Amela Abadžić
b
Amela Abadžić
b
Оmer
Every Monday and Friday since July 2016, we publish a poem or prose text from our 'translation workshop'.
We've named this section of the site "Omer", in memory of Omer Hadžiselimović, one of the founders of Samizdat.
Published 2024
Published 2023
Published 2022
Published 2021
Published 2020
Published 2019
Published 2018
Published 2017
Published 2016
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.
We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.
Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.
William Butler Yeats, August 25, 2025
FALLEN MAJESTY
Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
These lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.
William Butler Yeats, August 22, 2025
THE JEWISH CEMETERY
The Jewish Cemetery near Leningrad
a lame fence of rotten planks
and lying behind it side by side
lawyers, businessmen, musicians, revolutionaries.
They sang for themselves,
got rich for themselves,
died for others.
But always paid their taxes first;
heeded the constabulary,
and in this inescapably material world
studied the Talmud,
remained idealists.
Maybe they saw something more,
maybe believed blindly.
In any case they taught their children
tolerance. But
obstinacy. They
sowed no wheat,
never sowed wheat,
simply lay down in the earth
like grain
and fell asleep forever.
Earth was heaped over them,
candles were lit for them,
and on their day of the dead raw voices of famished
old men, the cold at their throats,
shrieked at them, “Eternal peace!”
Which they have found
in the disintegration of matter,
remembering nothing
forgetting nothing
behind the lame fence of rotten planks
four kilometers past the streetcar terminal.
Joseph Brodsky, August 18, 2025
INSCRIPTION ON THE THRESHOLD
These poems — that is not me, though I wrote them.
These cries — that is not me, though I truly sighed them.
My real life, I only breathed.
For I live even when a poem dies. I live even when suffering passes.
There is in me a sweet restlessness, and there is breadth as well.
I let another speak for me.
And I myself speak as them.
I care little being a man
if I have spoken of mankind as only a god might.
Oh, I. I am both smaller and greater than myself.
Oh, I. My second self and my third.
I do not dream of happiness. Yet I do not doubt happiness.
Behold this duality and trinity of mine:
there is in me darkness,
and there is in me light as well.
And my wondrous harmony.
Tin Ujević (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), August 15, 2025
THE TOXIC MENTALITY OF A SMALL TOWN
Blessed are those who never realize
the tragedy of a small town,
so bound to it they don’t know any better.
But when you’ve felt a bit of the world,
lived through much, far and deep,
and come back,
you see the same old vicious circle
so many never escaped.
You see defeat paraded as victory
by those who know no better.
And the toxic mentality
that flies above everyone’s head,
not letting another live, love, or simply exist.
Everything is watched, but little is forgiven,
where graveyards are the most common gathering places,
and you’re only good once you’re gone.
Some find it hard to live where they know no one.
For me, it’s the opposite—
it’s hard because I know them all.
If I didn’t, it would be easier.
That’s why I travel, and rarely stay,
so I can keep in memory only the faces
that haven’t done me great harm.
It’s hardest to live in towns
where everything is futile,
and nothing ever changes,
except the illusion that it might.
It won’t.
I’ve seen it a thousand times.
In places ruled by cops, priests, and thieves,
where an honest voice is barely heard.
There’s no fervor left.
Except perhaps among the children,
who haven’t yet been beaten down—
but they will be.
Only a few break free.
Imagine what it’s like for me,
someone who’s used to bringing people joy,
performing poetry,
living freedom.
Who in those places wants that?
Right away you’re crazy,
right away something’s wrong with you.
That’s why I’m invisible to many—
I just come and quickly go,
expecting nothing.
I used to try to prove myself, explain things,
check in with everyone.
For a long time now, no more.
I have my own world.
Who needs me will find me—
I’m not going to them.
Not anymore.
At last I’ve grown up.
At last I’ve proven myself.
Above all, to myself.
Stefan Simić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), August 11, 2025
AN ANSWER WORTH GOOD MOONEY
Tell me the name of one good man.
I’ll wait here three days, if that’s what you need.
I’ll take vacation leave for your answer.
Your answer is worth money.
You’re silent.
Your silence is known far and wide. It is
part of history. Part of you. It is
your head. Your skull is a cage
for the wild beast
of silence.
And you could have said anyone’s name.
Even mine.
