Poems by Štefan Strážay

ANXIETY OF UNDRESSING

Breating quietly

The lamp remembers all about you,

You take off your shirt:

That’s how you will lie dying.

 

Snowfall reaches up to the arms

Of naked crosses.

It is night, undressing and a lamp

shining within.

 

 

SUNSET

At the corner of two long

wide empty streets

A man parts with a woman.

Thirty, forty.

 

It is a long farewell. The sky

Arches above them, gigantic,

dirty grey. Now it is all

Figured and numbered –

 

This much time for love,

That much time for lying.

But none any more for illusions.

Sorrow is of the body.

 

 

FROM AN OLD PAINTING

A magical maiden stepped into

my sleep early  one mornning. The dream before

had been torn, full of frights,

restless,

And there she came, complete and naked,

vital, fair haired,

As if illuminated

By a dim lapm

from behind,

Composed and wholly

Tender, sensuous –

yet her face was grave.

Death was often painted

as an angel.

 

 

OPHELIA

Ophelia, already a trifle weary,

with tiny wrinkles around her mouth

and lovely eyes,

with a kid, flat and husband,

resigned, perhaps

happy –

at times, not often

she can still recall herself as a maiden

in white veils,

Snowily lovely,

floating in the long waters,

dead.

 

 

THE CITY

In the city statues have been veiled,

a long time.

It is like an ominous sign.

Theme: despair.

The past does not exist,

the future is covered

And time keeps working on

what is under the impregnated

Rubber-coated sheet

without us knowing how,

as we can’t see.

 

 

POSTPONEMENT

Our apocalypse has got

our look. Smaller than others,

it’s rather loose,

gradual, for most of us, though,

practically invisible,

devastating, but friendly,

continually eroticized,

postponed till tomorrow

and, what is worst, making us expect

subconsciously that what died yesterday

will bloom

into beauty next year.

 

                                                                                           Translated by Martin Solotruk