How beautiful is your blood, as it moves
round the house.
How slender your eyes are while gazing
(each of them shines late into the night).
How long is your loosened voice.
And yet it's the only one of us
ready to leave its own tracks behind.
Translated byJohn Minahane
