Our friend and collaborator Martin Nawrath (born 1968) published his first work of poetry last year in the Brno publishing house Druhé město – Martin Reiner Meeting. The collection contains more than sixty poems, accompanied by delicate ink illustrations by the painter Jan Pražan; I have selected a total of twelve poems from it as a sample for the PILGRIM website. The themes of Martin's poetry are the fragile beauty of the world, the fascination with its transience and constant transformation, connected with the question "what will remain"; as well as the heaviness and mystery of the pain we go through in life and also that suspected other side of the world, that "mystery greater than the world". For Martin, poetry is one of the tools for finding the meaning of life, a search for who I am, who we are and where we are heading as humanity today. He suspects that we are living in a time of great transformation and wants to listen to the signs of the times and be a guide to these changes as a therapist, as a facilitator and lecturer, and as a poet. He writes: "Everything hurts me, / that was supposed to be born, / but did not find its midwife, / hands to catch, / a shoulder to support." He wants to help the birth of this newness in himself and in the world. For more about his work, see: www.martin-nawrath.cz
George Zemanek
Hind
Hurry, my dear, put on your royal hat. Hurry, mount your horse, the lord of the forest is calling you. Hurry along the deer path, my dear, don't get lost in the forest. Be quiet, tread carefully, absorb the scent of his tracks, catch him with your serpentine strength! Without a weapon, he falls, he falls silent, he is almost not breathing, you can see right through his eyes, you see the doe there, you see yourself there. You are both afraid for your lives. Take off your royal skin. Embrace him. Stay. Before your eyes go out.
Proximity
Drops and drops in a sea of pain.
Stone by stone in the spark of love.
Nothing until morning
I went out with my dog. So that his barking in response to dogs and roosters would remind the world of the world.
What remains
Images of love, of touches that still freeze in the body. Images of pain, of moments that cut and burn.
Images of a meeting when the sky opened.
What will remain in your fading eyes. What will remain in the frames of your body.
Gravitation
Surround me! Surround me, fortress of stone! I will breathe you in, I will melt you with a leaf of flame.
Alchemist
How rich will I be, the greatest of alchemists. When the golden rain has rained and dried by the stream.
River Dream
Just above the water, above the unchanging current of change, The haze of reality drawn by the sun, the dream of the river.
Anxiety
Anxiety is clearing space inside your head. Anxiety is wheezing for words you'll never say. Anxiety is the shot of your lungs from your chest. Anxiety is a double in your belly that you didn't give birth to.
Anxiety is the pleasure of a connection that will never let go. Anxiety is the ground of one's own steps. Anxiety is the day of rising trembling. Anxiety is the slit for the daylight.
Anxiety is a tight space for the gusts of the spirit. Anxiety is blood that must flow from crowded veins. Anxiety is a body bigger than you are. Anxiety is the Porta coeli.
Infinite ifs
If what I hear in the silence of the night could seep into the earth and grow, blossom, and ripen. With my roots I would intertwine with You and with You, with the end and the beginning of the world.
My stomach hurts.
I ache for everything that was supposed to be born but couldn't find its midwife, hands to hold, shoulder to support.
My whole woman inside hurts to death.
Can't sleep. Can't write.
Just breathing in an abandoned hall. Breathing into hot water.
Breathe deeply.
Currents of days
It disappears into the darkness with knees nailed to the Earth.
They run down the bed into the cold depths of the room.
It turns into ink written on a pillow.
The kisses of wounded lips are soaked in.
It disappears like a waterfall trapped in the womb.
It fits into the words of your silent song.
They color the wine of your life red.
Morning
A morning when verses lie along the paths. Not yet spoken, warming to wake up and hidden in the shadows for the one who sits down.
