Prague Montage

1

Autumn sunlight incandesces colours;
Footsteps’ report in vaulted arcades;
At night on Charles Bridge
Eerie shadows between streetlamps
And terrible visions in the mist.

Kafka,born under the sign of the crow,
Scribbles through long nights of solitude,
Writing for salvation,in his distant eyes
The mute accumulation of objects.

2

Oh,winter snow!
The ghosts return to haunt us.
Time to insert the talisman
Into the Golem’s mouth.

All my life seeking
The stone which is not a stone,
A precious thing which has no value,
A thing of many shapes,
This unknown which is most known of all.

3

From the Old Stone Bridge Tower
I gaze down along the Charles Bridge,
From where the secret police
Used to sit and point their lenses
And microphones
At those conversing down below.
Above is the stone hunchback
Who guards from evil spirits:
Gone the medieval inscriptions
That once held demons at bay,
Delaying them as they stopped to read:
Take note, take note,
You are touching and torturing me.

Midway across Charles Bridge
I stop at the small bronze Cross of Lorraine
Embedded in the wall:
They say when the Dalai Lama came here
He recognized this spot
As the very centre of the universe,
Here, whence St John Nepomuk
Was hurled into the river
And five stars appeared
Above the drowning corpse.

4

Impatience,
My beloved vice!
Always asking:
What time is it?
What time?

In the Clementinum’s Astronomical Tower
Light pierces a tiny hole in the wall,
And,at noon, the narrow beam strikes
Its target on the floor.

5

In the Powder Tower
Beneath St Vitus’s flying buttresses,
Remain retorts, crucibles, and alembics
Of Rudolf II’s alchemists
Who laboured long here,
Concocting potions and philtres
To His Majesty’s delight,
Though the elixir remained forever elusive.
From all over Europe they came,
Quacks, necromancers and spagyrists,
Vowing to produce the Philosopher’s Stone.

6

Christmas coming,
Tubs full of carp appear on the streets
And the pavements foam
With blood and water
As fishmongers slaughter
And gut the sacred creatures.

Among the teetering tombstones
Of the Old Jewish Cemetery,
With myriads of dead
Beneath my feet,
And all the scribbled wishes
And pebbles left on the graves,
I remember again that stupid fantasy of mine:
That Israel might inhabit my own blood.

7

Woodpeckers clamour
In pink and white orchards ,
Wolf’s-bane in the shadows
And memories of other lives.

In the Church of the Nativity in the Loreta,
St Agatha hands her severed breasts on a dish
To an appreciative angel;
On either side of the altar
Lie dummies in glass cases,
In wax masks and dusty costumes,
The skeletons of Felicissimus and Marcia.
In the corner chapel,
In sky-blue dress with silver brocade,
Bearded St Wilgefortis is crucified,
Protectress of ill-wed women.