Sylva Fischerová

KRVAVÝ KOLENO
September 15, 2011 Fischerova Sylva

KRVAVÝ KOLENO

 

Proč končí verš dřív než stránka?
Co se děje v prostoru za ním?
Vytváří se místo pro nádech, jako když první krok vzhůru
postaví rozhlednu, dobrý výhled po kraji?
Kdo chodí po prázdné stránce?
Množina možností je omezena, ze zasazených
přirozených čísel
rostou stromy, oči toho, kdo čte, bloudí
tím sadem, který má půdorys
Edenu viděného z letadla.
Jenže večer je to komora, ve které bydlí
krvavý koleno
vedle slaniny a babiččiny podprsenky
jako v dětské hře:
jí lidský maso, pije lidskou krev
a leží na ničem.

 

 

Bloody Knee

 

Why does the line end sooner than the page?
What´s going on in the space behind it?
A room made for breath, as when the first step upstairs
builds a watchtower, a good view of the country-side?
Who walks on the blank page?
The set of possibilities is limited, from
the natural numbers, planted,
trees growing up, the eyes of the one who reads
wander through the orchard, which has a ground plan
of Eden, as seen from a plane.
But in the evening, it´s a catchall
where bloody knee lives
next to the bacon and grandma´s bra
as in a children´s game:
it eats human flesh,
drinks human blood,
and lies on nothing.

 

 

Translator: Stuart Friebert, founder of Oberlin’s Writing Program, co-founder of Field, the Field Translation Series, & Oberlin College Press, has published 8 volumes of translations, as well as a dozen books of his own poems.

Sylva Fischerová, a distinguished classicist, teaches at Charles University in Prague. She has published ten volumes of poetry in Czech, and her poetry has been translated and published in numerous languages. Selections of her poems in English translation were published by Bloodaxe Books (The Tremor of Racehorses, 1990; The Swing in the Middle of Chaos, 2010). Stomach of the Soul, translated by the author with Stuart Friebert and A. J. Hauner, was published by Calypso Editions, USA, in 2014. She also writes prose, essays, and books for children.