When I woke up
The sky was on fire
A red and orange blaze
That consumed the leafless treetops
Emitting a purple hazy smoke
That turned the world around me blue and grey and pink.

When I woke up
My world was on fire
An invisible inner blaze
Feeding from the oxygen in my lungs
Clouding my mind with hazy smoke
Pictures of you in dresses that were blue and yellow and pink.

As I go to sleep
My sky is black as endless night
Stiff, ashy remains make everything look ancient
Like they are covered in a century of ash as dark as grey
Here my pictures of you are dull and out of focus
And I am far, far away from our world of blue and green and pink.

The children of inconsequence
Ah to be so carefree
Spontaneity running through their blood
as quickly as the dollar and dime alcohol
that they consume nightly.

The children of inconsequence
They do not run from their shadows –
Their shadows run from them
Delighting in the light
Of their fluorescent, radioactive spirit.

The children
Breathing in the thick vanilla air
Running to who knows where
With two feet on the ground
They never stop moving.

Inconsequence
They need no belts
They will wear dresses
And drawstring flannel pants
They know they will not fall.

All Clara wanted was clarity.
She wanted to be lifted from
this oppressive closedness of
all of those around her. She
felt free but only to herself
because she shoveled the joy
and passion and life that grew
inside her vigorously out into
the world. But with no one to
pick it up, to reciprocate her
joy and openness, she withered.
She never stopped until she
had shoveled it all from inside
her, and was left with an empty
vessel, no one to refill it with
their own. No mountains to
grow inside her, no rushing
river to fill her to the brim with
vitality, no seedling aspens to
sprout along her inner banks.
She felt utterly barren inside.
She felt weak from empty, faint.
Everything in her world seemed
fuzzy.

We were kids again in the dark,
Standing on a hill and looking at the lights of the city;
Shining pin ****** are easily digestible when the magnitude of the world gets you down.
Infinity begins where the sky is darkest,
and the stars, unmarred by light, shine in brilliant multitude.
Breaths of cherry smoke and drying straw
Are still invisible in the uncharacteristic warmth of a night in October.
What kind of pictures would you draw
If you could pick the stars from the sky and rearrange their order?
What kind of constellations would we make if we dove into night’s great infinity
And shone like city lights glimmering against the velvet blackness of it all?

It looks like the entire city is on fire.
Black statues on the Charles Bridge
like charred remains from the blaze coming off the shining roof of the National Theatre.

And you might be able to picture it
when I say gothic towers glow like points of flame,
But you really have to go yourself to see what I mean when I say
there's a wind tunnel running from the Florenc metro station to Naměstí Republiky
that catches in it a gust of a thousand people in shades of red and black and gold.

If you are in the right place at the right time,
you can see the moment the streets lamps all light up in unison
by some command of the darkening sky
And suddenly everything is picturesque, even if you don’t know what that means.

Your favorite park might be the popular place for adolescent delinquency
but that doesn’t change the way the light from the setting sun
turns the Vltava into melted gold.

David Černy’s fluorescent ******* signals to the world
That here in Prague the world’s on fire.

A keen observer looks upon the world with infant eyes
To notice how the hinges carved from wood fit into one another like a shoulder joint,
And the cracks in the wood give way to tiny, yellow flowers.

Co děláš Hugo?

What are you doing?
He puts the knife in his mouth without fear.
The cool metal sooths his teething gums.

Co vidíš?

What do you see?
A baby’s laughter is the most contagious sound.
And the way he pets the dog you’d think he didn’t know the different between friend and brother.

Kde jdeš Hugo?

Where are you going?
The world is a beautiful, amazing place,
On hands and knees the kitchen looks like castles and peaks of mountains.

Co je Hugo?

What is it?
I don’t know if he is crying because he fell or because we picked him up.
A piece of bread lies undiscovered on the ground.

And as soon as it started, it stopped.
There is too much world to waste a minute on salty tears.

I am on a shelf.

I am in a jar
     many jars
     my heart and brain and stomach are stored
     apart like ancient Egyptian princes
     preserved for burial.
I can put my heart in one place,
     and bury my body in another.
I can split my consciousness into a thousand little tchotkes
     preserved in piles of papers
     and colorful leaves picked up on a breezy autumn day.
I am a jar of flour
    and a ceramic bowl of honey
    with a little wooden spoon to scoop me out.

In this little wooden farmhouse, the shelves are filled with memories.
Leave a piece of me on the shelf here;
    Tuck me in between photographs
    and baby teeth.
Let part of me rest in the peace of Polička.