Vaclav Hrabe - poetry translations

By Claudia Macey-Dare, 2024, 'Blues pro Blaznivou Holku'

Variace na Renesanční Téma (Variations on Renaissance Themes) 

Love is like an evening star 

sailing through the black sky 

Close the door at the handle! 

In the house blow out every candle 

and to your bodies fortify

you 

whose hearts have petrified 

Love is like a beautiful boat 

which has lost its captain 

the sailors wring their hands 

scared of what will happen 

Love is like the pain of waking 

and the hot hands of stars 

through your prison windows aching 

honeymoon flowers of ours 

Love is like an evening star 

sailing through the black sky 

Our life 

burns like a candle 

and the dead see 

love as a lie 

Infekce (Infection) 

I fell on rocks overgrown with arnica 

and now I lie 

my chaffed skin full of dried leaves 

and you 

It’s the worst case of tetanus in the history of medicine 

Every authority above me nodded and left 

Allegedly it’s useless 

The head nurse brings 

orange cigarettes and thirteen reproductions of Botticelli 

Get stronger in the evening they’ll operate 

They’ll take your heart    Your heart is too big 

For you to be able to live with 

I peel oranges and remember 

in Prague    Soft snow    Seagulls     the 7th November

do you remember the celebration of light? 

My white hospital gown rocks like a tram 

caught up in the breeze 

It’s sad or maybe funny 

because you alone 

have blood 

which matches mine 

I must tell them where to find you

Don’t panic    When they come 

I will lie between shiny sterile tools 

and I won’t see that you came 

I know 

that you don’t love me 

but you 

are dissolved in my blood

with tetanus bacteria the smell of smoke and arnica and Šlagr

so old 

that no one remembers them clearly 

Zavři Oči (Close your Eyes) 

Close your eyes 

On the street below sprinklers intimate rain 

Lambs run down to the valley and sleep

in your shadow I stop the hands of time 

because this moment will not be repeated 

The quiet evening 

provokes 

the swans 

who just before death still sing 

something of your beauty 

Close your eyes 

In a Berlin blasphemes a one-legged 

Christ 

and his blood 

falls on the heads of the pharisees 

Hannibal’s elephants lie on the banks of the Congo with uncut veins

and grazed poets predict the end 

of the people’s comedy 

Close your eyes!    Close your eyes… 

Soon they will be silent 

the trams’ horns ring out 

and I will hear echoing from the sky 

the beats of your heart 

in the rhythm of birds’ wings 

in the rhythm of the swaying earth in space 

in the rhythm which no one can ever manage 

to burn or crucify 

Close your eyes 

and it will be like moonlight falling in a bridged alleyway 

Close your eyes 

and it will be like the beginning of the world 

Malý Dodatek ke Statistikám (A Small Addendum to Statistics) 

Well just say it: 

Slovakia 

And the relevant official will start up in a sterile loudspeaker voice 

“Cimblom folklore embroidery 

žinčica and new factories new nurseries” 

and he’ll present on request 

a statistic about the population 

a statistic about healthcare 

a statistic 

about bravery 

Sometimes it is necessary to remember what can’t be expressed 

by grammar 

chart numbers and clear maps 

To invite a neurastetic history to speak 

those who will be awakened from slumber for years to come 

drums flutes and blood 

from the last war 

And then to remember 

the hot dusty roads of that summer 

around Banska Bystrica 

Catcalling the words of the ragged: 

“Get down foreman! 

And turn the horses! 

To Berlin!” 

And then a scene from an old bandit ballad 

“Strike him in the belt” from the pulpit hurl fat 

interpreters of Christ 

And he who came from the mountains 

will die 

in the corner of this inn 

with his back to the wall 

he doesn’t deliver a eulogy for future generations 

he doesn’t look at the director 

he doesn't flash his eyes 

There are too many for him 

and he’s all alone 

Alone 

but one of many 

that’s the charm of the minor key 

of bandit ballads 

Their 

heroes are nameless 

They need to be remembered sometimes 

because years later – 

“so many lives that we could…” 

They need to be remembered sometimes 

because years later – 

the sun is scorching    in front of the monument in Kremnica a photograph 

a group of Sunday tourists 

overcoats 

and praising 

the weather