Martin Svoboda

“But when you are older, nothing you did when you were young matters at all. I know that now, though I didn't know it then. We were simply young.”

“THE ODIUM
Did you know,
that lack of touch
sometimes hurts more
than a strike?”

“A CARE
Your shadow –
Looks nothing like you
She said passing me by
I pass her by with no regrets
My shadow is my care –
I said

I’m of Darkness –
And Darkness is of me
If you know the place –
where it comes from?
She looked over her shoulder
Only a man She said
Only man – all over the place
wanders along his own steps”

“A SPRING
Long stalks of rain
are growing from the skies
down towards ash-black soil,
softer than deer hearts
frozen in concentration
at river banks

Everything that is not here
lies beyond these waters – more effusive
than a fisherman’s song,
when come evening time
they sail back to theirs rocky homes
settled at Shannon’s ridges
winding like a maggot in a downpour
and greener still
than eyes of women
that bear the same name”

“"SINN"
We are the anthems, trumpets
long-maned waves and roaring seas
we are the heavy columns of clouds
and eager sharp granite fangs

we are the yellow sands
that marble moon, grey dust
a stone’s shadow as hard as tears
of river streams and famine time

we boundless days, empty nights
blood on the threshold, iris of guns
hangman's ropes and trenches –
of gaping hollow graves”

“1916
Let us lift the fallen!
Because who else – who else than we
would summon them like autumn leafs
when time will shake the bells of our dreams
a “Foggy dew”

And once the time runs out
for everything and nothing at all
with a triumphant song on our lips
we shall wage war on the entire world!”

“HERE
above Dublin
below a skyline aflame
with white dwarfs’ blazing fires
a hushed town
gazes into the distance
and wanes like an agate stone
that sleeps amongst sharp reeds
in cloudy waters of the ford
longing for its soul.”

“ÉIRE (translation)
If I were the alpha and omega all at once
I could not love you more than now
Immature motherland of stray illusions
I'm grateful to feel your soil
and quench my thirst on your rivers”

“Being photographed does not make a man a good writer. It doesn't make a man anything.”

“Giovanni hadn't lied. Sagra was a Baroque wonder, an unlikely and disturbing collision between Nature and Arts.”

“When you fight – fight to win.”

“Don't allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it”

“Don't take public opinion for granted – but don't either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause”

“Don't fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies”

“Political backwardness is a mental activity that works outside the logic of rationality. It turns the national thought into my party and the authority of the institution to the institution of power.”

“One of the meanings of democracy is the criticism of political parties, not the homeland… the homeland for all, and the parties for power.”

“It’s not easy. But it’s simple.”

“I’m just a speck of sand in the desert of time.”

“Maturity is knowing that you need to give up things today for greater gains tomorrow.”