Jevicko

 My 18th birthday was a fête of loneliness 

As if the whole world tried to tell me

That there something to be figured out,

And that I will have to do it on my own

Which was the beauty of it, but the trouble

And cross too—for way too soon I ran

Out of wise and good old grandmothers 

Of the fairytales who did know the way. 

In Jevicko too, I had my last lessons

In math with a professor filled with

Fondness for its cosmic splendor.

And in Jevicko, on the Witch Burning Night

My Russian teacher would then tell me how

She started writing poetry—because of her love.

Beauty’s Gravity, Gratitude, and Grace

 

The meaning of much, if not of all 

that transpires in life, is revealed 

only long after or even only 

after death—postmortem, so to speak.

“How brilliantly has the Fall painted itself!”

were some of my Grandma’ climactic words,

the last of hers for me I’ll always remember.

She uttered them rising up on her terminal bed,

two days before passing on in the Ostrov hospital.

And, indeed, following her awestruck grazing gaze,

I too turned and looked and saw the autumn dyes

of the countless leaves—eyes of as many sunsets

set aglow by the parting time by nighly closing in 

on the edge or point where time itself is no more.

In November she was born, in November did she

go—just a day after her last birthday while the Fall

doled-up itself for her as best it could as if she too,

after all, was to follow into the house of Agathon—

The Economy of Desires’ Sights Granted and Denied (On an August Rococo Mannerist Painting)

 

On a famous rococo canvas, a pretty lady swings 

in a Cupid’s roll that drives her through the air high

between a plentitude and feast of splendid shades 

and a plethora of lifts through the garden’s lights.

Oh, isn’t love made of light and dark like a page,

speaking black on white through its coils and curls

when aptly spread—just as off her revealed toes

flies her slipper cast and diced to try this one hap

between feathers of a dizzy flight and the fetters

that seek to catch and fetch her merry coasting hind

while the chosen lover gulps the privilege of sight 

that sways and slings over him ajar as he lies down

on the ground in the bushes of her purlieu’s privet

where aglow the saluted lark coos and bills in turn?

Les pommes de l'amour et de l'âme

 

Just as apples collect sunshine

both within the flesh and round

that glossy skin, those two eyes,

the tendered lips, have gathered it

and even made it sweetly speak

and live and tremble with a cry

that glistens across concerto violins.

Likewise, the white and rubicund 

and pink of hers blush and breathe 

love’s growing tug and biting flames

and what caress furrowed, ruffled,

brushed or rent and knit way down

to the fruit and its crumpling gravity

and the poem-pursed and purchased lips.

Of How Many Kinds of Rendezvous You Know, She Asked

 

Deep teal waters of the morn 

full of repose, balmy hush, 

are so good at taking in

the forms of the trees above

they right away then simplify

and lift as a gift to our eyes

to the level of an arabesque,

on to a heaven of grand art

in which all is found and unified

in the selfsame green and blue.

And thus, before the sun is up,

wonder comes—to meet us 

in turn with its own eyes

with a gaze that dusts my heart.

On the Truth of the State of the Union—Death’s Universal Homogenous State

                      

                              Whether the epiphany came in a ward or on a NYC street,

Ginsberg grasped and said out loud what everyone knows but could never

Cough it up—that the Prince of this World, the God of the Western faith, 

Jesus’ Dad, and Adon of the Vatican is Moloch, the polymorphic Beast,

who commands infant sacrifice and for who human death and blood 

is his life and infernal Grail—but not only Ginsberg meant it the end

as a profession of his own piety, febrile love, and deepest exultation,

but, on hearing the prophet, all but shucked and jived in playing dumb.

The Tale of Two Anhydrous Bohemian Trees

 

North and south of Ostrov,

My old native town,

Trunks of two trees

Used to grow horizontally.

But now both of them are gone.

One, the one in the north,

Was an apple, already dead

And dry when I was but a boy.

The other, some exotic plant, 

Was in the Chateau Park

Just behind its gate

Close to a waterless fountain.

Somehow everyone knew the first,

While her noble twin stayed unmarked.

A Woman Lost, Lost by a Window In Passing a Deciduous Moment

By a window taking a rapt stance, 

In a bedsheet loosely wrapped,

She casts her silhouettes

On the benumbed space

Not much far from a petite plate

That hosts a crop of ungrazed grapes,

A pear cupped in burnished curves

With fullness that is closely matched

By a rotund apple’s swooning white

All the while a glass of wine

Keeps its spark and fill intact.

Yet all is composed, serene, fine,

As something distant winged her smile

While the fingers mime her unseen knees.

How Much or How Little Can One’s Breath Mortal Measure and Attain?

 

In this universe that has to know it all, including

Me knowing always so little, thus making sure

That our ignorance, knowing, and power

Will never override up the perfect

Equations of the Supreme Mathematician

And her ever well-timed Wisdom—

Seeding and sounding our straining souls

Which sometimes bud and sometimes

Flourish and either fall or rise up high

As infinities utterly lost

To us with thousands of thousands 

And one nights are needed 

So that some or few true thoughts

Or loves—or one only—

Would make its way through

One beautiful day,

And if it does, then 

Letting us

Perhaps verse it 

Once well too.

