Someone Like a God | Pavol Janik

I,
You,
He
And someone else …

– the fourth like a dimension,
the fifth a season in the year,
the sixth like a sense,
the seventh like a continent.

the eighth like a day of the week,
the ninth like a point of an octagon,
the tenth like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,
the eleventh like a commandment,

the twelfth like a football player,
the thirteenth like an apostle,
the fourteenth like Friday the Thirteenth,
the fifteenth like Louis Quattorze,
the sixteenth like the fifteen,
the seventeenth like a sixteenth,
the eighteenth like the seventeenth century,

the twenty-second like an eye,
the thirty first like a thirty percent fall in bonds,

the thirty third like a tooth,
the thirty fourth like Christ’s year,

– the unending like a god
and so just sexless,

the powerless
like one who makes love,

painless and therefore senseless,

unrivalled like a god
in the world who has no other gods,
ungodly like a god
who has neither a god beside him
or over him,

bottomless like a sky,
unrestrained like the wind,
boundless like thought,
immaterial like a ghost,

nameless bearer of an unknown name,

hopelessly faultless,

aimless like a perpetual runner,

childless like the father
of a crucified son,

unreasonable like death
and so just remorseless,

nationless like a god
of all people
and beings similar to them,

sightless and faceless,
legless, handless and wingless,
hairless and toothless,

safe as a harbour
for immortal wanderers,

without charge like a promise,

unparalleled in perfection,
derived in its own home,
unmediated like touch,
helpless like a deed,
dreamless like a night,
careless like a bird,

inconsolable like truth,
ungoverned as the oldest citizen in the world,

implicit as love,
without consequence like justice,

a creature without colour,
taste
and smell.

He wanders in space as if without soul,
a creator without parents,
a being without dwelling place,
a vagabond without address,

from beyond memory without work,
from time immemorial without bread,
forever he proceeds without footprints,

always thinks without considering
and always the same,

he breeds without hesitation,
gives birth without reason,
regardless of anything or anyone,

kills without dispensation
– everything and everyone,
since the beginning of the age of ages,

he abandons us without regard
for race, religion or conviction,

he always triumphs without battle,
judges without mercy,
punishes continuously
and then weeps without sorrow
over the spilt mother’s milk
of the immaculate virgin,
who bore him a son
so he could give him
deviously and thoroughly to be crucified
at the hands of his chosen people,

so he rules the world without check,
an uncriticised despot,

he acts unceasingly without rest
and knows everything without consciousness,

he prays to himself without words,
he accepts himself without reserve,

he grants himself adoration without consideration,
he is blessedly silent about himself,

so continuously decides without witnesses,
without rhyme or reason,
with no way out,

wholly without himself,
headless,
heelless,
heartless,
with not a drop of blood,

without anything.

Redeem him
while there’s time.

Perhaps his fate
awaits us, too –
cruel
towards all creatures
who have been surpassed by their own works.

(1998)

Indian Review | Author | Pavol Janik was born in 1956 in Bratislava. He is poet, dramatist, prose writer, translator, publicist and copywriter. His literary activities focus mainly on poetry

Indian Literature Review | Author Profile |Pavol Janik, PhD., was born in 1956 in Bratislava, where he also studied film and television dramaturgy and scriptwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts. He has worked at the Ministry of Culture (1983-87), in the media and in advertising. President of the Slovak Writers’ Society (2003-07) and the Secretary-General of the SWS (1998-2003, 2007-2013). He has received a number of awards for his literary and advertising work both in his own country and abroad. This virtuoso of Slovak literature, Pavol Janik, is poet, dramatist, prose writer, translator, publicist and copywriter. His literary activities focus mainly on poetry.

Translator Profile | James Sutherland Smith, was born in 1948 in Aberdeen, Great Britain, is a poet, translator and critic. He began translating Slovak poetry with the help of other people notably Stefania allen who was his co-translator for “Not Waiting For Miracles”, the first anthology ever of contemporary Slovak poets in English. Since then with his wife, Viera, he has translated over 100 Slovak poets with significant collections of the work of Ivan Laucik, Jan Buzassy, Mila Haugova and Milan Rufus.¬ http://www.jamessutherland-smith.co.uk/about.shtml