Czechoslovakia Before the Velvet Revolution, Secret Poems 1986-1989, Jim Potts; Před sametovou revolucí; Československo

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: SECRET POEMS, 1986-1989, Jim Potts

Před sametovou revolucí

All poems copyright Jim Potts.

Karel Čapek and Mr Esquire, Music Reporter of The Times, 1938

Mr Esquire was sent to Strž

To see Karel Čapek, in great haste.

"Come to England! Why not emigrate?"

"There's nothing that I want or need,

What I wanted, no longer exists.

It's all been taken from me.

Can you give me back, what's been taken?

Can you give me back my country?

Why are you concerned about me now,

When you aren't concerned about my country?

Greet your Editor, Mr Esquire.

Thank you for coming so far.

It will be hard for you, as it will be for us.

I don't want to hear or see it.

Tell my London friends that I'm sick to death;

And now let's talk of something else...

Goodnight....Dobrý večer...Happy Christmas.

Tak teda sbohem....Mr Esquire."

(Translated and adapted from the memoirs of František Kubka, "Na vlastní oči", Prague 1959).

Karel Čapek's Dying Words 

On the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his Death on 25 December 1938

"I've been stabbed in the heart

By Chamberlain's umbrella."

Could it be apocryphal,

What Karel Čapek is supposed to have said

That Christmas Day, the day he died?

Let's hope they weren't his dying words.

Did a devilish journalist imagine it all,

Or his brother,

In  Bergen-Belsen?

(for the Masaryk Sisters, Anna and Herberta, after we watched a film on Munich) 

On the need for a new Mission

Come back Cyril and Methodius,

The captive nations need you now!

Open greatly the doors of their reason:

They have been misled and are much confused.

Prague 1987.

To the Czechs

Cyril and Methodius,

Wycliffe and Payne,

Gave you so much,

But all in vain.

Dvořák

Being above a butcher's shop
Makes Prague seem built of ham:
Smoked Gothic,
Pork baroque;
Dvořák in a bloody apron.

(July, 1986)

 

Czech Heroes 

1. Jan Palach (before the 20th Anniversary of his death)

I can’t agree with self-immolation,

Hara-Kiri, suicide.

***

Will a human torch flare up again

By Wenceslas astride his horse?

2. Václav Havel's Trial (21.2.1989)

The Czechs don’t want a new Mandela

Within the heart of Europe.  

Let's respect the brave one thousand, more,

Who've signed their names for Havel.

The police are having sleepless nights.

The politicians? No remorse.

The Red Danube
(Near Devín Castle, Bratislava, International Year of Peace, 1986)


Above the confluence of rivers
The old castle ruins stand guard,
Proud symbol of the Slovak Slavs.
Long views of Danube and of Morava
Below the outcrop of the Carpathians,
With their terraces of vines;
The green and wooded banks beyond,
The balmy air of Spring.
It almost seems like island Greece.
The laughing schoolchildren are neatly dressed,
Well supervised, well-scrubbed, well-drilled.
They scramble around the castle fore-court;
Where they'd like to play is out of bounds.
They queue to sign the comrades' book,
Then gaze again at Austria,
Admire the beauty of the scene:
The shimmering Danube, so wide and free,
With its currents and eddies of blood, red-brown,
Whose source is the men who are shot in the back,
Trying to swim to the Austrian side.
The children don't seem to think such thoughts,
Nor to note within their scan
The watchtowers, barbed wire, guards and guns.
Pozor! Pozor! Pozor! Do not advance another step!
Back to the concentration camp!
Devín! Proud symbol of all the Slavs…
Of peaceful co-existence...
Between all peoples...of peaceful
Co...ex...ist...ence....

The concerts in the camp are good.

Oh Rivers that divide us!
Red rivers that remind us.

