English lyrics FOR rOBERT kRESTAN ORIGINALS

Text: Robert Krestan Translations: Ruth Ellen Gruber (with David Kraus)

Bloody Maria (Krvava Marie)

Well, I can't be fine when fine I'm not and I'm losing everything in store

I'm losing stuff, I'm losing girl, I lost the number of my door.

I'm losing all my white mice, in your spotless lab'ratory

I can't be fine but, damn it, that's what they keep telling me

So order me up a plate of stew with juicy paprika

And order me up a jolly girl named Bloody Mar-i-ah

I was told once by a friend that I have far too many names

That I'd be fine with just one moniker, one family tree the same

That I'd be fine with just one calendar, with just one address book

You've only got one face, he said, You've only got one look.

So then I went and took his girl into the back seat of my car

And turned around and named that girl my Bloody Mari-ah

We all would like the chance to go along to paradise

But none of us is willing, man, to stop and pay the price

No, not to love and not to lose, at least half of what we said

Maybe just to spend a penny, maybe just to make the bed

Just send me someone normal, from the academy

And send along that girl whose name is -- Bloody Mar-ee

Nines of tens and hundreds, and thousands of hundreds all

And then that heavy silence, and that blue evenfall

I can hear Ave -- Hail -- Mary, yes, it's you I'll steal away

Nines of tens and hundreds, full prison here today

Oh where's that check I wrote out from Bank Slavia?

And where's that girl who's name is Bloody Mari-ah?

So I came home around midnight and found the devil in my shirt

And he wants a raise and he wants a bath and he calls me his dear Bert

But then he had my woman, and ate everything he found

When I came home, he had music on, playing good and loud

Then the devil said he'd finish soon and to Neverland he'd flee

And take along with him a girl, who's called Bloody Marie

When I come back from the end of the world, and where that is, Lordy knows

Like a savage come from Martinique, like a victor without blows

When I finally do the laundry; when I finally make things well

When I finally come from the end of the world right back to my hotel --

I'll put me on a jacket, pin a lily for all to see

And take me out a girl who once was known as Bloody Mar-ee.

TANECNICE (Dancer)

An upturned chair shows the hour has passed

In a night club at the end of care.

The one last dancer in the corner stands

Brushing glitter from her long dark hair.

I'm the last guest, the last glass in my hand;

I'm the last one in this place.

I push back my hat and I look at her,

How she fools the world, with all her paint

Refrain:

Josephina, dance for me, dance the dawning sky

For this undrunk, unfinished night

Ah, dance for me good-bye

She takes her bag, my ballerina;

Just a key and a bottle of beer.

She straightens the chairs and kills the light,

She smiles as she gets out of here.

I open the door, it's early dawn

It leads me down the path outside

Where heaven's morning stars await

The one who has refused to hide.

The north wind’s casting its magic spells

On my beachhead by the sea

When all at once my heart reveals

A naked fantasy

Somewhere in my dream a dancer whirls

Too daring maybe for my soul

My boat sets sail toward the open waves

Just call me Ishmael

FUNERAL MARCH (Smutecni Marse)

Well, so even the prettiest woman, she always bears a hidden scar

And even a little guy, some homeless man,

He picks up on her challenge, says two and two make four

That's just the way, the way things are

In even the holiest of holy vows, a hidden lie will always show.

My friends, salvation's further than we thought

So put your cares behind you, away in peace you go

Just take your leave, your leave real slow

Refrain:

Up on the heights of Urartu

In the ancient ark

Two lovers meet and dance, for you

-- they dance, they dance, they dance a funeral march

So I tell myself just let it be, just let the forces play

I lie abed and live my life

In comfort and illusion that every thing's OK

Why should I aim a higher way

Then with a spinning wheel I spin my smoke, the smoke around in rings

I sweat within the spinning room,

Helpless and abandoned,

A bird without its wings,

A puppet doll that’s shorn of strings

Refrain

Before you disappear make sure you take a coat and a warm hat

And take my oldest picture, the one where I'm still looking good like that

Some vodka and a velvet cloth that you can use to wipe away the stairs

But there are no more poems now, just marches -- and for that who cares

So, then even the prettiest woman, she won't despise a crown

And I'm hemmed in by my heritage

My pride resists my courage, my courage battened down

To let me go without a sound

Refrain

INFIELA

Infiela,

Feathers in your touch

Dying, by your side

A hundred times, as much.

