Currently viewing: John Webber »Poetry

Below you can find some quick links to some of my writing and other interesting places.

Poetry

Kafka's Guide to Prague

So many come to find me now;
with covered heads they walk
through the huge Jewish spread
of death, no longer crammed
in our quarter.
Some come alone
to photograph my grave,
place pebbles on my bones;
others with their guides
reflect on my grim Castle
so unlike the one
they've seen across the river.

No clues on my headstone,
they usually turn to my old friend Max
for answers.
He went against my wishes,
or at least my will,
published my fearful books,
told anyone who cared to listen
who he thought I was.
Thanks to his bold actions
both of us rest with a legacy.

All I wanted was to write;
my diary saw me through the many things
that haunted in my head.
My father's soulless business,
the walks through the brothel-cold streets,
the torturing relationships,
all were written.
But in a thousand night times
the journeys through my literature were made.
I could not sleep for the heat
in my head and my body,
as though Palach's fire
first ignited its flame in me.

I did not see my writing as a vision
or a literature;
no beauty, so bleak,
like Prague in the winter
but without the beauty.
That was my life, and like the insect
reviled, tolerated, then rejected;
all was set in a creeping bureaucracy
enacted by nameless faces on faceless names
in buildings of mindless mystery.

Go to the old town, soak up the history,
stand on the Karlsbrucke, take in the castle,
go to Wenzelplatz, look at bad King Vaclav,
have a MacDonalds, digest the tragedy.
Take a tram along Jindrisska,
up the hill through Zizkov to Olsanka.
cover your head
and enter the wonderful cemetry,
read my sad words, pay your respects,
then return with a little more weight to the beautiful city.

Bare Nibs

Quick links menu:

Poetry