J. Krchovský

Poems

(Translated by O. T. Chalkstone)

IF I WANT TO VANISH

WITHOUT A TRACE

drowning in the river won’t be my case

- I’ll lay my lazy bones

in a bath full of acid at hom

While I get the water running

I tame my anxiety mulling:

- how when I’m all dissolved

will I unplug the tub hole?

I’ll employ mechanical power!

- linking the plug to the door knob with a wire

and when they open the door later

I shall need no undertaker

I am sure that all in all

the bath tub will retain my soul...

through the hole as I flow down

my soul asleep nirvana bound

A piece of shit cannot be soaped...

what there is not cannot be broke

only the petty nothing that troubles the brain

will never go down the drain...

AFTERNOON IN THE ZOO

On the bus out there she already caught my eye

age perhaps twenty, slim, rather slight and shy

and surely beautiful Emanating a sense of inner affinity

(...her trousers deeply cut between her lips of her pubic cavity)

Buying outside the ZOO gate she stood behind

I felt the glow of her chilling gaze landing on my spine

driven insane by the call of her body (and not only that)

coward, to the wild beasts’ pavilion I quickly fled

...Lust giving me the shakes, spinning my mind disengaged

I gape like an ox into ocelot’s empty cage

Shall I or shall I not?! – It’s clear to me she wouldn’t mind...

Make a move you twit – I can hear the rousing words of mine

Out in the daylight, again I briefly paused

yet I keep going, drawn by a mysterious, darksome voice

- then suddenly I saw her: blushing her eyes coyly down

wet in her crotch she walked out of the monkey compound

ANXIETY STRICKEN, SWOONING WITH FRIGHT

we boarded the streetcar, my weary dog and I

(by myself no way I would take such a step!)

to be faced with twelve crosses – twelve stops to dread

Still half way to go, by now worn to the frazzle

I can take it no more, beads of deathly sweat on my forehead dazzle

- why doesn’t it go?! I want to get off! Get going you wimp!

I’m spent, the dog is asleep, if a little limp...

Then abruptly a horrid sound! Not unlike a moan

appalled they all looked at my bitch in scorn

thinking what a vile fart she broke

- but that pained groan came from my throat

ONCE AGAIN TO A GIRL I QUIETLY OPEN MY HEART

though otherwise I balk at straightforward talk

all is revealed, by what our gazes impart

you want something there and I want it somewhere

still to be sure my eyes do quiz

whether right now, right here with this

I HAD TWO BEERS AT THE “LITTLE GREEN TREE”...

at once feeling better, all seems quite real to me

the mirage of the Castle is particularly tenable today

across the Charles Bridge, only the stars know where to, I stumble on my way.

I closed my eyes counting to ten

all, even the semblance of the Little Quarter roofs, fizzled out by then

and the bridge shrank into a single thread in a magnified net

chasm all around, banks nowhere to be met