5

Antilyrik & Other Poems
Vítězslav Nezval
Translated by Jerome Rothenberg & Miloš Sovák

The Lesser Rose Garden

[Prologue]

The sun reflected in the colored splashes of
the paper lanterns in the lesser rose garden.

The bowman lurking back of the ecliptic   with
[imaginary arrows pierced the apricots.

He drove a needle thru her hat   that lady sleeping
 on her swing the lilies of the valley underneath her
[slowly burning out.

The dandelions’ breath.

A mussel opened up toward sunset
in the sand drifts   saga’s dream.

& a stork drifts on a boat in mid-stream: this
Italian poet from the days of Petrarch.

Here on dusty roads enclosed by ivy I can feel the
     sun’s vibrations fill me & remembrance of lost love
     is like the lesser rose garden & the time spent in
     tbe arbor where we read romantic verses of eternity;
     & mystery.	
& iťs like a memory of bygone Sundays from your
     childhood & your eyes fixed sharply on the 
     highway crossing opened wide like flowers in 
     September those blue moon like blossoms which 
     will stay with me till death reminding me of 
     sunsets of my home of sagas where I know nothing 
     but the name.

Premier Plan 
[Stage Front]

This night was ablaze like a necklace.
Above the green Bohemian lakes, the calls of frogs in
     [chorus,
a bell was sounding an alarm.
Like the meridian a rubber ring of sound expanded
over the rotting woods, over the loony idyll of the
goblins those who chased
     [each other
                                            thru the stacks of wheat,
over the searchlights from the cities
beams inscribing pithy poems onto the clouds.
The rings that were projected there,
the foaming champagne bottles,
a roulette wheel like Saturn circled Monte Carlo,
while Versailles spouted golden fountains
& the Hotel Ritz in clouds broadcast a final tango
to which corsairs on Corsica would dance in time for the new vintage.
Vesuvius smoldering over Italy which rested on its laurels 
& in Leningrad the streets were empty opening like canals into the world beyond. 
Under the deepest basements land mines crisscrossed like white-hot cigars
lighting up caves & tunnels
in which gangsters crouched with guns & flashlights.
Asia steeped in perfumes waggled like a yellow flag
embossed with fancy baubles   lotus gardens
cities that shed light like gold-rimmed china tea sets.
Tokyo convulsing in the air was like a neon sign
set up by fakirs sleeping at the base of giant Hindustani mountain ranges.
Antarctic ice was like the ruins of a marble kingdom
polar bears would dart across & snow-white fishes
         [without blood 
         would swim there.
Africa, black paradise with palm trees,
on whose tents the gold-washed earrings of its negresses were hanging	I
from which parrots swung   nightwatch of the Sahara. 
Australia sleeping in the trees was an electrified        
          [menagerie
                                 inside a luna park
& here Niagara Falls by moonlight
hummed with organ-sounds above the Indian burial
           [grounds 
& further on above America where they were taking
           [leave
                                like two ships of a single caliph
filled with slaves & cargo, just about to sail.
The Bohemian lakes gone green with choruses of frogs
remnants smoldering after the storm has passed
with the earth flooded out its primitive glory gone
           [under its
                                 oceans unending
lighthouses loom like crazed fisherman’s wives
           [singing songs
that await an old sailor’s return who is not coming back
This night was ablaze like a necklace. 
Above the closed windows the earth moved on air like
            [a crown 
& the sleepers like sleepwalkers opened the windows
A bell rang an alarm.
Take over the world! Join the vanguard!
& quickly an airplane took off in the night
to plant a flag on the battlements high on the crown
& behind it flew thousands of airplanes
some like spent rockets burning
augmenting the legions of stars
still others returning like the work-weary builders of
            [Babylon
while those who kept up the struggle formed letters &. words in the stars:
Take over the world! 
Take over the world! Join the vanguard! 
Swell the numbers of white-hot cigars in the basements
make the cities you throw in the air fly like acrobats
set up fireworks deep in volcanoes in time for the vintage. 
Inscribe poems onto clouds more fierce than the gold
            [of Versailles
& let the fire of heaven be joined to the fire of earth.
Wrapped in rubberized fireproof bags 
& careening like balls on the flery beams
make the palm trees hide
seeds huge as ostrich eggs under their ashes 
give earth back its harvests
let it sprout like a sweet-tasting jungle
for the few who endure.
& take over the world!
Renew Tyrteus’s rock
because it doesnt make sense, no not for the sake of
      [the suicide’s
                                 gurgle, the tired man’s gasp
that the godhead of healthy humanity perishes 
because it doesn’t make sense for the mad pilots’
      [miracles
                                 not to have happened
who wake up this night from their sleepwalker’s sleep
flying   landing on battlements   of the nighťs diamond
      [crown 
like carrier pigeons   with a telegram driving us blind:
Take over the world!
& the flowers’ blood spatters the coffeehouse
      [terraces 
& children are born despite the worlďs prisons
& on earth no gold is lost
                            & no platinum’s lost
                                          & no fire.
To defenestrate sleepwalking men who are blind
who saw this night ablaze like a necklace 
its hieroglyphs still undeciphered 
& who in the sound of the bell heard their death
      [knells. 
Take over the world!
& then walk like nomads
                    away from the ponderous lakes of Bohemia
where nighťs as green as a chorus of frogs 
& hear an orchestra of cries & lights 
& in the rhythms of its drums that clatter
                                  like buds of black & white light
see the stage front of earth as a mirror
laid bare by their searchlights
                                   who knew of the need for a miracle
to live eternity in one generation 
& to not lose a moment
those whose sleep like their death was lit by clairvoyance
as nighťs sleep was lit
who joined eternity’s fire with the fire of a moment.
This night was ablaze like a necklace. 
& just then an airplane took off on patrol 
with a pilot who looked like an airman from 1914 
whose shadow fell on the gates of the town
                              with signed proclamations of war
& covered the sun until darkness was everywhere. 
We all watched thru smoke-colored glasses 
& the old women saw the sign first divined by the
      [Sibyl:
Bohemian nights turning green with frogs in a chorus.
But the pilot today was still more appalling
a sower who scoops up stars in his lap
& casts them like so many seeds on the earth
to keep off the fire lying in wait for us 
when the planet like Joan of Arc twists on the pyre 
& recants not one word of all that was spoken.

1926

In: Nezval, Vítězslav. Analytic & Other Poems. Translated by Jerome Rothenberg and Miloš Sovák. Edited by Per Bregne. Kobenhavn and Loas Angeles: Green Integer,  2001. pp. 15-22.