(Devín Castle, International Year of Peace, 1986) 

The Czech National Poet, May 1st, 1987
(For Hugh Hamilton McGoverne, translator of 'Máj' and instigator of readings in both Czech and English at the statue of Mácha in Prague, 1946-1949)




By the statue of Mácha
Czech lovers were standing,
Sharing in silence soft moments of twilight,
Late in the evening, the first day of May.
Young couples, old couples,
Offering flowers and laying their love-wreaths,
Dandelion necklaces, daisy-chain rings,
Adorning their poet on Prague's Petřín Hill.
The blossoming trees wooed all the lovers,
The fragrant flowers breathed moist sweetness at dusk.
Like an altar of love, the disciples adoring,
Applauding their poet for the language he used:
"Květoucí strom lhal lásky žel".

Listen to KAREL HYNEK MÁCHA: THE POET OF LOVERS

Josef Jungmann’s Paradise Lost (Ztracený Ráj), 1811
(Riot Police by the Statue of Jungmann)



Let it stand -
The statue of this Joseph!
He knew what was meant
By paradise lost.

Let's be proud of our office
In Jungmannová Street,
Though British books have been long suppressed.
Just repeat after him,
Repeat after John:
        "What though the field is lost?
All is not lost......."
        "Cot', že pole ztraceno?
po všem veta není......"

Josef Jungmann, defiant Czech,
By translating John Milton revived his own tongue;
In spite of the Austrian censors' office,
In spite of censors still to come:
Courage; th' unconquerable will! 

(Background information about Jungmann's translation) 

The Singer Who Defected

The singer who defected

Is listened to in secret.

His records, seized and banned,

Are still played throughout the land,

Sometimes loudly through a window,

For the police are far too slow -

And they love his music too-

He only did what they dream to do:

And although he's gone abroad,

His voice can still be heard.

They can't reprint the catalogues

(That's not within the Plan)

So his name can still be found

Though the records have all been burned

(Or, more probably, recycled,

Like all the dollars he has earned).

He is quite a happy man.

He, at least, is loved.

Prague, August 1988.

SMRT 

I heard my own death rattle

A moment ago.

I tried to do battle

But I was too slow.

This time it's a cough.

Already enough.

Gutenberg's First Forty

(after a visit to the National Museum, Prague)

Forty printed parchment Bibles:

A giant step for Man.

For forty Bibles

Ten thousand sheep.

Does God count them in His sleep?

Vltava

The Vltava is a river

For sad painters,

Doomed lovers,

Unprotesting protest-singers,

Melancholic poets,

Regretful revolutionaries,

Compromised composers.

It succumbs to the planners

And jumpers from bridges.

We get the rivers we deserve.

1987.

ŽERT, 1986

The mosquitoes of Strážnice

Are thicker than smoke -

No wonder the singers

Keep slapping their thighs,

As dancers and fiddlers

Make sharp squeaks and cries.

The mosquitoes of Strážnice

Swarm thicker than smoke:

Socialist folk-song is seldom a joke.

The costumes are bright, the beer freely flows

But the blood that's been lost Old Jo only knows.

So listen and take note, look deep in their eyes:

Such art bears its sting - squeals of pain and surprise.

HACK

The Totalitarian Party Poet and the 1952 Show Trials

"A dog's death to a dog!"

Wrote Ivan, a National Artist now,

When they hanged an innocent man back then

(Hanged him with another ten).

"I'm a bitter friend", said scowling Ivan,

(Especially to those of another race).

He ties weights to the feet of those they've framed.

A National Disgrace.

Prague, 1987.

(NB - There is a documentary film, A Trial in Prague, Pražský proces, 2000, 58 min, 

directed by Zuzana Justmanová - but I haven't seen it). 
See also: Beseda s autorkou filmu Pražský proces Z. Justman (YouTube)

Right of Way

("All in Bohemia's Well")

Tell them, you are sure

All in Bohemia's well...

That everyone is equal here

That education is enjoyed by all

Regardless of race, of class or creed -

Except the class of '68, and of course their children,

Or of course their children's children,

Or Christians, Chartists, Gypsies, Jazzmen....

