In December last year I was challenged - or "commissioned" as I like to regard it - by Eva Turnová to produce an English version of Vratislav Brabenec's poem, poď .
I have lost count of the versions and I am not totally happy with this one but here it is. There is plenty of psychedelic intertext which I shall leave for the reader to wrestle with. I would draw your attention to the neologism, supersticians, which conjures up images of lying politicians, spin doctors, along with religious leaders and other quacks. (Well, you need to know that it isn't a typo!).
This poem, along with several others, has been set to music by the wonderful plastic people from Prague. You can catch up with their universe on Maska za maskou, released in December last year and premiered in front of an international audience in London in January.
Anyway, enjoy!
COME
Come look inside the flesh of the melon
and leave behind the knives,
burn the laws of the gorgon,
swimming is easier with an empty head.
Be a frog or be a fish
in evolution, a blemish,
a dream of birds, a secret
underneath an ocean of wreckage.
To taste the absurd is sweetness
to ride in melon juice, treacherous,
the soul is a burden and so is thinking of it,
in the garden of god there is time enough.
Stop giving birth to ghosts,
supersticians and hopes;
it's a leap in the clouds,
the bush burns within
and slanders in a coffin.
Be a frog or be a fish
in evolution, a blemish,
a dream of birds, a secret
underneath an ocean of wreckage.
To taste the absurd is sweetness
to ride in melon juice, treacherous,
the soul is a burden and so is thinking of it,
in the garden of god there is time enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment