This Beating Heart of Time: Poems by Tony Horava

By Tony Horava

This collection of poems is an exploration of my childhood, my parents and my evolving relationships with them. It reflects the impact of World War Two, and my parents’ emigration to a new country (Canada). These poems explore the mysteries of time and kinship on human identity, our shifting and imperfect knowledge of those who are closest to us, and the conundrum of self-knowledge in an intense family triad where love and conflict were deeply entwined. There are reflections of childhood memories of sports, camping trips, various intense family moments and experiences, and their impact on a child’s evolving identity. Dimensions of trauma and grief are explored, both as reflected in global political events and as conflict in an immigrant family. How does family history reveal the ever-present past? The complexities of memory and how this plays into identity and perception are other key themes in these poems. What does the passage of time mean for memory, grief, love, and conflict? Finally, there is a resolution of the past into a positive acceptance of the good and the bad, the cherished moments and the painful episodes, and a newfound understanding of the past and its foundational meaning for the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Horava
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005119508

Tony Horava

I am born and raised in Montreal, Canada, but moved to Ottawa in my twenties. I have a BA in English and History, a Masters in Library and Information Science, and a Masters in English. I worked as a librarian at the University of Ottawa for 32 years before retiring in 2019. I’ve had a passion for words, literature, and the odyssey of writing ever since my teenage years. I’m very grateful to be able to indulge my passion in retirement. Writing about my family and childhood has been a cathartic experience for me, allowing me to look back from a long distance and recollect moments and feelings in tranquility and wonder. It’s an exploration of the past and the mysteries of time, the dynamics of memory, and an incantation of the soul. I’m happy to publish this collection as a free ebook to share my poems without any barriers, for anyone who could be interested. If these poems give you only a sliver of the joy and meaning that they have brought me, I will consider myself fortunate in sharing them.

Book preview

Underground

My father is nineteen

When he receives his notice for militia duty,

Shipped off to eastern Czechoslovakia -

It is 1944 and the Germans desperately

Need every young body they can muster,

But two weeks of mud and discipline

His spirit hardens like a ball.

No

He won’t do this anymore,

He flees back to Prague,

Knowing the price of desertion.

So begins a life without papers,

A fugitive hopping by night

From one safe house to another,

Delivering partisan pamphlets,

Negotiating a revolver,

Placing crude bombs under railway cars,

Living on a jar of marmalade,

No ration tickets for deserters.

Forging a signature to rent a room,

Inventing a self he needs to be.

But I keep on wondering

What it was like

To fear every knock

On the door or footstep approaching

Up the staircase or looking

Over your shoulder

In the dead of nervous night,

Where people became cats,

Silent invisible calculating,

Squeezing themselves

Into the next feral hiding place.

Train to Trnava

My mother is eighteen

On a mission to the bishop in Trnava

From home in Bratislava,

Her eldest sister is needing

To marry in a hurry

A young Jewish man in danger of disappearing

In the tightening German garrote he no longer

Has any right to freedom

So an exemption to the three-week banns

For Catholic marriage is needed.

This is occupied Slovakia in 1942 -

Train travel forbidden for people like my mother

Converted to the Christian faith

But someone from the family has to go,

And so she volunteers.

Then she is spotted by a local fascist

Regnant in black jacket and polished boots,

In fact her German teacher from high school -

‘What are you doing here?

Don’t you know it’s illegal for people like you?’

Whether it’s mastery of her second language,

Whether it’s charm, effrontery, or chutzpah,

Somehow she talks him down,

Playing hopscotch with life and death.

In the end he grumbles and exits at his destination

While she continues on her journey,

Thirty minutes to reach the bishop,

Then conduct her business and return

Home safe.

A few days later there is a quiet wedding

Under the steel grey Aryan sky,

Smiles and food and watchful glances,

Life persisting with exposed and frayed roots,

Pulsing ever still in harrowed corners.

Behind a Hidden Door

A lackluster village called Dubravka,

The farmer and his wife have been well paid.

Money life and death are easily bartered

As always happens in wartime,

Risks are weighed on the scales of pity and greed.

My mother and grandparents are living

Behind a hidden door,

A bed on an earthen floor,

A smell of goats from the adjoining stall.

To pass the dark winter hours and days

My mother is learning Slovak shorthand,

Focusing her practical mind

Listening for unusual sounds.

One day there are German soldiers in the kitchen

Asking curt questions

- My mother is holding her breath -

The wife