Poetry by Štefan Žáry

A YEAR OF MERCY

They have taught us to forgive

brothers and other relatives

abuse, a broken plate,

adultery. With an easy

gesture of a white forefinger

we take to mercy, graciously

nod until out jawbone

dislocates. Our ass

laden with abundant indulgences

beckons from city to city,

from street to street,

from parsonage to brothel -

and his ears reach over the pyramids

to tickle between the legs

a merciful divinity.

DON’T ENDURE THE MOMENT - YOU’RE MUCH TOO

beautiful! Just now, only now.

At this instant.

This is too say that the longer

you endure the more expensively

you’ll have to pay for your broad-mindedness.

Your sporadically plaited

life is clearly reminiscent

of a worthless rosary on whose

bare thread glitters

only a few shiny beads.

You, beauty, endure -

with regard for the moment! That

which has engraved on the memory

your ghostly profile. To make the moment

eternal robs it of intensity.

SOMETIMES SUCH A SILENCE COMES INTO BEING

it almost shouts and with its quiet

threatens to crack eardrums.

Also the silence of the forest

can become the roaring of a beast -

able to crush alive

and pull down citadels.

Only a sorrowing soul

is unavoidably silent -

though within it occur

cosmic collisions.

Translated by James Sutherland-Smith

ADDRESSES      

Do not give in so easily, my will,

raise hundred-towered roofs

of craning poplars

over the riverbanks.

In midday mist

a glittering rose waters the lilies.

Death is distant.

She addresses the banks

and the waves rolling against the stream.

Although it is not certain

if they will answer kindly

or go rigid in the stooping clouds.

ORCHIDEA NOSTALGIS

To start all over again!

Hunkered-down in the innards,

to thrust oneself on the world with a doughty heave

from the gorge between the haunches,

the slippy banana-hued mass

vocally a-quiver.

And the world, again pure as a virgin,

celluloid-wrapped, cocooned,

again conceived and sealed

with barrier-fenced hymen –

will not cease to offer sweet nectar,

like orchidea nostalgis

softly submitting to the butterfly.

Translated by John Minahane