And the names of those
who do not exist
are good names.
Adam Puslojić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), August 8, 2025
BARE YEARS
And so, Henes, it’s Sunday,
some hour, surely, strange.
The downpour struggles on, slumber
still lingers at the Fountain café.
To end it all—or tease
nausea with fitful illusion:
…they’ll search for poets by lantern light,
but not a poet shall remain!
Bitter it is, in the flock,
among the grey— to be a bird of color,
and to carry your fate aloft not with whimper, but with blaze.
Refik Ličina (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), August 4, 2025
THE ARRIVAL OF THE BEE BOX
I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.
The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can’t keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can’t see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.
I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.
How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!
I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.
I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.
They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.
The box is only temporary.
Sylvia Plath, August 1, 2025
SEAS
We first
heard of the sea
in our mothers’ curses:
“may the Black Sea, son,
pick your bones clean!”
Before such curses,
like before Sesame,
they raised us silent.
And then one day,
a stranger’s word unlocked
those cursed gates for us.
Look, mother,
your sons –
see what seas they’ve crossed now,
and what shores
they’ve encrusted
with their bare bones.
Refik Ličina (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), July 28, 2025
THEY DON’T WANT YOU
You want to defy the hounds? Oh, I know a much
better revenge: wait for them, surrender; let them
throw you in the dungeon.
They don’t want you—only your fleeing.
Slavko Mihalić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), July 25, 2025
APPLE
I lingered a long time
on the branch
proud, lovely
red
when the worm of doubt
entered
me
I fell and shattered
like a pear.
Nataša Mihaljčišin (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), July 21, 2025
DO THE TREES SPEAK?
Do the trees speak back to the wind
when the wind offers some invitational comment?
As some of us do, do they also talk to the sun?
I believe so, and if such belief need rest on
evidence, let me just say, Sometimes it’s
an earful.
But there’s more.
If you can hear the trees in their easy hours
of course you can also hear them later,
crying out at the sawmill.
Mary Oliver, July 18, 2025
THE DREAM KEEPER
Bring me all your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
Langston Hughes, July 14, 2025
HARLEM
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore –
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over –
Like a syrupy sweet?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Langston Hughes, July 11, 2025
WORK ON MAN
I see — people have suddenly become beautiful,
though I remember, a hundred or so years ago,
there were so many maimed, lame,
crooked and blind, hunchbacked, scabby...
You could hardly find a whole person.
At least not in a tavern or on the road
where outlaws and drifters wandered.
The people have simply grown prettier.
No more deformities, no more crossed eyes, no more clubfeet,
we’ve tucked away even the mad somewhere,
and hardly anyone stutters
in halfway decent company
or in public.
Where did all those freaks go,
the many monsters?
Where are the one-eyed,
where are the legless, the crippled?
Luckily, the mind has stayed the same
and thought still leans on force,
just as it did in the beginning.
And that comforts me, makes me calm.
Because a thousand years ago I was a barbarian
who, beyond the border, the limes,
genuinely admired Rome.
I was a Hun and an Avar, a Goth and Visigoth,
a man of Travunia, a Druid, Gaul and Dacian,
a Liburnian and a Delmate, Japod, perhaps an Illyrian.
And that is when I first asked myself —
how would we endure goodness,
we who from time immemorial
have been trained in evil?
This way I know — no matter
how beautiful it all becomes,
it will still be pillaged, wrecked,
burned, looted, destroyed.
When the hour comes, as surely it will.
When the horn sounds in a dark forest,
and from the bramble slither out
figures with clubs.
The lowlifes, led by a hero.
Goran Babić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), July 7, 2025
A LIE AND THE RED STAR
There is, there is such a moment,
such a case,
when even one who sees the
five-pointed star in the dark
may, and can (and perhaps even must)
make use of a lie.
When it is, in fact, more honest
to lie
than to speak the truth.
If your comrade,
your friend,
is dying,
if you see the light fading in their eyes,
gaze dimming,
and, with their last breath, they ask you,
Have we lost?
Then – and only then –
lean close to the ear that barely hears,
and whisper, in confidence –
We haven’t!
Goran Babić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), July 4, 2025
WATCHMAN
In the fading light
you stand at the gate
you watch.
They go out, they come in,
they don’t see you.
It’s more dangerous at night.
