Prolonging My Understanding Poem by Pavol Janik

For a while I hesitated,
at the place where one enters.
And then so many mirrors
as if after death or during it.
And so many unreal girls
in the shallow depths of the glass.
There, where I entered for the last time
still as a boy with portraits
of Pierre Brice and Lex Barker in a pocket,
was the window of a small wine tavern.
And above it the warning signals
of red pelargonia
had permanently remained.
These inexorable semaphores
which didn't permit me
to speak in the direction of the wind
and turn aside as the wall approached.
I grew up
to the level of salaries,
the length of debts,
to measurable historical latitudes
and to a size
where the era of dieting begins.
Now only my hair grows
slowly and completely pointlessly.
and thus I come
to prolonging my understanding
and ridding myself of the purchasing power
of a powerless Samson.

(1991)