Kačerov is a neighborhood in Prague, where poet Tyko Say walks the streets with a camera and a pen, describing this outskirt neighborhood as a circus of talking faces: the black asphalt drawing the spine down Michelská; the endless heads in the queue at the metro pizza; the locals bathing their lawn chairs at Bar Kačerov; the television tower beaconing it all. Is Kačerov the joyous spring we need in this summer heat?

Kačerov

Kačerov,

Kačerov,

you’re a tired pavement walked on
by outskirt city buses
full with
noodle boxes and
wrist watches

pizza joint open late,
the line unfolds from each
other’s wallets
70 pence cent piece knuckled from
your pinching fingers

and chucked into the small window
the woman with a daisy
skirt reaches out for

your mellow day here is low
under umbrellas walked
about with your unfloraled carpets
painted there
here who where
did your corner stores
close outside or
will they open to your assortment
of chocolate nic nacs and
unpronounceable soda pops
with a man there
fiddling under his hat like
a table tennis
champion moving from foot
to foot?

Your garden between main street
sings out
heavenly summer with lawn chairs
statued with men circling velvet table
cloth unwrinkled by your dehydrated sky.

One chuckles out ‘was married twice in Ukraine
to the same woman’. His young face cannonballing
the bottle like joyous spring

Kačerov,
Kačerov,

you’re on top of the under world
with your knickers tucked into
your shorts, stampeding the poor folk
gawking the television tower

you’re a brown bagged boozer
stuck at home with your fingers tied to
panhandled cigarettes, wishing you
had the time, man

Written by Tyko Say.

About the author:

Tyko Say is a resident of various neighborhoods in Prague—or at least pretends to be. With a background in linguistics, a foreground in stranger-speak, and an eye for a good slice of cherry pie, you can expect to find a familiar voice in his work.