Someone has to watch.
That is the way with castles,
with fortresses, however new.
You are invisible
despite all that leather
Nothing keeps happening.
They come in, they go out.
To them you are a blur.
You are dispensable
until there is a shot or shout,
and something keeps happening.
You throw yourself in front
of the ones who don’t see you.
Something stops happening.
You lie at the gate.
There are feet at eye level.
You watch the feet in their fading shoes
in the fading light.
Margaret Atwood, June 30, 2025
KINDNESS
Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.
What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit’s cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,
Its crystals a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.
And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses.
Sylvia Plath, June 27, 2025
THE JOURNEY
One night, I passed by train through your town,
aglow like a blossoming tree.
Midnight above the towers.
A young moon.
And deep in my heart, an old wound.
The world, the night, the road – all slipped away…
Only for a moment: telephone wires,
a single yellow cloud above the sea.
Only for a moment: the song of a night bird,
then the road once again,
and the night,
and the long road.
I forgot the world; a magic forest rose
in memory, cypresses and sea,
and your hands, glowing in dreams
with the fire of an ancient story.
Oh, where are you?
All is night, and all is shadow.
I drift, mindless, through the world of memories.
Oh, where are you?
All is pain, and darkness, and wound,
and in the distance, your town still shines
like a beautiful tree in spring’s full bloom.
And as the train roars into the light of day,
through meadows, fields, and forests deep,
a familiar face rises once more in my soul.
Oh, where are you, beloved?
Night has fallen into me.
Endless night.
And darkness.
And pain.
And a cry!
Gustav Krklec (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 23, 2025
FOR DAYS WE WITHER IN DEADWATER
For days we wither in deadwater,
while a fly spills its larvae into the eyes
of donkeys strapped too tight
and the heat falls through the thicket
upon the Danube’s waters,
enchanted by the slow sway of a ferry
hauling a wail from one bank to the other.
Refik Ličina (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 20, 2025
That Husband and That Wife
of his are from Godocelje,
they go out begging together,
the husband in front, the wife
behind him.
They walk paths of every kind:
straight, crooked, narrow –
and ever narrowing…
Always the same: the husband in front,
the wife behind him.
Up there, across the heavens,
their shadows move the same way:
he in front,
she behind him.
Even across the heavens they walk
on paths straight, crooked, narrow –
and ever narrowing.
One night, perhaps under a full moon,
a star will fall from the sky…
and no one in Godocelje will know
that it was
a stick
fallen from their hands.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 16, 2025
FEBRUARY 30th
Not counting the occasional mysterious vanishings
of February 29ths,
every year we are being robbed of one day of love.
When I was young, I paid it no mind.
There were still enough of Saturdays and Wednesdays
even without that one.
Today, each day I get to see you matters.
Our fief that once stretched fifty years into the future
has withered to a mere barnyard.
Izet Sarajlić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 13, 2025
INHABITANTS
The inhabitants of the earth are divided in two…
Those who have brains but lack faith,
And those who have faith but lack brains.
— A.A. al-Ma'arri, 11th century
Peace be upon you, Abul-Ala al-Ma'arri,
Creator of a world
Where rhymes are the only tyrants.
The inhabitants of the earth are divided
Into those who hunt and those who are hunted,
And the humble soul nourished by verse
Fears both of them just the same.
Refik Ličina (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 9, 2025
A POEM TO MYSELF FOR MY FORTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY
(written between May 7 and 12, 2025)
I no longer have time
For great revolutions
Too many people
Around me have died
Choked on the tears
Of winds
Of great expectations.
I am 47
I don’t feel like breaking
Acacia branches
Don’t want to swim
Across rivers of salvation
Nor cross big bridges
Except strictly
To visit cities
I haven’t been to yet.
I don’t feel like
Speaking
Big words
That strange need
To applaud
Those who sound
As if they are
On the right side of history
Vanished overnight.
No history
Is mine,
For each is written
In thick blood only.
Everyone serves
Whoever brings them gain
I am no victor
I don’t know
How to lie that well
I can only speak
Of what I’ve been through
What I know
And what
I can cry out.
I no longer have time
For great revolutions
The locusts have eaten
Every good thing
I ever had
They nibbled at it all
And laughed in my face
Between a hundred uprisings.
