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Four Poems by Pavel Šrut
Translated by Deborah Garfinkle From Worm-Eaten Time. Los Angeles: PhonemeMedia, 2016. |
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Translator’s Note:
Some Thoughts on Our Worm-Eaten Times By Deborah Garfinkle These four poems were taken from the collection, Paperback Poems (Brožované básně), that represents the work Pavel published unofficially in samizdat during the communist era. When I first read these poems many years ago, the political climate they portrayed seemed so distant, ironic and surreal. The Trojan Rocking Horse appearing in the shadows of what had been a totalitarian nightmare dreamed up by the monarchs of the That Dynasty who reigned so long ago. However, since last year’s election, time has been working on its own strange retrograde, the reality presidency illuminated by klieg lights whose gels cast queer shadows in garish hues. Our new normal doesn’t come with crushing tanks, red stars and the hammer and sickle, poised over our collective necks, waiting to descend in its bloody coup de grace; instead, it’s been bolstered on flag waving, nostalgia for the good old days infused with a large dose of variegated hatred that’s been scripted by the mudwrestling promoters of reality TV, tweeted out 24/7 at 140 characters at a time. These worm-eaten writers blithely publish fake news and bandy about racist and misogynist tropes, but have no clue about the meaning of 1st Amendment free speech protections or the right to dissent when it comes to the right to dissent. This is our new reality; our new normal. And only time will tell whether these times will end with a bang or a whimper. What is clear, however, is that these poems no longer dwell well beyond the white picket fence of American exceptionalism that hangs like ivy on the American Dream. After the election, I'd been itching for several months to write to Pavel about my sorrows over the rise of Trumpism and the backers of the GOP’s corporate oligarchy who thought he’d be an easy puppet to control. These were the forces that help land him in the White House despite his losing the popular vote by the huge margin of some 3 million votes. One thing, however, stopped me from writing to Pavel for the dose of post-election soucit I was so desperately wanting, soucit the term that Milan Kundera discussed in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, usually rendered in English as compassion. According to Kundera, soucit is an emotion far superior to compassion, which he characterizes as a benevolent condescension for the victim’s misery. Compassion is the gods on high remarking tisk, tisk at the poor mug who’s been run over by a tank; soucit, on the other hand, is the guy at the scene who carries the body back to the family and then foots the bill at the pub so they can drown their mutual sorrows in mug after mug of Pilsner. I desperately wanted that tender sentiment, the co-feeling. However, I’ve known Pavel for almost a generation and he’s not one to suffer the whims of silly people from what was the other side of the Iron Curtain who think ourselves exceptional, that our democracy is immune to threats of totalitarian, authoritarian, nationalist or populist appeals. Or those who romanticize the inhabitants of the ghetto with its Kafkaesque corridors, a labyrinth leading nowhere, where the socialist realist posters of a happy future were plastered all over the crumbling walls, along streets where lines of shoppers stood with their little knitted bags up on sidewalks lined with empty shops. But my yearning for soucit got the better of me; I broke down and wrote in my rather pitiful written Czech – horrible sadness, like Sarah Bernhard from the depths of my despair across the thousands of miles and human experience that separated us. The next day I received the answer to my prayers: Dear Deb, You’ll survive 4 years. We had 40 years of it. And we have Zeman! Keep your head up…. Bob and the dog will keep you going. Almost year has passed since I received those words, the fortune to keep the cookie from crumbling. Here the walls turn a deaf ear, the streets turn a blind eye and nothing comes back except laughter punctuated by the sound of tweets. The same laughter that wore down the Velvet Revolution until it became threadbare. Our Trump and Zeman’s successor, Andrej Babiš, Trump dressed up in a glitzy kroj. Yet that laughter had the ring of truth in it. The laughter of these poems from so long ago. The darkness that descends; the joy snatched out like a rug from under you, and you and your companions on your backs, awaiting the wrath of the gods, distant and out of touch, as you blindly reach out to each other, tears of laughter streaming down your cheeks, to try to see if anything’s still left of you to be broken. |