Justice too, enjoyed by all!

You're free to walk through the public woods

But not across the border.

August 21, 1988.

See also: JAZZ SECTION COLLECTION AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Black Sea: Decomposition -

Searching for loved ones at Kerch, Spring 1942.

Those Soviet war photographers

Witnessed the full horror:

Utter devastation, unbearable grief.

Dmitri Baltermants was one

Who photographed the effects of evil

And captured the stench of the squalid truth.

"War, above all, is Grief."

Loved ones lie rotting, splayed out in the mud,

Melting flesh in the melting snow,

While mothers and widows

Wail in their anguish. Unspeakable misery.

The recognised corpse. The putrid child.

Ancient agony in recent times,

Like a scene from the Greek Civil War.

The dark clouds complete the composition.

On the occasion of the opening of the Exhibition,"150 Years of Photography", Mánes Hall, Prague, 1.8.1989. 

 Grief

The photo "shows the grief of village women as they search for the bodies of their loved ones. A powerful oversaturated sky above, burnt in during the printing of the photo, makes the image even more dramatic". From Wikipedia.

November Cloud

For Peter Butter, On the Occasion of the Edwin Muir Centenary Lecture, Prague

On the way to the Writers' House -

Bohemia in mid-November -

Professor Butter, Muir's biographer,

Sat beside me in the car.

We talked of the poem called The Cloud,

Of what Muir meant, of what he'd seen.

The Dobříš Mansion had hardly altered

Since its use had changed in '45

From residence of Reich's Protector

To haven for the harrassed writer,

Reserved these days for the Party-favoured -

Those writers blessed by the Union-Reich,

The loyal-elect, the Committee-chosen,

With three books to their names at least,

Sound author's of the State's persuasion,

Rewarded by a stay at Dobříš

With stipend and a stately room;

The privilege of elegance

For the price of a cribbed, diminished soul.

Today the seminar's behind closed doors;

Young eager writers have been assembled,

They're being shown the prizes and rewards

To be won for staying in line and silent.

For the mansion of Comfort is not twenty miles

From the cancerous mines of uranium towns,

Where dissenting scribblers were sent for correction,

Příbram, seat of the Dissidents' Mines.

But we were given the royal treatment,

In Dobříš' fine reception halls.

We were glad to see the guest-book there,

The first they'd had, from forty-five.

Aragon and Eluard, their signatures were all too clear: -

Near theirs we found it, Edwin Muir's!

In '46 and '47, Edwin Muir and Willa too.

Who'd come later? Dylan Thomas, and then the usual crew,

Ritsos and Hikmet, Neruda et al

(Kundera's cursed archangels all,

Whose lyres psalmed death, praised freedom's end).

Who here remembers Edwin Muir?

Perhaps a man in a cloud of dust?

We presented two books to the lady custodian,

They were gladly accepted by the Keeper of Keys:-

Muir's poems, and prose of life in Prague.

I wonder what they'll make of them,

The comrades in their graceful suites,

Looking for honest inspiration,

Unguilded themes which suit the times,

But which won't offend the Party chiefs?

Let them read The Good Town and The Cloud.

As they stroll French Garden or English Park,

Casting backward looks and sideways glances,

As they search for the wire in the antique vase,

In rococo mirror, baroque writing-desk.

Let them remember, as they shred each draft:

The labyrinth begins right here.

Listopad, 1987.

Edwin Muir, A Scottish Poet in Prague, Radio Prague, with the text of Muir's poem The Cloud

Courtyard of Kaunic Palace, Summer 1947

Edwin Muir, far left. Dr. Arna Rides (second from thh right)

Skeletons of the Past, or A Drunken Man on Burns Night, 1959

(Variations on a Theme by Hugh MacDiarmid)

I wid ha' read ye gin I'd gane tae Scotland,

It was part o' my plan o' research

(Questions o' national identity and art).