I no longer have time
For hopeless crowds
In that sense
I’m thoroughly and deeply selfish
I can only give
What I have
Only hear
As much as I can
Look
Until I’m sick of it
Then
Turn my back
And walk away
That’s only fair
To my very self.
I no longer have time
For great revolutions.
There
People don’t weep
From joy
At freedom to come
But at the knowledge
That joy lasts
Only a second
In which they believe
Freedom is possible.
One can cry
From the joy of sunlight,
The beauty of a blue sky,
An uncut field,
And flowers in every color.
Beautiful too
Are the tall glass towers
In cities
Where people make love
Always and everywhere,
Leaving
Drops of their passion
On black asphalt
From which
Violets grow
And I,
Aman aman
Strive only for that.
Boban Stojanović (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), June 6, 2025
THE BALANCE WHEEL
Where I waved at the sky
And waited your love through a February sleep,
I saw birds swinging in, watched them multiply
Into a tree, weaving on a branch, cradling a keep
In the arms of April sprung from the south to occupy
This slow lap of land, like cogs of some balance wheel.
I saw them build the air, with that motion birds feel.
Where I wave at the sky
And understand love, knowing our August heat,
I see birds pulling past the dim frosted thigh
Of Autumn, unlatched from the nest, and wing-beat
For the south, making their high dots across the sky,
Like beauty spots marking a still perfect cheek.
I see them bend the air, slipping away, for what birds seek.
Anne Sexton, June 2, 2025
THE RIVAL
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected.
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.
The moon, too, abuses her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.
No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.
Sylvia Plath, May 30, 2025
I CAN STILL FEIGN THE OCCASIONAL SMILE
I can still feign the occasional smile,
still stage the occasional bit of joy,
still say a beautiful thing or two—
to anyone but myself.
The hospitals won't let me—
the brezovicas, the bežanijske kose, the kasindols.
In vain I reach for a once-cherished image,
a bird, the sky, the leaves…
It hurts,
it hurts,
it hurts…
And so I hide, bloodied, disfigured,
behind the curtains of my dark, relentless rain…
I can still feign the occasional smile,
but softer now,
softer,
softer…
Vito Nikolić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), May 26, 2025
SAINT JOAN OF ARC ON A POSTCARD
Here’s Joan in her penitential bedsheet,
peeled of her armour, hair shorn,
wrapped round with string
like a boned rolled leg of lamb,
topped with a hat that looks like paper,
newspaper at that, but without the print,
a conical dunce cap
everything pale, hands, bare feet,
thin vestment, drained and blank,
white as the center of the flare:
foreknowledge does that.
Some cleric putting a match to her.
Neither of them looks happy about it.
Once lit, she’ll burn like a book,
like a book that was never finished,
like a locked-up library.
Her two left-handed angels
and the ardent catchwords
they whispered into her ear –
Courage! Forward! King!
will burn as well.
Their voices will shrivel and blow away
in a scrawl of ash,
charred scraps of a dirty joke
in the long and dissolute narrative
people keep telling themselves about God,
and the watchers in the square will cheer,
incinerating her with their eyes,
since everyone likes a good bonfire
and a nice cry, some time afterwards.
It’s you reading her now,
reading the Book of Joan.
What do you make of her?
Joan, the cocksure messenger,
or lunatic, or glassy sphere
containing a pure, terse chapter
of a story with both ends missing?
You’ll patch up some translation,
You and your desk-lamp lightbulb,
You and your white-hot stare.
Margaret Atwood, May 23, 2025
Another Joan of Arc Poem
Or think of her as glass,
a sheer thin sphere of it,
a hardened bubble
confided to the sea
how many centuries ago
and washed up here
on this dilapidated shore
among the plastic bags
and salty rope
a charmed bottle
carrying a message
you can see in there
on a wisp of paper,
each letter clear,
each word illegible.
