A first prize-winning poem at the 42^nd World Congress of Poets 2023, Italy/Malta/Greece

 

Fire

 

Your body is no longer in this world

Yesterday it became ashes

eaten by fire in a nearby village

in the countryside where we often

went for walks together

 

Fire devoured your cold body

But your spirit remained as light and air

above the bare trees in the winter sky

 

But no, for your sake

I don’t want to make any logical errors

You taught your philosophy students

that spirit is not subjected

to any spatial determination

has no extension, cannot be measured

or found

above the bare trees in the winter sky

Spirit is independent from all this

 

Now you are spirit, my love

Though I will never smell your skin

and hear you laugh again

you are no less with me than before

Now you are everywhere

free and without pain

a pure you

a consciousness

 

I light a candle

with a woodfire scent

because wood was your element

So beautiful to touch

so smooth and dry and fragrant

No, I will not forget your body

will not forget our nights

when there was in you so much

woodfire energy –

In your love for me

 

 

A six-line poem from the pandemic times, for the ELFM programme "Love the Words", 2020

 

* * *

On my screen: Her room in New Jersey

lit by the afternoon sun.

Here it is night. I'm sending her dark,

she's sending me light, via Skype.

We're sending each other hope and

laughter, synchronised across the ocen.

 

Listen to this poem recited at ELFM programme (at ca. 13th minute): LOVE THE WORDS

 

 

Spreading

A lockdown poem, 2020

 

Gliding down an avalanche

with ever increasing speed

around us the purple expanses

 

Eventually we'll land

But not there

not where we stood before

 

From German translated by Verena Aschbacher

 

 

The Last Afternoon with My Father

 

The surface of the pond reflects

the sky's ordinary face

On the membrane, the pond skaters

slide - our words

From the roots hidden deep down,

the reeds grow

broken by the wind

We watch the wagtails

the fickle, fragile birds

 

Hidden in you,

there's a thirst for constancy

for the garden

in which only

the seasons change

 

Before the reeds are broken

you turn on your heels

The sky in your eyes loses

its ordinariness

You clutch your desires

in the pocket in the palm

leaving

 

From Czech translated by Natálie Nera

The Czech original appeared in the collection Za práh zraku, Dauphin, Praha 2006.

 

Atlantis Today

 

Flooded

with salt water, oil and black rain

buried

under the cargo of sunken ships

under a thousand of things

 

it lies

under the surface of the thoughts

which, like school of fish,

hide its existence

 

We ourselves in the diving gear

and with our eyes blindfolded

don't understand

the simpliest of the words

 

We don't know that Atlantis

istn't a continent

but a state of mind

 

From Czech translated by Natálie Nera

The German and Czech verisons apperaed in the collection Zeitschritte - Časokroky. Edition Thaleia, St. Ingbert, 2015.

 

 

Close Up

 

Those who love us most

watch us so much in close-up

they don't see us anymore

They embrace us in their dreams

like golden idols

Yet our dreams

are only strange

birds behind the window pane

better not feed them

 

From Czech translated by Natálie Nera

The Czech original appeared in the collection Třezalka. Edice Poezie Krušných hor. Archiv AAA, private print run, 2018.

 

 

Poems from A SEASON OF BLUE-GREY THOUGHTS, Hilton House, Norwich, 1999

Written in English by Klára Hůrková

 

Patiently

 

Patiently drawing dew from the darkness

Aquarius waits for your waving

Then he descends

Words you were searching for so long

Suddenly skip from the silence

 

 

Unwritten Poems

 

In their unwritten poems people talk

about their lonely flights

through the multicoloured sky of secret loves

through the deceitful paradise

of stolen smiles

 

In their unwritten poems people say

what makes them shiver at night

how they would die for a returned touch

of the one who has no idea why

 

 

Yogurt With Honey

 

Yogurt with honey must be the dish

of gods in heaven, which, luckily,

some people can also have

here on earth

 

I did not know that anything

could taste so light and perfect

 

To you, apparently, this is a normal thing

And when I tell you that my life's aim

is to find wisdom and tranquility

you wonder: Are you lacking it?

 

Maybe I shall try

to have some yogurt with honey every day