A tyrant takes my soul

I'm locked in God's embrace

The Devil calls my name

Eternal sacrifice

Morning, I set sail

From the waters of Cartegena

From the infernal gates of Hell

Grateful, at peace, I come

Morning, I sail away

In darkness diminished to dawn

Oh, beautiful, faithless one,

Infiela!

Infiela,

Weren't we maybe so

Lost in our own world

Countless times and more?

Pure in innocence

Damned in our desire

Gods in nakedness

Human in love on fire?

Morning, I set sail

From the waters of Cartegena

From the infernal gates of Hell

Grateful, at peace, I come.

Morning, I sail away

In darkness diminished to dawn

Oh, beautiful, faithless one,

Infiela!

Ossian

'Twas in an ancient world somewhere, near gateways under sea

The famous emperor Ossian, he vanished suddenly

In a land of golden stallions, ageless women, dark delights

With the daughter of the Ocean King, gods of four compass points.

Ref:

Hey -- you long night standing

Mother of Atlantis old

Today I just can't drink with you

From the well whose cup I hold

For hundreds of years he danced there, so full of things to tell

And when he came back to the Earth, he chose its center well

The whole world became weighted down, all the emperors fled in fear

He wasn't King Ossian anymore, just a lonely old whitebeard

Ref:

Hey -- you long night standing

Mother of Atlantis old

Today I just can't drink with you

From the well whose cup I hold

You think I'm your friend, your solid rock, your ever pleasant guest

But maybe I'm just helping you because it suits me best

Just yesterday I bought myself new shoes and a leather coat

A flask of fancy perfume, but to you I throw a bone

Ref:

Hey -- you handsome spirit

Ancient lord from Tir nan Gwydd

Tonight it's me who's coming here

And from your well will sip

Shuttle to Bethlehem (Pendl do Betlema)

I hear nothing, just dogs barking and a seagull's cry.

Bells are wailing, friars humming, and the crows whiz by

The whistle's sizzling, even kissing you sounds like a slap

Dies irae, and all around the shrieks of pelicans.

Refrain:

But before I disappear, my dumb love,

Let me hitchhike for you while I can.

Today I'm gone, on the shuttle train to Bethl'em,

Maybe soon, a taxi to the promised land.

Your eyes tell me, you got everything you ever asked.

You're driven crazy, by my fear, my nakedness.

My heart is bleeding, the priest slashes with a knife of stone;

Just like you, dear, just like you and you and you alone.

Refrain

WHEN I TAKE OFF MY SHOES (Az si jednou sundám boty)

When you tell me to stop

And then when I take my shoes off

When the smile of the rails

Tells me jump, now, my friend

When my hand becomes hard

As a tile of terracotta

When I sit by my door

Just don't ask to what end.

When the dust from my roads

Cleans the scars etched in my forehead

When I learn about things

That are best not to know

When the last of my rhymes

Become idle in my song book

It may well be too late,

The last time, maybe so.

Then when the wind and the rain

Wash the traces from Golgotha

When the smoke from the pyres

In the end fades away

When I take off my belt

And then when I take my shoes off

Nothing's left for me, now

And for you, now, who's to say.

When Death Does Us Apart (Az Nas Smrt Rozdeli)

When horses fly away

To the night, to the gates

Of Jericho

When our embrace dissolves

in the fog, on the shore

When those lips of yours are double-locked

As if I tried to kiss the Gates of Troy

I'm just an outcast soul without a name

Undrunk, unloved, unfull of joy.

When shots of firearms

quiet down

on the streets

down by the bay

When death does us apart

along its blue

waterway;

When the reek of booze clears this nest of doves

And the fortune teller does the same

It’s the end of song, end of love

End of war, end of shame.

The Last of the Galleons (Za Posledni Lodi)

The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea

The last of the soldiers had heard his death knell

And a desolate chant from within a stone cloister

Was like one of us bidding farewell

The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea

And like night-flying bats the wind ruffled the shore

And a brave young musician chimed chords on an organ,

Took the name Jeremiah for his own evermore

The last ship had sunk, and I rushed to a place

Where the turning flood tide left me armor from Spain,

A sack of pesetas, some yellowing letters;

Stark memories and, unfathomed pain