Margaret Atwood, May 19, 2025
LIDEM ZE SARAJEVA
(pozdrav)
Dvacet let před
prvními vícestranickými volbami
jsem sledoval rozžhavenou cestu
u moře
jak mizí jako špageta
vcucnutá koly
a vedle tátova zpoceného ramene
dostával životni lekce
Ptal jsem se
proč občas (bezdůvodně) troubí
na auta, která nám jedou vstříc
a stejně tak bezdůvodně troubí
na nás
Takhle se zdravíme
povídá
oni jsou taky ze Sarajeva
Vysvětlení mě uspokojilo
A často jsem mu připomínal
ať zatroubí
Rád bych zase jel
rozžhavenou cestou
nezáleží na tom kde
na tom vůbec nezáleží
troubil při míjení
na lidi ze Sarajeva
na lidi ze Sarajeva
A snažil se to vysvětlit někomu
kdo opravdu
opravdu chce naslouchat
chce slyšet
proč
Troubím
Marko Čejović (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), May 16, 2025
EVERYTHING IS, LIKE…
The day is, like, sunny
You are, like, cheerful
You pass by, like, unseen
Everyone is doing great
Everyone is, like, fine
Everyone is, like, wild with joy…
And you are, like, happy!
Life goes on, as if in the sea
The birds are, like, free
The future, like, lies in your palm
The conscience is, like, clear
And the sun is, like, bright
Oh heart, like, sing
Everyone, like, cares for everyone
Everyone is, like, your friend
Everyone is, like, concerned about you
And about the world…
And the day, like, slips away
And you, like, smile
And nothing, like, hurts…
Enes Kišević (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), May 12, 2025
WITH MERCY FOR THE GREEDY
for my friend Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession
Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose -
I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it lies on your letter… deep, deep.
I detest my sins and I try to believe
in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,
its solid neck, its brown sleep.
True. There is
a beautiful Jesus.
He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
But I can't. Need is not quite belief.
All morning long
I have worn
your cross, hung with package string around my throat.
It tapped me lightly as a child's heart might,
tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.
Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.
My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.
Anne Sexton, May 9, 2025
The peasants from Turandol
Returned from the grave of the departed.
Three, four times they declared:
He was a good man, a good man!
A mother will not give birth to such again.
They declared a little more of grief,
Then dispersed
In silence,
The peasants from Turandol.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), May 5, 2025
The dog barked, and barked, and barked.
And nothing happened.
Except the night grew even darker.
I sit in the dark.
I hear no rustle,
no voice.
Yet it seems to me there is a guest
In my house,
One only the dog can see.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), May 2, 2025
A BOAT
Evening comes on and the hills thicken;
red and yellow bleaching out of the leaves.
The chill pines grow their shadows.
Below them the water stills itself,
a sunset shivering in it.
One more going down to join the others.
Now the lake expands
and closes in, both.
The blackness that keeps itself
under the surface in daytime
emerges from it like mist
or as mist.
Distance vanishes, the absence
of distance pushes against the eyes.
There is no seeing the lake,
only the outlines of the hills
which are almost identical,
familiar to me as sleep,
shores unfolding upon shores
in their contours of slowed breathing.
It is touch I go by,
the boat like a hand feeling
through shoals and among
dead trees, over the boulders
lifting unseen, layer
on layer of drowned time falling away.
This is how I learned to steer
through darkness by no stars.
To be lost is only a failure of memory.
Margaret Atwood, April 28, 2025
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. "Madam" , I warned,
"I hate a wasted journey - I am African."
Silence. Silenced transmission of pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully.
"HOW DARK?"...I had not misheard...."ARE YOU LIGHT OR VERY DARK?" Button B. Button A. Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar.
It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
"ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT" Revelation came
"You mean- like plain or milk chocolate?"
Her accent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted
I chose. "West African sepia"_ and as afterthought.
"Down in my passport." Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness changed her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece "WHAT'S THAT?" conceding "DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS." "Like brunette."
"THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT?"
"Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but madam you should see the rest of me.
Palm of my hand, soles of my feet.
Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused-
Foolishly madam- by sitting down, has turned
My bottom raven black- One moment madam! - sensing
Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
About my ears- "Madam," I pleaded, "wouldn't you rather
See for yourself?"
Wole Soyinka, April 25, 2025
NIGHTTIME FIRES
When I was five in Louisville
we drove to see nighttime fires. Piled seven of us,
all pajamas and running noses, into the Olds,
drove fast toward smoke. It was after my father
lost his job, so not getting up in the morning
gave him time: awake past midnight, he read old newspapers
with no news, tried crosswords until he split the pencil
between his teeth, mad. When he heard
the wolf whine of the siren, he woke my mother,
and she pushed and shoved
us all into waking. Once roused we longed for burnt wood
and a smell of flames high into the pines. My old man liked
driving to rich neighborhoods best, swearing in a good mood
as he followed fire engines that snaked like dragons
and split the silent streets. It was festival, carnival.
