i.m. Ivan Blatn\u00fd<\/p>\n
While outside spring is warming up the land,
\nyou\u2019re sitting here with me in this caf\u00e9,
\na little chilly, as you\u2019ve slept in clay
\nso long, a little tremor in the hand,<\/p>\n
but otherwise you\u2019re fine as you take in
\nthe place you left some eighty years ago.
\nThere isn\u2019t much new stuff for you to know.
\nMainly the ghosts will wonder how you\u2019ve been,<\/p>\n
orphaned so young and raised by your grandmother,
\nthen orphaned by your home town when you left
\nfor England, forever afterwards bereft,
\nhaving exchanged one country for another.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the spring is waking up the weeds
\nin pavement cracks and cobbles on the square
\nof nineteenth-century apartment buildings where
\nyou lived; it\u2019s waking up at different speeds<\/p>\n
the flowers and leaves of alder, birch and ash
\nalong the city\u2019s rail embankments; waking
\ngreen from the ground beside gasholders\u2019 flaking
\npaint and gorgeous rust: a flame, a flash<\/p>\n
that sets the place alight. Winter\u2019s done for,
\nand heat brings looseness to the limbs around us.
\nLet\u2019s order now: the inked waiter has found us
\nlike two Braun statues on a factory floor.<\/p>\n
The postindustrial caf\u00e9\u2019s filled with the young
\nin one another\u2019s arms, offline or on.
\nWelcome back to all this! While you were gone
\nit more or less continued, but unsung<\/p>\n
so well as you sang it. What have the years
\nleft of you here? Or left of anyone?
\nLet\u2019s go and see. Here\u2019s Brno in the sun \u2013
\nthe city\u2019s full of hints and souvenirs.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll borrow skateboards, see if we can\u2019t find
\nthe old addresses by the new signposts
\nand stop for tea with both your parents\u2019 ghosts:
\nthey\u2019ll cry and hug you, a child so shy and kind.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was standing on the corner of Stroupe\u017enick\u00fd St, my back to the synagogue, looking at a tree full of all the dust of August, and past the tree to the crossroads at Angel, and past the crossroads to Plze\u0148 St, and past Plze\u0148 St to Palack\u00fd Bridge. The evening was still a long way off, the sun was scorching my back and the hot air shimmered everywhere. In my pocket I had a pile of cash for working overtime on Soviet hopper cars.<\/em> I\u2019m watching you from Starbucks across the street, the street that\u2019s only seventy years wide English, Russian: you spent your life between them. The Java Chip frapp\u00e9 still in my hand, flophouse and rowdy tearoom all in one. Sk\u00f8g Urban Hub Elegy i.m. Ivan Blatn\u00fd While outside spring is warming up the land, you\u2019re sitting here with me in this caf\u00e9, a little chilly, as you\u2019ve slept in clay so long, a little tremor in the hand, but otherwise you\u2019re fine as you take in the place you left some eighty years ago. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[351,353],"tags":[355],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n \u2013 Jan Z\u00e1brana, \u201cA Pile of Cash\u201d<\/p>\n
\nYou\u2019ve got a pile of cash and you seem happy.
\nWho would have thought a Java Chip frapp\u00e9
\nwould lie there hoving in the narrow strait,<\/p>\n
\nthat lies between us? Trams glide past as well
\nlike alternating current, stopping a while
\nto make crowds surge and ebb on either side.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll die in falsified history,\u201d you said.
\nMy friend, where else is there to die? The dead
\nstack best in fake news or a national anthem.<\/p>\n
\nI leave and follow you across the river
\nwhere there\u2019s a dreadful shithole you revere,
\na kind of pub plus brothel, hotdog stand,<\/p>\n
\nYou\u2019re happy still and there\u2019s that pile of cash
\nstill in your pocket. The last of the sunrays flash
\nacross the river. Now for the night\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"