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Kmotřička kocovina
Chodím městem a naslouchám mu očima Hledím mu do uší Hmatám jeho pohledy Čichám jeho smutné veselí Chci o tom napsat a píšu Pozdech ulic A hle ulice se sbíhají: Jsem čten! Naslouchají mi oči Hledí na mne uši Ohmatávají mne pohledy Čihají mí smutné veselí Chutnají mou porci vzduchu Chci o tom napsat a píšu Po zdech svého podnájmu A hle zdi se sbíhají: Jsem tištěn! U odvodu “Jste chlapík!” řekli mi u odvodu “Srdíčko máte jako Gagarin!” Když v trenýrkách jsem vyběhl pár schodů (Umělý med a margarin Sice mi v dětství ubral sil Rovnováhu však vyrovnal naštěstí rybí tuk) “Ale on píše básně!” major utrousil “Pero je taky zbraň!” rozhodl politruk A neadresně povzdychl si: “Kokoti…” (Dodneška vidím ho: byl droboučký a paťatý Ale měl myšlenky které se snadno okotí—) Houpací Trojský kůň II. Děti se houpají na Trojském koni Děti se věčně ptají Město je věčně plné praporů. Děti se věčně ptají proč Ale co asi se něco slaví říkáte a ony Na povšechnou otázku žádají zcela určitou odpověď Zcela určitě se něco slaví řikáte ale co to Prapory zničehonic zmizí Žerdě naprázdno skřípou Děti poznají váš neklid Poznají že jim něco tajíte U večeře to skřípe V noci vás skřipající postel Obrací z boku na bok ale co to Ráno je město plné praporů A vy se ptáte proč A děti vás houpají na Trojském koni. Dynastie Že 27. dubna kteréhosi roku vykouřil 43 cigaret vypil 7 piv a litr čaje doslechl se o objevu nové hvězdy v naší blízké galaxii vzpomněl si na ústní koutek své dcery byl předvolán do Bartolomějské k podání vysvětlení zapamatoval si pětiverší anonyma z dynastie Že napsal tuto báseň se zamlčeným příběhem avšak nezamlčel že 27. dubna k. r. vykouřil 43 cigaret vypil 7 piv a litr čaje doslechl se o objevu nové hvězdy a blízké galaxii Že byl předvolán do Bartolomějské k podání vysvětlení Že zapomněl pětiverší anonyma z dynastie Že vzpomněl si na vzdálený ústní koutek své dcery Že |
The Fairy Godmother of Hangover
I walk around the city and listen in on it with my eyes I peer into its ears I touch its gazes I sniff its sad gaiety I want to write about it and I write Across the street walls And lo and behold the streets converge: I’ve been read! They listen in on me with their eyes They peer into my ears They grope me with their gazes They sniff my sad gaiety They taste my serving of air I want to write about it and I write Across my apartment walls And lo and behold the walls converge: I’ve been printed! At My Induction into the Army At my induction they cried, “You’re a terrific chap!” “Your heart’s just like Gagarin’s!” They cheered when I ran a few steps (Though the ersazt honey and margarine Of my youth sapped my vitality Fish oil balanced them out happily) The Party Commissar proclaimed “The pen’s mightier than the sword!” Then under his breath “you wanker” he quipped… (I can see him even now: Lilliputian with a limp But his ideas could breed as fast as rabbits) Trojan Rocking Horse II. The children rock on the Trojan Horse The children always ask questions The city is forever filled with flags The children always ask why But you say I guess they’re celebrating something and they Demand a definitive answer to this general question So you say, they’re definitely celebrating something, but what can you do All of a sudden the flags disappear The hollow flagpoles creak The children can tell you’re worried They can tell you’re hiding something from them At dinner it creaks At night your creaking bed Tosses and turns you but what can you do The next day the city’s filled with flags And you ask why And the children rock you on the Trojan Horse. The That Dynasty on April 27th of some year he smoked 43 cigarettes drank 7 beers and a liter of tea he heard about a new star’s discovery in a nearby galaxy he remembered the corner of his daughter’s mouth he was summoned for an interrogation at Bartholomew St.* he recalled the anonymous poet of classical shi from the That Dynasty he wrote this poem with the concealed meaning that didn’t stay concealed that on April 27th of said year he smoked 43 cigarettes drank 7 beers and a liter of tea he heard about a new star’s discover in the nearby That Galaxy that he was summoned to Bartholomew St. for an interrogation So he forgot the anonymous poet of classical shi from the That Dynasty that he forgot the far off corner of his daughter’s mouth That |
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* Bartholomew Street was the location of the main interrogation headquarters of the StB, the Czech secret police, during the communist era.
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Note: The editors would like to thank Ron Morosan for introducing them to the work of Pavel Šrut.
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