Vyhľadávanie
Legend of Lilith
You walk on a street flooded with sun;
before you, after you, the dark.
Your neon eyes, like will-o'-the-wisps
in a murky forest, glow afar.
You hold a moon in your right hand,
in the other an unknown man's head –
people are looking round after you
in dumb astonishment, but each
who looks will, crown to ankles,
turn to stone.
At the crossroads, finally
alone, you drop to the ground,
lay the man's head in your lap,
and its eyes open. Painfully
it gazes: Even thus you are beautiful,
it says and suddenly begins to sing
a mournful song,
but you do not hear; you are talking
to the moon.
Nightmare
Home again years later: but
no one has come to welcome you. You leave
the buzzing airport hall
alone – on your feet pendulums,
in your empty hands two suitcases
full of desert sand and the sounds of the sea.
At your house door
you realise: the locks are new. You ring
your sister, but her number's changed. Only
the neighbours intimate
that your nearest will be coming next year
– they have forgotten, though you wrote
in the self-same beautiful hand.
You gaze through the window into your room:
your things, whatever
ought to be waiting for you, they sold off
to the bazaar
and suddenly a neighbour's child comes out
to offer you a glass
of vinegar.
Laws of Romance
Just you and I. A secret meeting
in the town's nicest cafe; delicious music,
my perfume and a tight black dress with lace.
Your eyes burn through me. I say something,
but you do not hear and suddenly,
urgently grip my hands in yours:
I want you, in an altered voice you say,
and wait for my answer. Yes, your atelier
is just a step away... but I see suddenly
your pale wife at the other end of town –
just now she's doing the weekend shopping
and I know too well
that the most romantic flowers grow
where the grey ash of the everyday does not settle,
of the common, practical-banal life.
Road
You've married badly.
You ask if all life long
you must eat Lenten pap, and why
your nights and mornings cannot breathe
the delicate scent of cinnamon...
I've known all from the moment
our eyes met. At least
once a week you desire me, secretly –
but I cannot. Yes,
I am unbending and you ask me why
it must be so. All I know is this:
in dreamless nights, when I catch my soul on film
in all its hues and details,
and I spread the pictures on the table like cards,
one remains in my hand – the pale princess
in a high, impregnable tower.
Such is my road.
Fate
In a city of vice and unshackled loves, we two
live our blameless life;
each in a different structure of family clan
with the smells of young, encircled
with barbed wire
and full of desire, which we secretly burn into script –
such is our fate: all life long to touch
and give ourselves one to the other
only in poems
and dreams.
Sixth Commandment
I was not able to sustain my guard:
one fragrant summer afternoon
that man spread out his invisible nets
on our threshold. Without permission
he stole me. Nights long I think of him
and next me my good husband lies. Suspecting nothing.
But I am desperate
and powerless: a beautiful woman
in the best years, with senses wakened,
gifted with strength, which changes me to a primate
scattering scent, deprived of reason and will.
Father, that strength is from you;
fertile
and lethal. I am afraid.
To keep your sixth commandment
is the hardest of all –
forgive us, please.
Translated by John Minahane