I read ye in Prague frae time to time,

Since findin' signed volumes in a Brno library-

Ye had a Scottish friend who aince taught English there.

They say ye visited this lovely country too,

An Ambassador like Sidney, but o' sicna different hue...

Your books can be bocht in Budapest, och aye,

But no' in Prague, nae no' in bonnie Czecho.

Is it true, ye got drunk on Burns Night, Hugh,

Blin' fou' on his Bicentenary?

An honoured guest like you!

A 'comrade' in this country.

But it's a God-damn'd lie, Christopher, Chris or Hughie MacHugh -

The system and maist of what's published and written.

How do ye account for that? Wi' yet another hymn ?

Did they quote ye in factories, in fields and in streets?

It's nae use preachin' tae the forcibly converted.

There are some elements o' truth, i' spite of the lies,

But the crude propaganda never dies, ne'er dies.

Jamey Macpherson had mair influence here than you; that's true -

D'ye ken that, 'comrade'?

I canna see eternal lightning, Hugh,

Just bones in graves, just bones, wee bones.

Note: Hugh MacDiarmid visited Prague in 1955 as a guest of the Spartakiad, and again in 1959, to give the Bicentennial Lecture celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. He was as much interested in the beer-houses as he was in the political and cultural life of Prague, according to a recently-published History of English Literature.

From Second Hymn to Lenin

The Skeleton of the Future 

(At Lenin’s Tomb)

Red granite and black diorite, with the blue

                    Of the labradorite crystals gleaming like precious stones

                 In the light reflected from the snow; and behind them 

The eternal lightning of Lenin's bones.

Stavrula's Father

“For young Stavrula’s smile, for whom
Greece fades out in a smoke of trees,
For her return to mulberries
And hiving bees, her coming-home,
    I sing a song of peace.”

(From Song of Peace by Vítězslav Nezval,
Translated by Jack Lindsay and Stephen Jolly).


He became a Communist
In Metaxas' time.
He never changed his mind.
Then came the Nazis; more tortured friends.
Whole villages burned, murders and reprisals.
The Civil War they fought and lost.
He retreated over the border.
But Tito's path was not his own;
He went further North, to the land of Gottwald.
He was given work and welcomed there.
Unswervingly pro-Moscow,
Even after '68; he never wavered once.
He dreamed of Greece,
Even after years in jail,
A politico in Corfu....
But he missed the fruit,
Water-melons most of all.
One day the Czechs imported some -
A Bulgarian lorry brought them in,
Twenty-five he bought at once,
Kept them on his balcony,
In spite of the dust from the smoke and coal.
Every visitor was handed one:
"Páre karpoúzi, síntrofe!"
He sunk his teeth into the cold, sweet flesh,
The crisp red juice of memory,
The gush of juices, the life he'd lost.
He devoured it with passion,
Swallowed the black seeds of exile,
Gulped them down greedily.
Black seeds. Red melon.
He was refuse everywhere. Unwanted rind.
Unable to leave the mines of Ostrava,
Forbidden to set foot back in Greece,
His lungs and nostrils filled with coaldust.
When he died, far from the sea,
His only daughter changed her mind.

Stavrula smiled, and learned to sing.

The Giants

 “Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer

Only a change of evils, it must be

Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe.”

Schiller, “The Piccolomini”, translated by S.T.Coleridge.

Two giants adorn the Castle Gates,

One about to kill with club,

The other poised to stab with dagger.

They terrorise the wretched Czechs.

Friend is foe and foe is friend.

Who will free Bohemia?

Tonight I heard five thousand chant:

“Russové jdete domu! My chceme svobodu!”

“Russians go home! We want Freedom!”

Freedom! Freedom! To the Castle!

Forward! To the Castle Gates!

They’ve had enough of Supergiants.

