Two Poems

To Jan Neruda

I
If I wanted to tell people who you were
First off I'd say that there's a hill
Which stands above a turning river,
And stretched along its top a castle -
The city crystallising outwards
The last nine hundred years or so
On this basis, around lakes, through swards.
Beneath the castle, row on row
Of baroque tenements are pursed,
The quarter where your ghost persists.

These days you're pure omniscient narrator.
How often did you raise your head
Mid-way through making characters
To listen to what was being said
...