Sylva Fischerová

You Have to Lead the Sheep
August 14, 2012 Fischerova Sylva

You Have to Lead the Sheep

 

A dream struck a dream

and Sister Death on her bike

rides around the villages,

what´s backward, governs.

Houses like outgrowths,

tumors on the earth,

but under the satin, there´s

hot skin, shivering and waving, Come to me!

Naked dancers

under the poplars on the lake bank, white fluff

drifting down,

men and women gliding

to one another

and back, the gold of men falling on the silver

of women,

golden women raising their eyes to men,

weeping

among the dancing poplars

What´s good and what´s wrong, a voice from the loud-speaker

brays,

Leave me out of it, shrieks

the professor of ethics, getting on a fish,

What´s good and what´s wrong, a skull

under the rotting satin screams,

you have to distinguish, practice in

the categories: an orchard of similarity, swords of

diversity, a tiny footbridge over the stream, you have to

lead the sheep, otherwise you will all end at the wolf,

in the gehenna compound

from the non-love

and from little love

and from a fuming brain, in which, finally,

conciousness has changed.

 

 

MUSÍŠ VÉST TY OVEČKY

 

Sen křísnul o sen

a smrtka na kole

objíždí dědiny.

Co je zaostalé, vládne.

Domy tu stojí jako výrůstky, nádory

zeměkoule,

ale pod saténem je horká kůže,

chvěje se a vlní, Pojď ke mně!

Nazí tanečníci a tanečnice

na břehu řeky pod vysokými topoly, padá

bílé chmýří,

muži a ženy klouzají k sobě

a zase od sebe,

zlato mužů padá na stříbro

žen,

zlaté ženy zvedají oči k mužům,

pláčou

mezi tančícími topoly

Co je dobře a co je špatně, hýká hlas z ampliónu,

To mi sem netahejte, volá

profesor etiky a nasedá na rybu,

Co je dobře a co je špatně? řve lebka

pod zteřelým saténem,

musíš umět rozlišovat, cvičit se

v kategoriích, sad podobnosti, meče různosti, úzká

lávka nad vodou, musíš vést ty ovečky, jinak

skončíte u vlka, v gehenně složené

z nelásky

a malé lásky

a z dýmajícího mozku, v který se nakonec

proměnilo svědomí.

 

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.