If there were a Cadillac or any car
in a curved driveway, my father smiled a smile
from a secret, brittle heart.
His face lit up in the heat given off by destruction
like something was being made, or was being set right.
I bent my head back to see where sparks
ate up the sky. My father who never held us
would take my hand and point to falling cinders that
covered the ground like snow, or, excited, show us
the swollen collapse of a staircase. My mother
watched my father, not the house. She was happy
only when we were ready to go, when it was finally over
and nothing else could burn.
Driving home, she would sleep in the front seat
as we huddled behind. I could see his quiet face in the
rearview mirror, eyes like hallways filled with smoke.
Regina Barreca, April 21, 2025
THE SUMMER DAY
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, April 18, 2025
ROAD TO PEACE
Young Abdel Mahdi Shahmay was only 18 years old,
He was the youngest of nine children
He never spent a night away from home.
And his mother held his photograph up in the New York Times
To see the killing has intensified along the road to peace
He was a tall, thin boy with a whispy moustache
Disguised as an orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War Two
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows two hundred yards away
With more retribution and seventeen dead along the road to peace
Now at King George Ave and Jaffa Road passengers boarded bus 14A
In the aisle next to the driver Abdel Mahdi Shahmay
And the last thing that he said on
Earth is, "God is great and God is good"
And he blew them all to kingdom come upon the road to peace
Now in response to this another kiss of death was visited upon
Yasser Taha, Israel says is an Hamas senior militant
And Israel sent four choppers in, flames engulfed his white Opel
And it killed his wife and his three year old child
Leaving only blackened skeletons
They found his toddler's bottle and a pair of small shoes
And they waved them in front of the cameras
But Israel says they did not know
That his wife and child were in the car
There are roadblocks everywhere and only suffering on TV
Neither side will ever give up their smallest right
Along the road to peace
Israel launched its latest campaign against Hamas on Tuesday
Two days later Hamas shot back and killed five Israeli soldiers
So thousands dead and wounded on both
Sides most of them middle eastern civilians
They fill their children full of hate to fight an old man's war
And die upon the road to peace
"And this is our land we will fight with all
Our force" say the Palastinians and the Jews
Each side will cut off the hand of
Anyone who tries to stop the resistance
If the right eye offends thee then you must pluck it out
And Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon had been lost
Out along the road to peace
Once Kissinger said "we have no friends, America only has interests"
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero
And he's hungry for a re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future
In the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press
Ten thousand miles from the road to peace
In the video that they found at the home of Abdel Mahdi Shahmay
He held a Kalashnikov rifle and he spoke with a voice like a boy
He was an excellent student,
He studied so hard, it was as if he had a future
He told his mother that he had a test that day
Out along the road to peace
The fundamentalist killing on both
Sides is standing in the path of peace
But tell me why are we arming the
Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?
And if God is great and God is good
Why can't he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He's out upon the road to peace
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
And he's lost upon the road to peace
And he's lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace.
Tom Waits, April 14, 2025
I found an old man lying by a stone.
I asked him why he lay there, why he was alone.
And he said, don’t I see he has company,
that the stone is beside him.
When I die – he says – when I lie
to sleep the eternal sleep,
they’ll place a stone above my head,
so I’m getting used to it.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), April 11, 2025
I thought of myself this way:
I don’t mind either way – whether I live, or not.
But passing by the spring from which I once drank,
I was gripped by fear
when I saw
it had run dry.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), April 7, 2025
THE NEW COLOSSUS*
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
*"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus. She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. In 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level.
The Colossus of Rhodes was constructed by Chares of Lindos in homage to Helios, the god of the sun in ancient Greek mythology. It was completed around 280 BCE. An earthquake around 225 BCE toppled the statue.
Emma Lazarus, April 4, 2025
UPRCHLÍK
Pro Mirudina Aldobašiće
Seru, říká,
na základy tohoto státu.
Seru prezidentovi do bot
jestli mě nevráte domů.
Ovšem Lincoln říkal
že státu máme dávat
abychom od něj mohli brát
(zhruba tak nějak).
