Quiet Moment

By Tereza Riedlbauchová (tr. Stephan Delbos)

Quiet Moment

I walk my naked body through huge rooms
warmed and displaying itself to mirrors and glass
and no stranger has occupied it
I breathe on the paws of my tigers and wolves
they have fallen asleep and don’t tempt me away
an assigned role stays outside the door
I am growing with Klimt and Mucha into daisies
may the arriving glazier encase the whole entrance

—Tereza Riedlbauchová (from Paris Notebook, 2013)

Chvíle ticha

Procházím své nahé tělo po rozlehlých místnostech
rozehřáté se vystavuje zrcadlům a sklům
a neobydlel ho žádný cizinec
dýchám do tlap svým tygrům a vlkům
na chvíli usnuli a nelákají mě na cesty
přidělené role zůstaly stát za dveřmi
zarůstám s Klimtem a Muchou do kopretin
ať přicházející sklenář zasklí celý vchod

—Tereza Riedlbauchová (from Paris Notebook, 2013)

 

tereza1Tereza Riedlbauchová is a poet, publisher and the deputy director of the Museum of Czech Literature. She is the founder of Literární salon, a publishing house which focuses on the work of beginning poets and has produced twenty-two titles since 2007. Her publications include the poetry collections Blue Apples (2000), Great Biskupov Night (2005), Don Vitor Playing and Other Poems (2009), Paris Notebook (2013) and the lyric poem The Image of the Weeping Virgin (2002). A translation of Great Biskupov Night was published in Bulgaria in 2011. Her poems have appeared – in French, Spanish, English, Bulgarian and Polish – in many magazines and anthologies in the Czech Republic and abroad. She has taken part in international festivals of poetry in Canada, France, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

stephan-delbosStephan Delbos is a New England-born writer who lives in Prague, where he teaches at Anglo-American University and Charles University and edits the web journal B O D Y. His poetry, essays and translations have appeared most recently in Agni Online, Atlanta Review, BlazeVOX, Fourteen Hills, The Istanbul Review, New Letters, and Zoland Poetry. He is the editor of From a Terrace in Prague: A Prague Poetry Anthology (Litteraria Pragensia, 2011). His play “Chetty’s Lullaby,” about the life of trumpet legend Chet Baker, has been produced in New York and San Francisco. He is currently translating the collection The Absolute Gravedigger, by Czech poet Vítězslav Nezval, which is scheduled for publication by Twisted Spoon Press in 2015.

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