Phil Shoenfelt and Kateřina Pinosová

The following poems are taken from MAGDALENA, a collaborative work in progress by Phil Shoenfelt and Kateřina Pinosová, a member of the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists. The book is a poetic-erotic meditation on the dark, obsessive side of sexuality, and on the magical-erotic nature of Prague itself. It takes the form of a series of poems, letters, short stories and incantations passed back and forth between two imaginary lovers.

A LETTER (1)

Dear,
I offer you my ribs on a shining fist
I offer you my eyes on stalks of running mucus
I saw you in the yard yesterday
You were fucking one of my friends in a doorway
Is this the means you choose to get closer to me?
To run your intestines
through my fingers is my ultimate desire –
those butterflies
we pinned to the sky
are only a prelude
to more intimate caresses
I sometimes feel so high when I watch
your head from the roof of the house where
the snake-tailed witch flies on leathery wings through
the moon which is a window…
Come – my fingers are stars
They’ll warm and strangle your heart
So you’ll never go away again
Come now – I’m ready to receive you
Why did you only stare at me
behind the gate
behind my window
behind the bars
stained with sweat?
I offer you the way, how to…
Ah, but these instructions decimate me –
Am I just a newt’s tail
beating like a heart
on the end of a pin
or does my excrement truly excite you?
Yours, in torture, truly…

When the dusk comes
I unfold my wings
And unpack my trunk of whispers
I jump between chimneys
And fly from roof to roof
With my tail of stars strung out behind me
At midnight I trail my fingers
Through the sleepy rows of swans
On the rivershore
It’s easy for me to change my shape
And flow like smoke
Through keyholes and cracked bedroom windows
Can’t you hear me whispering
In your dreams, sir?
So it will continue
Until the dawn’s
Spreading cheeks of crimson
Check the cat’s progress under the eaves
But my alcoholic self
Is a mirror of chains
Run through with pewling brats
That cluster in shadows
And ruin the ectoplasmic curtain
At such times I have to be careful
I chant on cement stairs
Calling out for the wrecks
Of shivering revolutionaries
I follow a circuitous route
Down soot-blackened chimneys
Into the calm asylum wards
Of the suburbs
There I’m safe –
Just another harmless lunatic –
A broken wing
A foot to climb the winding stairs
When your diamonds fall in flakes
I lay these jewels on
A pig’s snout
And go beachcombing
To find my theory
But your calm demeanour
Betrays you, sir –
Under certain conditions
The atmosphere congeals
And all your attempts to embellish
Will be thwarted at the turn
One, two, three barrels of silver
I have in my possession now
A fitting dowry
For a bride like me…
So let’s go fishing again
My dear sister swans
The night is dark
But the moon is in the right position…