And What Else May Love Yet Know of Lips? / A co láska může o rtech ještě znát?

 

And What Else May Love Yet Know of Lips?

Some strange immortal artist
contrived it so that human lips,
in color and in their soft gleam,
resemble above all else

those fleeting rendezvous
when sun and earth lean and plunge
into one another, while the sky above
drifts aflame into dusk.

And so both dusk and dawn people
bear upon their passing lips
and tremble them into eager kisses,

upon lips bent on radiance and thrill
that bear and burn until it comes to pass —
that deep within, the two learn to open.

A co láska může o rtech ještě znát?

Jakýsi zvláštní nesmrtelný umělec
to učinil tak, že lidské naše rty
barvou i hebkým svým zábleskem
ze všeho nejvíce podobají se

právě oněm krátkým okamžikům,
kdy slunko a země zblízka do sebe
hrouží se a kloní a s nebem nad stromy
růžoví a sunou se do mrákot.

A tak soumrak i jitro lidé
na rtech míjejících se nesou,
a do polibků chtivě si je třesou,

a na rtech vědoucích o žáru i záři,
sahajících, sálajících, stane se —
do hluboka dva spolu učí se otvírat.

 

Universal woman? Wasn’t that
a promise too swiftly risen
from Glaucon’s wet desire
for the Politeia of the most
immaculate conception
offered in honor to the goddess —

when, borrowing — or stealing —
from the taboo powers of the dead in Hell,
he could become the perfect tyrant:

seen once by all, and then —
merely by turning a token
wrapped around his finger —

invisible to all who live,
so that, like one already dead,
he could never be caught,
and none could help
but yield to all he wanted?

And from all I have read and mulled,
I still cannot help recalling
how Karl Marx described his own dream,
and the ghost he summoned back from the dead —

and what justice there would mean:
nothing less than all transformed
into such Glauconian universal women,

without the right to remain apart,
without reticence or reservation —

is that why Cicero too rendered
the Glauconian Politeia as Res publica,
that “common thing” —

which sarcastic, sardonic Karl Marx,
like some Levantine Roman,
understood in turn as
“universal prostitution” —

communism’s global dawn —
with Plato and Socrates damned
for idealism, their naïve “mortal sin”
in any Saturnian ledger or draft.

Yet as one might expect,
even Karl Marx called such liberation
“primitive” and “vulgar” —
as though, without soul,
there could ever be more.

And so what of “universal woman” now,
when official communism has ended,
and the rule of money has overtaken
whatever still remained —

the selfsame mare of a dream:

a woman become the radical reverse,
the apogee and mockery of goddess,
into whom humanity as it is
must enter and swim —

whether wholly to the hilt,
body and soul,
or merely dipping by the bait —

so all alike may say
they drink and dine
the selfsame ocean.

Just as anyone may say
they have been to the library —

whether only from outside,
or after passing through the door
to meet the janitor —

yet never once reading
from the book
some god or Fate
has kept for them there,
all this time,
upon an old, dusty shelf.

“What Should I Wear Tonight,” They Ask, Few Knowing That Fashion Too Is a Figure and a Face of Spirit

 

With pants women have grown
audibly and visibly
more somber, grave, and stern:

Qu’avez-vous découvert
en adoptant des pantalons
autrefois destinés aux hommes?

Haven’t they thus dimly set,
through those tightly fitting pipes
believed to fuse breeches and thighs,

upon Inanna’s old and original journey —

which, except for Persephone
and perhaps for Eurydice,
was among ancient Greeks
reserved only
for brawny heroes —

whom they have now deprived
of their gargantuan breeches,
fit to ride a flock of beasts,

as if the point, whispered
beneath a gentle breath,
were to ask, piercingly:

“So who’s the devil now?”

And still — even when it is cold —
there are days when I mourn and miss
the flair, lift, and liveliness of shirts,
their piquancy and Romantic appetite —

the trembling and the shock,
the resounding waves of seas,
arpeggios of violins and harps,
and the clanking summons
of beauty’s bells,

worn to charge the air
with streams and tunes
of buoyant, bowing,
yet still well-ordered desire,

and just as true and fine,

almost Aeolian —

being fit to sound

what exceeds man’s eyes.

A Collection of My Poems Reflecting on the Planned Demise of the Soviet Union and More Is Now Available on Amazon

 

 

O Adonis, How Barely and Finally You Admit Love’s Pleading Flame!

Late May Southern rain
Covers all in glow,
Shared bend and shiver —
But wait —

Don’t gleaming pearls,
Catching words at their finest,
Woo their yearning ears,

And necklaces, wrapping
Around them as they slither,
Radiate and reflect
That selfsame glow

Off fillets wrought of gold,
Like an early vow and promise
Intoning bliss and kindred blaze?

Dusk Turns Light of Sun into Finest Dust

In the evening’s quiet gilded lull,
Other thoughts are summoned,
Thoughts busy diurnal mortals
Neither know nor miss,

And in that spell time itself
Appears to crack, if not more
Than through the faintest hairline
From eternity’s noiseless whiff

When behind a chosen, rare face
Another — timeless and much deeper —
Could be rising from beneath:

Oh, Orpheus, why do you summon
What for all the others no longer lives,
Yet will not admit their common time?

Why So Many—Why So Few?

 

Deep within what is common
there hides a radical,

unfathomed equality
of all within all—

strangely assuming
aqua-like rings
and resonances,

so easily mistaken
for some great dissolvent,

the nearer one draws
to aequus,

that ancient root
of all that is fair
and even.

For could there ever exist
a perfect divine scale

upon which two different things
might nonetheless balance wholly,

their shared measure too
remaining absolute—

even though to many

such utter balance,
equality, fairness,
and justice

appear almost
like death itself?

And yet does not such égalité
so often pass unnoticed

beneath stern
and exacting laws—

even where this concerns identity,

the deepest law of all?

Elsewhere souls despair

that nothing which has been
or still is

refuses disappearance
within the losses
of others and themselves.

Thus so many insensible lovers,

blindly seeking
yet denying

that very presence
they obscurely crave,

before their arms and legs,

devenus bien trop légers
—and thereby more divine—

succumb once more

to earthly heaviness,

where gravity
rules them all.