From Magor's Birds, 1986

I wanted to have another beer

with someone,

I turned away from my typewriter and discovered

I was alone

as if I were lonely.

Little loves, my birds,

alight on my shoulders,

seat yourselves on the keys of my typewriter,

those you choose to sit upon

I will carefully avoid.

Fly to me, little loves, birds!

With people I can't... You know that.

Fly to me, I'll legato

the clucking of my fingers

on the keyboard

I'll decrease the frequency of the hits

I'll slow down the quick tap of my heart

I'll drop my manic-mindedness, my little loves, birds.

--

[Ivan Martin Jirous, also known as Magor, as born 23.9.1944 in Humpolec, Czechoslovakia. Before the November Revolution he was one of Czechoslovakia's most famous prisoners of conscience. Jirous was a founding member of the band Plastic People of the Universe. It was the arrest of the Plastics that prompted Vaclav Havel to form Charter 77. Jirous was a leading figure of the Czech underground, establishing the leading underground magazine VOKNO. His activities earnt him several prison sentences. His verse has so far (this note was written in 1991, ed.) been published mostly in samizdat, the only exception being Magor's Swansong, Muunchen, 1985. This year another collection of his poems Magor to Children is going to be published by the Czech publishing house, Inverze.]