Tyko Say is something else. Poetry with rhythm that takes you back to the good old 70s. Prague neighborhoods under uncompromising scrutiny. Be sure to check out his Youtube channel. Gil-Scott Heron approves.
Smíchov (listen on Youtube here)
After night, your rainbows
of barely flood the tar alleys like a cold
throated night linted inside the night trotter
tram riders’ pockets—
them in there, the dark, too
looking out to Lihovar streets.
The hungered eyes
beating their bloated belly to conundrum of direction
The trash bins gargling green goop
from lonely commuters drinking coffee
all night—until they don’t
Nonstop potravinys shining neon existence
on The man at Smíchov standing with his hands
tucked in like
a landscape and
leaning over on one juke,
testing his sight with the distant tram
‘It’s the smell of the night, vectoring the
velvet revolution. It’s the
exploited sidewalks with their
evaporated cracks
the crumbs inside all the crumbs
crumbing around, crumbing over
to the big old down town, big news now.‘
Some guy walking some direction
for the first time, as I did once up
the darkless underpass to
a vesseled face man maneuvered from
city crowds, passed out cold, asking ‘ywana drink’
—startled I supposed, spilling mine on him
and with a quick bop
you get knowing why those
city streets stray at the weeded fork at the
museum of transport
the midnight shines with rainbows of barley,
and jaywalks
backwards, drunk
like an old friend.
Look! hey! the patterned stadium lights jumping round this
musky cloud like sirens bouncing off brick roomed
walls.
No people there—just men
with different hands
This constant itching from a worn out thread
in their sweaters, keeping their hands inside their pockets, and
their feet in front.
After night your rainbows
of barely flood the tar alleys like a cold
throated night linted inside the night trotter
tram riders’ pockets—
them in there, the dark, too
looking out to Lihovar streets.
____________
youtube channel, including „Kačerov“ here