A jakou možnost
má dnes bosenský básník
být alespoň na polský způsob
angažovaným
a k tomu básníkem,
a člověkem?
A vůbec,
seru na bosenského básníka.
Amir Brka (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 31, 2025
JAK JSME ZAŽILI IMPLOZI
Ohromený právě zastaveným kyklopem
který zachránil jedno oko
a nepřestává nás jím sledovat
dlouze rozprávíme
o tom, čím jsme ho krmili
že tolik vyrostl
stal se tak silným a zlým
že nás pak pořádně unavilo
napůl ho oslepit
Nepochybně najdeme odpověď
a pak ho úplně dorazíme
jelikož jsme chytří
jsme národní intelektuálové
to si myslíme
a tak to, namouvěru, je
U vedlejšího stolu sedí
několik demobilizovaných bojovníků
pijí na ex a dělají rámus
pak po nás chtějí
at jim zaplatíme rundu
říkáme, že už také nemáme
- Je čas - říká hospodský
už bude policejní hodina
A pak jsme všichni zažili implozi
dá-li se tak nazvat jev
kdy prázdnotu vyplní zlost
(1996)
Amir Brka (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 28, 2025
JEDNA ZEMĚ
V jedné zemi je
jeden pokoj
v něm naše děti
prsty oči ruce hlavy
jejich hračky
V hlavě je
jedna myšlenka
v ní naše noc
zuby krev nože
její vlkodlaci
V srdci je
jedna bolest
ve které už naše není
nic.
Amir Brka (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 24, 2025
NOC CO NOC
Noc co noc ležím na pravém boku,
ocitám se na nějaké neosvětlené cestě,
probudím se ze sna a zírám do tmy.
Vidím, že není tak hrozné být
mrtvý, horší je, když smrt
před tvýma očima přechází do polotmy,
když se z posmrtných hodin vracíš
do dlouhých, nekonečných předsmrtných hodin;
čas, kdy všechno truchlí nad vším.
Nerozsvítím a nedívám se na hodiny;
není tak hrozné nevědět, kde jsi strávil noc
a kdy jsi usnul, ani kdo se hlouběji ponořil
do snu - bůh, svět, město nebo tvůj hlas,
a není tak hrozné, když oněmíme
z přílišného jasu světla a tmy,
ani není tak hrozné, když nás pohltí
temnota, jako když úsvit pohltí chabé pouliční
osvětlení. Horší je budit se před úsvitem,
přenášet nějaké těžké, nehybné myšlenky
z hlubin nočního času do dalšího dne.
Milan Garić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 21, 2025
OREMUS
Ti kdo kradou říkají: nenadávej.
Ti kdo zabíjejí říkají: cti den Páně.
Ti kdo ctí den Páně nectí Pána.
Ti kdo zabíjejí Boha říkají: nevezmeš jména Božího
Nadarmo.
Ti kdo lžou citují tvá přikázání:
Páté nezabiješ, šesté nepokradeš, osmé nevydáš křivého svědectví.
Ti kdo kradou vydávají křivého svědectví.
Ti kdo kradou říkají: nepožádáš manželky bližního svého.
Ti kdo zabíjejí říkají: já jsem hospodin tvůj bůh,
A nesmíš mít jiné bohy mimo mne.
Ti kdo lžou ctí den Páně
A vyjmenovávají tvá další přikázání.
Ti kdo kradou říkají: nepožádáš cizích věcí
Abys žil dlouho a bylo ti dobře na zemi.
Ti kdo zabíjejí říkají: cti ty kdo kradou
Abys žil dlouho a bylo ti dobře na zemi.
Ti kdo lžou říkají že tvé jméno je svědkem
A říkají: nevezmeš jména Božího
Nadarmo.
Mile Stojić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 17, 2025
BYLO VĚDECKY DOKÁZÁNO
Vzpomínky Michaela Schröna
Že se knihy, ve kterých jsou vytištěné
naše básně, samy od sebe rozpadnou
Za čtyři století, budou nás následovat
Do prachu.
Že na planetě Venuši je
Jako pro nás v Bosně
Jeden den
Delší než rok.
Že buňky našeho těla umírají
A obnovují se,
takže za půl století
Už v těle není
Ani jedna stejná
Že láska trvá v průměru tři
Roky a posmrtně pak žije dlouho
Ve vzpomínkách, básních.
