cinaed

(It's probably bad that I automatically think of Zelenka whenever I see something about Prague, huh? *grins*)

THIS THING CALLED PRAGUE

This thing called Prague is a magic mirror.
I look,
and it shows me in my twenties,
I am like leaping.
I'm like thirty-two healthy teeth,
         and the world is a walnut.
But I want nothing for myself, except
to touch the fingers of the girl I love--
   they hold the greatest secret of the world.
My hands break more bread for my friends
         than for myself.
I kiss all the eyes with trachoma
   in the villages of Anatolia.
Somewhere in the world I fall,
   a martyr to the world revolution.
They pass my heart
   on a velvet cushion
      like a Medal of the Red Flag.
The band plays a funeral march.
We bury our dead in the earth
         under a wall
         like fertile seeds.
And on the earth our songs
      aren't Turkish or Russian or English
                  but just songs.
Lenin lies sick in a snowy forest:
brows knitted, he thinks of certain people,
stares into the white darkness,
        and sees the days to come.
I am like leaping.
I'm like thirty-two healthy teeth,
         and the world is a walnut
            with a steel shell
               but full of good news.
This thing called Prague is a magic mirror.
I look again,
and it shows me on my deathbed.
Arms stretched out at my sides,
sweat beads on my forehead like drops of wax.
The wallpaper is green.
The sooty rooftops of the big city
out the window aren't Istanbul's.
My eyes are still open
--no one's closed them--
and nobody knows yet.
Bend down,
look into my pupils:
you'll see a young woman
waiting alone at a rainy bus stop.
Close my eyes,
   comrade, and leave the room
                  on tiptoe.