Mouths full of smoke
in a tavern on Gottwald embankment.
The future, so said, isn’t what it
used to be. The tribe seated in
darkness, bemoaning its history.
You imagine a snake-dancer
winding her hips across the floor
& every groin in the room is suddenly
an ego psychology, wanting its
secret coaxed out. Who remembers
the abandoned show trial of
Meister Eckart? Outside, the river
hisses over the weirs – awaiting news
of no coming revolt. Sparta
in two thousand years, wld be the same.
Who was Ludvík Zifčák? We look
to proximate horizons. The megaliths
of Strahov seated in judgement –
a hammer, a handle, a hand, a mask.
Each alone anxious conspirators
measure the night.