Five Poems after Poems by Jan Skacel

Transcreations from Czech by Jerome Rothenberg & Milos Sovak

THE RULE OF THE LORDLY RIDERS

Smells of horses
burst forth
aromatic like black-
currant bushes
ditches knee
high with water
coming at them
in a rush
the riders with
thoughts of death
pricking
their heels
& deep in their minds
an ancient rule
often repeated

FIRST OFF LAUNCH YOUR HEART OVER THAT HURDLE

As so many do
& make an arch to carry them over the ditch
with no time left for looking behind them
Time reverted a direction still not allowed

On cherry trees the blood takes flight, the killing
flutters like a flag
The race has ended with the summer
a quiet darkish autumn come to life

And the riders those who overcame the hurdle
make their way on foot back to the site
where they once launched their hearts
heads bent now to peer through the grass

Maybe to bring it to light
maybe not

ALL THAT REMAINS OF ANGELS

Morning,
trees still bandaged
all the rest untouched,
between two poplars
half asleep in flight
a levitating angel

Through cracks in sleep
he sings

The first one on the street
he whom that song would wound
may stand there half suspecting
yet never catching a glimpse

A greenness
all that remains
of those angels

A SNOW MILL

scratched like a plank
the joiner sets aside
I walk along the river, call down seven thunders
bright & regal on my head

beneath the bridges winter birds fly here & there
the water empty
high above our heads the snow mill’s
crunch of straw

GENTLY THE SMALL BETRAYALS FALL IN LINE

When we become aware of our desires
gently to stroke his cheek
they will beseech us & will let us know
that he lives high up there among the bells

& they will sound a proclamation:
that the gallows may not cast a shadow
over any foreign plot of land
no not even if they hang a heart on it

This they will keep repeating
until the rain
over some small provocation
arrests us in that town
bearing the most beautiful name
in all the world
a little settlement called Huslei

And they won’t flinch but will obey it
when we sniff the fingers on the hand
that gnawed death like an iron moth

That’s when we’ll sneeze
& leave the wolf weddings
somewhere behind us

A FINAL NOTE. These poems, derived from poems by Jan Skacel (1922-1989), were among the works left uncompleted at the death earlier this year of my friend & collaborator Milos Sovak. It was Milos’s sense that Skacel was one of the truly outstanding Czech poets of the last century but one whose work until now was barely visible in English. We made a start on it several years ago & left it for other pursuits, although I continued to think of the possibilities that these & other poems of Skacel’s presented. Coming back to them now I had no one like Milos to consult, so I moved on my own from translation as such to a modest version of what Haroldo de Campos graced with the name of transcreation. They appear here as a final tribute both to Skacel & to Sovak, with some misgivings about my own belated interpretations but with the hope that they exist now on their own.