Jáchym Topol - City, Sister, Silver

One had photos I guess from some movie. Showed a kid standing there with a T-shirt on that said “Give me freedom or give me death.” He was facing down a tank. Two meters away. Surrounded by pagodas with dragons all over em, some square, probly Asia. From the blur of the tank, the motion, it was obvious the crew’d made up their minds, the kid was gettin the latter. It got to me for a minute. Ah, it’s just a movie, I waved it off.

The ads and photos got me going … I even recalled that first appointment with Micka, at the Tchibo coffee shop, I know a lot of ordinary stuff happened to people close to me that day. Like always. I added one more exercise to my routine, preserving words and sentences, writing them under each other. Sometimes they were connected. But the point was that it gave me material for my dreams, I didn’t have to fumble around in my memory anymore … in that cellar of mine, I had it down on paper.

I filled in empty spaces on magazine pages, the ones where there weren’t photos. Got a ballpoint pen from Stick for my Mickey M. T-shirt, the one from the Mission. There were plenty of threads around. Plus Stick had a thing for Mickey. On the side of the pen was some ballerina or dancer, when you turned it upside down her skirt came off … Stick told me he used to masturbate to it, then it got old and he found some porn.

While I wrote I thought a lot about Sister and the attic. This is my Firewater, I’d think to myself as I braked time with my writing, making it mine alone … it was like a drug.

I tried to give a name to what mattered to me. It would exist more then, I felt. Even if just in my memory. What I’d lost. That was all I lived for anyway. It didn’t seem right to avoid cruelty and hunger.

Hey, Bog, it’s mine … I’ve got it in my coat pocket. You need yellow wind, people as they are, pigeons that peck meat, you’ve got Jasuda an pits, cold rain an barbwire, I guess that’s what makes the world go round, fine, I’ve got my time grenades, the worst they can do is blow my head off. These were the tales I put in my pocket:

Old Words

Today he sleeps under his dream can’t bear it anymore. He’s afraid

of truck wheels mounds of gravel animals the knife sickness.

But he’s in her he’s with her

they’re together they’ll protect each other.

Strong feelings. And he’s battling in the arena

for his grandpas in the crematorium too.

It was B. that dragged em out on the ramp.

How did it happen? Were they too weak?

Let me be a Hun be a Devil-killer

he says to himself.

Sometime later Sister lifts herself up on her elbows

and says: Hey it’s light out!

And it is. It’s day, night is done. That’s the thing

anyone can see.

A day with people like any other and if it’s summer

something’s growing. It’s January

and still the same old dirty

street of whores. Trade. That’s all there is here now.

And maybe the whole city’ll change in the night

like a brain written off by a dose.

Just to be safe he’s relearning

quickly the old words of love.

Firewater

My sister is Firewater

I tell her: honey

she tells me: tenderness

and we tell each other: I love you.

And we drink Firewater.

Today the moon protects me from danger

at the head of my sister.

I’ll swim in the water

in the power of fire till morning I get up

and clear out

through the dark hallway by memory down from the top floor.

My sister is Firewater

she’s got messy hair and in the morning she says: go to work

I think: I take what I want and give what I can

and we tell each other: I love you.

The moon blazes and the two of us’re here in the Firewater night

skin on skin. And everything

is important. Sister. Now, at night.

You’re next to me in my dream

and after. Sound of breathing and touch of a fingernail

to the rhythm of blood in my brain. You.

Be with me. Closer still. My Firewater.

“Now go in peace”

the man in the cassock told the crowd

of Christmas people below.

Now I can see you every night.

I saw the words: Freedom or death.

I made them up. They’re Sister’s.

& the Ghost strode up the stairs toward me

I got a cramp in the elevator down

in my guts.

I’m thoroughly awed

brother

life.

Hey- I say

An my life’s like ABC. I don’t do a thing

I organize verbal matter

just what my cells tell me.

Singed brain.

My mafia.

I said: freedom or death.

I wanted and searched. And now I know they’re Sister’s.

I sleep with em. In the same flat. In this smallish sorta room.

He’s There

I slash my back

so I’ll know that it’s me.

If it hurts he’s not an actor

stride altered by band-aids.

On the riverbank were trees

dampness settling into their tops

now there’s just a hole.

Is this still the same city the walls

and streets my turf? Would I tell

him myself the child Hi Take care Good night

pass him by standing there

key around his neck in a raggedy sweater

with a puppy? Would I bring him home? Or

is that brat still there?

An are pedestrians passin him by? Nasty faces? Yes.

He’s still standin there and he’s alone. He’s lost. His feet burning

over and over through that same that one that fiendish block of asphalt.

Into the City

On a sleepless night

sometimes faces swim in the dark

here and there one pops out

someone you used to know.

Then they all disappear with the morning trams.

Every madman knows how that is.

So tonight again in this home

full of Czechs in their in our

very own genuine state.

I guess it’s better than bombing

definitely.

Sleep you don’t gotta die you do you say to yourself it says softly

into your brain. But even that isn’t for sure.

Shadows shift slowly along the walls and the moon’s been there

for hours now. It’s like past lives.

If you went into the city

you would feel it with all its shards.

That can be managed.

Here and there in the wind

a trash can creaks like a living thing.

Another Story

I felt

the friction of the future

and in your face my own one, love.

Fate, its weight. Waves of life

true happiness etc.

B-o-g willing

before the year is out I’ll be an averagely agile businessman

dealing in used cars

that’re fast as an eagle

as a pig

as someone else.

A guy’s gotta live off something

if he wants to.

I’m also someone else.

I put my head on your arm

a little big but it was her.

Then I met my double he finished

my sentences the city was warming B.’s dead for you Brother

went away and at 7 a.m. the day caught my woman

at a fire drill tuning up

a hellish band

played to please all and the important appointment was

at 2 p.m. in the Tchibo coffee shop

but that’s another story.

Me, for Me and B. and Defense

For me he’s changed into B.

I call him Bog and hey Bog and think of hearts and of skin.

Someone was casually kissing caressing thinking of nothing

and someone was walking alone into a tunnel of corpses

B.’s all I’ve got now

and some words aren’t at all pretty.

Dreams can be horrible someone screams and he’s there

in a bayonet dream and some live their lives and they’re totally theirs.

Some things you watch with your eyes find out

from others some things

are already written down. It’s obvious.

You’ve gotta believe a little in all of it.