No Sane Person Calls the Soul He

I believe only some or only few,

unless it’s just one, are ever

truly athirst for the deeper

Word, its welling sound,

of which Kabir spoke

so anxiously—and yet

stumbling by taking

for granted that the Source 

must be He and that He

is the Formless Form

and not a cosmic Yang,

that is, a Femme, a Muse,

without whom any Greek

poet would have been dumb.

What nectar, o what neck

 

What nectar, o what neck,

To be kissed and to be pecked

Where aromas lay a gentle trail

For your lips to glide or dwell!

And on your way along the curve,

Her downy ornament, a shock of hair,

Waves you further in—to the final

Verge and sill—by the scented air!

Are we in an orchard now or has

A wag of some enchanting wand

Changed the hour to an instant May

With a floral anadem of shimmer

on her bending head as she imbues

Her whole in the lights of bloom?

That World-Making Word Is Beauty’s Act and Verb

 

Both lotus and love command

the same: “Look and see!”

From that Word the lotus 

to the world has sprung,

after Kabir I sing and cant.

For the morning love of mine

got a burgeon for her mouth

folding pistils amid petals,

the finest and most delectable

vintage hatching down inside.

To be gilded, honeyed, spiced

by a sunshine and its pollen dust.

From that Word a whole new world 

and opus of her lotus have just come.

By the fainting descant of the drunken

eyes as they blaze and roll and glisten.

Kabir’s Song of Love

 

Isn’t immortality nothing else

than a realization of a living soul?

Music and rhythm in which souls 

Are drawn and draped—

For mortals even on this earth

Is a breath that stays a breath

By which life itself would want

To have been kissed and held

Well-known, born, and matched 

With her one true kin and kind

That if being sung and voiced

Past the marring bars of void

And shade-casting death.

Oh, yes, the universe does need

Such hearts where such one poesy

And beauty are the ambrosial guests.

If it’s love, wouldn’t it be beautiful like a melody tapped in our hearts?

Love, that’s the clef one’s fated path,

going way back from the past,

had placed with Gods on the staff

to mark how high or how low

soul might fall or fly.

Of the Image, of the Locks that Held the World And Its Time Suddenly and Utterly at Standstill

 

Not that often with that beauty and such grace

A simple hairdo does fall and flow and frame

So well a radiance and aura of a thinking face,

Running in two whirling rivulets down the chest

Where, suddenly, these waterfalls she combed

Seemed to find a rest, even if just gently vexed,

By being held at standstill only by the angled tips,

Becoming on the way a new awe and wonderment

Of two paths there and back again or two columns 

Egyptian used to force apart or reconnect—for those

Who will be judged and blessed—Heaven and Earth,

All what’s high with what’s below in one felicific act

When breathless turns even an Isidian sculpted bust

In the face of her neophyte’s yielding, buckling knees.

In the Goldilocks Zone

 

Imagine where salt and pepper 

Were a speech, a tongue, a flame,

A new yin and a novel yang—

Occulting the neck behind 

With strokes of simple art

That gives the face more light,

Redolent of the August sun

Over leas of molten wheat

Or of the palomino snow,

Just sketched in front of eyes

Into spells of calligraphic lines

That storm and swarm the heart 

With inking glows and sparks—

An eyeful rich in shocking darts.

According to the Ancients, the Difference Between the Erinyes and Aphrodite Urania Is Only Due to Where and on Whom They’d Fall—Whether on the Land or into the Sea

 

            In proximity with what God or Goddess

               does your soul live? That’s the question.

 

Sometimes, it seems souls are little boats

loosely anchored and variously moored

to long-lost Gods, memories, and dreams.

As Plato’s Myth of Er tells, unbeknownst

 

to mortals, our fatal decisions are often

made while still being down and dead,

just before exiting for yet another trek

from Hell by the jaws of its nether beasts

 

as our lots are being sealed by the Femmes,

the Fates—either by an Erinys or a Siren

or a Muse who leaves some with her gift

 

which then moves like a well-timed brush,

sweeping off the blankness of the erased

mind—to let us know and love her heart.

Danaé v Polabí poodkrytá nocí

Do pokoje měsíc vcházel

přes okno stříbřitě svou

nožkou – obnaženou

dolů po kotníky ženy,

 

nečekaně vleže rostoucí

a dokořán se vzpínající

s rukama rozpřaženýma

za hlavu a za práh až.

 

Proč – proč jen přišla tam

té noci a proč k tomu byla

v tváři bledá jak ta luna,

 

a všude hladká jako alabastr?

A za dveřmi už kvetl zlatý déšť,

jenž žasl, třel se, dychtil, záviděl.

Jen co jsem vstal, staré chmýří z oněch topolů nečekaně dostihlo mě tady z oněch dávných let

 

Kdysi hlavní třídu v rodném mém městě

pokrývalo chmýří bílé

z vysoko vzrostlých topolů, vzpřímených

i štíhlých jak kostelní svíce.

 

Ale s kým si o tom pohovořit teď

a z uhlíku vzpomínky plamínek

toho, co bylo, a věčně už je,

i když kdesi přehluboko skryté,

 

rozechvět a vzkřísit, a tím

i uchopit, co již tehdy bylo

a oč však nikdy, ani tehdy,

 

z nás nikdo nezavadil slovem?

A čím je potom člověk, do nějž

tolik zasel k sklizni příští čas?