It was precisely the Elder's lap that I regretted

And I jump back into childhood. I believe it was the year 1993 when the film The Lover was released in Czech cinemas – and the Cinema magazine reported on it at the time – and put a man and a woman in an embrace on its cover page – and a breast stood out on the page. It wasn't even an image from the film, it was simply some illustrative image of a love act. I was twelve years old back then and I occasionally bought Cinema magazine, because even then I began to develop an interest in film as such, which I went on to study in 2000 in Písek at SVOŠF (Private Higher Vocational School of Film).

And here began my battle between myself and the Tatobity priest who was schooling my grandfather in morals. It was precisely because of the film The Lover and Cinema magazine that I was forbidden to visit my grandmother and grandfather for several weeks. If only I hadn't laid it on the fridge back then – I can still picture it quite vividly today!

The film The Lover was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud based on the semi-autobiographical book by Marguerite Duras. It is my favorite film, probably because I really like the lead actor of the lover, Tony Leung.

Pranapati – The Lover. That sounds quite clear this way. But as I was going through the lengthy list of names, I was going through the page with names, not with their translations. I didn't pay much attention to the translations of names. But the moment I was crossing Elizabeth Bridge in Budapest in a taxi, tears spilled across the edge of my eyelids the moment I read out loud PRA-NA-PA-TI. And only then do I look – The Lover?

*

And Rajneesh was clear from the beginning. I wanted to have a name with R. At that time I was working only as a Call.tv presenter and I liked the foreign broadcast editor whose name was Razvan. I repeated his name out loud many times because I liked it. Razvan N. was a Romanian and I only had one television broadcast with him. At the same time I was under the baton of Antonio Pasalic, who was a Croatian, he and Razvan were great buddies and they kept teasing me, through the earpiece during the live broadcast – they lured me to the camera, and then said: "Your chest hair is sticking out of your shirt!" and laughed out loud. Oh well, I've always had chest hair.

So Razvan was the precursor to Rajneesh. Oddly enough, I never wanted to have Š in my name. That's why I didn't like Aleš. Even on the television screen I performed as Aleš Fajx, under my birth name, because again it was in the company statutes that a seer must not perform on screen under their real name, which in my case was Antonín Deliš. And I wasn't Rajneesh Pranapati yet back then. So I made my family happy, took my name to the screen, but let's say the family wasn't all that thrilled about it. Aleš Fajx is not such an atypical name – even though recently I was in Smržovka at the cemetery of fallen soldiers – and three or four monuments bore the name Feix. Who knows if I was somehow connected to them. But it was no coincidence that my feet led me there. So I bowed to their memory and gave thanks that I can stand and live here today.

And the "h" at the end stayed with me.

Both in Rajneesh and in Deliš, I managed that.

*

With my first lover, I made love everywhere we could. In the car, in a meadow, in the forest, on the floor, in front of the mirror, in bed, at Jarník (that's a lookout tower) – I can still picture the view of the countryside when he held me from behind while making love. And if childhood has an influence on emotional development, this lover relationship influenced my relationships – I couldn't have met anyone better to introduce me to the world of male love.

I SIN FOR YOUR EYES

I sin for your eyes,
Which are deeper?
Into which one cannot see.

I sin for your eyes,
Which are dark
And they cannot be understood.

I sin for your eyes,
Which are the mouth
Of my lust and desire.

I sin because they are not mine.

December 6, 2000, 6:30 PM Písek – Na Ostrově

*

Many women today have the impression that I could love them, be their lover, that they would forgive my philandering with men, but very young I found out what it means for a girl – when she falls in love with me and – how it then torments her.

My final years of adolescence I lived at the Cottage by the Stream (that Moulin Mort from the poems about the Moon-man and the Sun-man).

During my adolescence I fell in love countless times (and inappropriately) with men – guests of the guest house ruled by the firm hand of my mother – and father, without whom fresh crispy rolls, I believe from Mašek, would never have been on the breakfast table. One of them was the Buddhist David, who divined for me using the I Ching (and that was all). But there were countless of them – and when the shift changed – someone new always appeared whom I could fall in love with all over again.

Similarly, friends of my parents and friends of friends would show up at the cabin, and so it happened that I fell in love with Vašek, while his sister fell in love with me, and then our mutual friend did too. And Vašek loved his girlfriend. That's sort of how Lanovky, Mostáři, and Vojáci v Luciánovi came to be, and by extension ArtFork—a never-ending chain of unrequited love.

SAMIDVA

Perhaps I am wrong with the very first word.
We never lingered together in one place.
Both of us rushed forward and it didn't matter where.

On New Year's Eve to the frozen waterfalls, hurry — hurry.
On the highway to death at a steady one hundred and ten.
Both of us rushed forward, but it was an illusion.

We are the Samidva – I am Egywuk, she is Urgula.
Yet today my mind hasn't stirred at all.
Both of us, you see, sit just as quietly on the old man's

lap – curled beneath the leaf
– an experienced vagabond wouldn't find us, or a mule
– like a cocooned butterfly – hungrily!

July 6, 2001, 0:15 AM, Desná – Souš

The Old Man's Lap was an old, shabby armchair in which I wrote many of my poems. It was an inheritance from my friends Alex and Silvia Tomba here in Desná, who ran the cinema here for years – and whose sons I fell in love with (even though we were only friends).

Oh how many times in life Rajneesh remained only a friend – how endless the falling in and out of love was. How many times he loved the sisters of the men he loved, how many times he loved their girlfriends they were going out with…

The Old Man's Lap – I burned the wing chair – and I consider it one of my mistakes – because if I learned anything from the lessons women ever dealt me – it was their advice, meddling in my affairs – which were more or less none of their business.

It was precisely The Old Man's Lap that I regretted burning.