August 21, 1988

Die Spätbürgerliche Lyrik

“He wrote in the style

Of the Late-Bourgeois Lyric”,

So the East German critics would have it.

I say he belonged to the birth of the new,

The Early-Post-Marxist Renaissance.

První Máj (Mayday)

The first of May, in Líšnice.

Anyone for golf or tennis?

Czechs potter about in weekend-gardens.

Everything blossoms:

Only the flowers are on parade.

The Danube (On Ister Bank)

I strolled on the riverbank in Budapest

And thought of poets in Vienna.

Beside the Danube in Bratislava

I sat and gazed again downstream.

The same river flows through towns, through time,

A flood of poetry and music.

Customs men may seek to seize it,

Guards on watchtowers can try to kill it.

Though violent death may intervene

It finds its way

To freedom’s blood-stained sea.

Arbeit Macht Frei

Grandfather Čech stands upon Říp

Surveying the landscape around him.

Something is troubling him,

A horror foreseen-

The fortress and ghetto

Of dread Terezín.

Now children of Čech

Look up at Říp:

A helmet filled with blood-stained earth,

An upturned urn

Of ashes.

Albert Camus Visits Prague, 1936

(Collage in parallel text, from “La Mort dans l’âme”, with acknowledgements to Camus’s words and phrases and the translations by Philip Thody)

“Stripped bare….sans parure…

Unadorned reality… realité sans décor

What does it mean? Qu’est-ce que ça signifie?

Floundering…Je me débattais…

-A bottomless pit…une crevasse sans fond…

I could not breathe between the walls... J’étouffais entre les murs….

Iron in the soul... La mort dans l’âme…

Anguish and despair...Angoisse et désespoir…

Give me a land that fits my soul…Donnez-moi une terre faite à mon âme.


See also: Le séjour de Camus à Prague

To Some British Poets Leaving Prague, 1989

Whom are we writing off today?

I’ll leave you time to plot and gossip,

But you won’t mind if I chance to listen….

“He’s off the boil, no more to say.”

“A good performer once, that one,

A pity that he gabbles.”

“Professionally nice”, the other-

“He’s going to get it in the TLS,

It’s rather sad he’s got so flabby!”

“It may be an extra-literary concern,

But he’s a real turd, the way he left his wife.”

“How’s it possible, not to make WHO’S WHO?”

“I’m nauseated by all those worthless entries,

I have to face that pile of rejects;

Yet another awful competition,

Which, yes, I am well-paid to judge.”

She’s freelance, female,

Banished to the smokers’ seats.

Last Christmas in Prague

(Kaprová Koleda)

I’d like to write a Christmas poem,

Or, better still, a carol.

Dujdaj,dujdaj,dujdaj da!

“The carp in their tanks,

The tanks in the squares,

The squares in the cities,

The cities in chains.”

Veselme se? Radujme se?

A dying fall of Ryba.

1988.

The Fall of the Wall, 1989 (Begrüßungsgeld)

I was in East Berlin

The day the Wall came down,

When the deprived poor people

Of the GDR

Were given West Marks

To go across

To see the shops.

They came back bemused

(for forty years had they lived a lie?),

Proudly bearing

Plastic bags:

I saw LPs, LPs, LPs, LPs.

They’d exchanged their cash

For Johnny Cash.

Back in Prague

Czechs rattled keys

To usher in

Free World CDs.

See also:

30th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution

With Bohumil Hrabal in my Prague Apartment

Ten Years Later:

"Look! We have come through!"

Podivejte! Dokázali jsme to!

D. H. Lawrence owes me one!

I was so glad that I was able to lend Pavel Šrut (3 April 1940 – 20 April 2018) my copy of the complete poems of D.H..Lawrence, in 1988, when it was otherwise unobtainable in the country. A poet himself, Pavel did a splendid job of translating Lawrence's poems, which were published shortly after the Velvet Revolution, in 1990.

"Look! We have come through!"

"Podivejte! Dokázali jsme to!".