FAMILY HISTORIES ARE FULL OF HOLES

Father is on the Gestapo list, they’re going to look for him in Řečkovice,

Viola will be plagued with dreams about this for years to come. He leaves

the country then and ends up in Holland, first with Bolenka, the wife of a sea captain, later with a rich widow, who was cheery, lively and complicated –

as I will be told years later over coffee at her girlfriend’s. From occupied Holland he wants to flee to England, but they caught all of them trying to escape, he was the only one who was saved: Professor Fischer hid in a box. Ik had geluk, I was lucky, we read beneath the newspaper photo. From the widow he returns to Řečkovice only in August 1945, what did he do for those four months?

– Family histories are full of holes

like Swiss cheese, they never

tell us everything,

we’ll never tell them everything,

to tell everything is forbidden,

there must remain space

for rats

in Swiss cheese

so that there is a place to air out

the air of history

the air of things

delicate vapours, given out by looks

and gestures.

* * *

THE BATTLE OF THE FLOWER

 

I gave you a flower and began to pull out

its petals

from the gales of groundwater

from the marsh slim

to the light, and the flower screamed,

blossoms leaves stems roots

were cracking and growing

and no one could see who’d won

that battle of the flower, and the flower screamed

when I wanted to drink,

in the morning it stood ahead of me

by the window

devoured the light

and in the sudden darkness under its leaves

I saw

hordes of little pale creatures

eyeless, bloodless

feeding on silence and blackness

the servants who were dying

of their gifts.

* * *

CHILDHOOD’S GOD

There’s a meadow of old white

dandelions,

no human force can blow them out

to total death.

Monotonous blocks of dorms are there,

doors next to doors,

a finky porter,

red and yellow tiles:

devouring the beginning, no end in sight.

When I turn back, my dead father’s

lying on the meadow of old dandelions,

a monstrous body of childhood upon him:

Yes, this was a mother,

there’s an aged sister,

and the wind in the air, blowing

white puffs on the corpse – that’s me

in the dotted dress

with a child’s purse

stepping on the hand, the leg,

the shoulder.

It’s my cemetery.

I go there often

without flowers, which raise themselves

with horrible speed, it’s their job,

growing old, cranky, and white.

They’re waiting for the wind from the god of childhood.

But now, the god of childhood’s only me.

* * *

JUST FLASHES REMAIN

Just flashes will remain,

sequences of a filmstrip.

July, Venice: how many canals are there?

How many palaces, and what

do they mean?

One pink, another white,

the other yellow –

like colored fruits.

Once, it was the capital

of the world.

Now, just tourists

and masques:

as many tourists as

masques.

Plus the masque of time:

moment,

masque of continuum.

With a big Venetian nose sniffing out

everything.

The past is parcelled out

like shelves in the supermarket

in the outskirts of the city:

on the right, cheese,

on the left, cakes,

in front, pasta and toilet

paper, behind

bleeding meat. My meat –

and trained puppets with their carts

buy pictures of the past,

paying with the present.

Canals like

TV channels, editing the past,

the future, a poet stands

on the bridge, switching over them,

collector of his I´s

and our SELVES, their

soap operas –

and with the help of tricks

he makes a film from the flashes,

because he can´t do anything more,

just complete

the headless face, the moment, the masque

of Venice…

* * *

ELBA 2007

– for my sister Viola



Elba! Green like a uniform
or a hope. What
did you recite to yourself, hatted
Napoleon?
Detailed lullabies of victory,
exchanged for return?
Now you’ve become a plaster bust, an image
on dishcloths for tourists.

Father! Look at us:
here we are, sitting in the house
by the vineyard,
your daughters, each
born from different women.
How the guilt mounts up.
Forgiving is a tin can
you can stuff with anything.
Like Napoleon, like Waterloo.
I and I,
I and the others.
“And then, you mother took the pills –“
“And then, father told me: Go to her –“
Stories, and
stories.
It’s what my sister’s interested in.
While I see principles

turning the corner.
Those of yours, father, were still
coiffed, an architectonic jewel.
But mine are church gargoyles,
with gaping maws, crooked jaws,
boozing, doing drugs,
monstrosities
of power and memory and of themselves.
But still, they persist –

Like the English, the Russians, the lump sum of Empire,
its golden apple turns red and crimson.
Where does ego go – where’s the salvation?

Father! When we go to sleep,
down below in the bay
a lighted ship will sail:
your ship, it was your sign.
It will carry Napoleon and dishcloths.
I’ll wipe the dishes with them

at home.
And each of us, sisters,
will write a wholly
different poem
about that house in the vineyard,
about that evening.

* * *

SMÍCHOV RAIL STATION/A BLUE SMARTIE

In a dream sounded an order:

Make your life such

that it is good to eat. Viola F.

 

Oasis Pub where Magor

would booze;

on platform three, a hotdog

– the bun is better,

bigger and poppy-seed,

everyone heading for the stand

will get one,

the famous Smíchov

hotdog and lemonade

for 23 crowns;

a sign with departure times

sways in the wind,

down on the grey concrete

a blue Smartie.

Storage for station observations

perception

sensation

head-eye

eye-head:

you can’t compound

a sentence.

It all turns round

– like on a pivot –

on the illusion of departure.

And there they go

their first morning swig,

that woman in the red sweater

with only one tooth

out in front of the station,

that guy in the buffet

in the ragged duffle

LIQUORS

ALCOHOLS

shelves full of

booze

in California in Texas in New York

they’ll never be able to drink it all

you’ll never be able to drink it all

it’s a current

it all merges

into a colorful river

a swill

a plonk

of world alcohol

which will drown

the blue Smartie

on platform three.

Pull yourself together, Smartie

act smart

make your life such

that it is good to eat.

 

Translated by Stuart Friebert and the author (The Battle of the Flower; Childhood’s God; Just Flashes Remain; Elba 2007); by A. J. Hauner and the author (Smíchov Rail Station/A Blue Smartie); by Matthew Sweney (Family Histories are Full of Holes)