In unison of spires uprearing - Jan Křesadlo

In unison of spires uprearing

Below, the River's low pedal bass

To some she tastes of wine, light, cheering

To some of bile, and vinegar, base.

What use is her beauty, overcast,

When my soul deadens, will not lift?

Into the cold I'll go, snow's drift,

Spurning the communal flesh-pots; fast.

What use can be her masonry,

Blessings that centuries have given,

The hills dressed sweet in greenery,

And blossoms reborn with each spring day,

And erotic words in fluffed-up play?

By such, invaders won't be driven.

---

Jan Křesadlo [Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava] (1926 – 1995) Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) (lived in UK after 1968)

Translated by Václav Z. J. Pinkava

Source: Babel Web Anthology

The translator of this poem is the poet's son. He provided this information:  

This is the final sonnet of a whole sonnet cycle, a sonnet crown, in fact - the fifteenth, closing poem.

It was written as an emigre polemic with the sonnet cycle by Nobel laureate Jaroslav Seifert, which my father and my sister translated: see this site.

The cycle is available in full, here.