Že je potřeba aktivovat
sedmnáct obličejových svalů
na smích a čtyřicet tři
na pláč.
Že, když zhasne
Jedna hvězda na obloze
Její svit k nám doléhá
Ještě léta
Září i mrtvá.
Mile Stojić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 14, 2025
NIKDY NEŘÍKEJ
Nikdy neříkej, že to nemůže být horší
Může
Nikdy neříkej, že to nebylo horší
Bylo
Když lidé nedosáhli vrcholu kopce
dotkli se dna propasti
Proti tomu je to, co potkalo tebe
úplná prkotina
Čokoláda si žádá maliny
natrhej je
Vlast si žádá syny
poroď je
Tvoje milá hledá okovy
vykovej je
Černá země volá hroby
vykopej je
Co udělaly moudré knihy
nestojí za řeč
Co nadělaly šílené knihy
mluví za všechno
Repertoár mazlení je chudý
repertoár mučení je bohatý
Mocný je hněv Diův
Slabé je Ježíšovo úpění
Nikdy neříkej: nemůže být hůř
Může
Nikdy neříkej: nebylo hůř
Bylo
Mile Stojić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 10, 2025
PŘÍBĚH Z VÝCHODNÍ STRANY
Pravdy jsou neudržitelné! Fandili jsme jako na psích
závodech lžím, které štěkají nejsilněji. Můj bratr
udal tlustou sousedovu krávu, že přežvykovala
marihuanu. Kvůli budoucí zradě jsme všichni jako malí
Ježíšové táhli na zádech kříž srpu a kladiva. A skutečně,
když se železná opona jako sprchový závěs odhákla
a svezla do mýdlové pěny, nazí, v sedmimílových botách,
jsme přeskákali na opačnou stranu, abychom se znovu
narodili.
Posekaná tráva voní jako dřív svou krví,
takovou, jaká je, a červená tvář měsíce se dívá
skrze cypřiše nabodnuté v řadě jako vřetena
jako skrz železné tyče vězeňského okna. Jedině
slova jsou svobodná! Ale slouží ničemu, protože
pravdy jsou nežádoucí. Na nočním nebi, dostupné všem,
kvetou kameny a ruka temnoty zapřahá do souhvězdí
Velkého vozu souhvězdí Malého medvěda. Nechápu,
jak se nám vůbec daří o tom nic nevědět?
Milorad Pejić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 7, 2025
PŘÍBĚH SE ZAPADNI STRANY
Ze stovky vynálezů a geniálních objevů nejvíc
vyděláváme na vývozu provazů k pověšení.
Hračkami hrůzy uspokojujeme sympatické tyrany
a peří svobody, kterým se chlubíme, je oškubané
zaživa z křídel podmaněných ptáků Souostroví Raka.
Občas pozvedneme hlas, ale tváří v tvář přeplněným
pultům masa a sudům vína se naše spravedlnost,
krátká jako psí hanba, rychle rozředí v slině.
Ale pochop, i my máme noční můry! Nepřítel
je neklidný, i podle zpráv ze strážních věží barbaři
znovu jezdí v převrácených ovcích jako v neprůstřelných
vestách. Zdvojnásobili jsme východní hranice
lidem, který nespí. Naše trestné výpravy
zabodávají každý den jako žihadla vítězné
prapory císařství na malá spáleniště, ale vracejí se domů
bez radosti. Postupujeme, ale se strachem!
A konce tomu není, divoši prostě nechápou porážku.
Milorad Pejić (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), March 3, 2025
IF
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling, February 28, 2025
A VERY SHORT SONG
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad—
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Dorothy Parker, February 24, 2025
ELM
I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.
Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?
Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.
All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.
Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.
I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.
Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.
The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.
I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.
I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?—
Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.
Sylvia Plath, February 21, 2025
RAŠKA PAINTER
I stand before the church and the river, then fall silent.
And I wonder
did that man die young,
like Giorgione,
or ancient, like Titian?
Perhaps a Nemanjić girl loved him,
tall and young,
reckless and wise, like her fathers,
and told him that night beneath the pines
some wondrous words of love, noble and bold.
And later, he poured her eyes and hands
into the image of the Mother of God,
tender, tinged with violet, spring-like,
so that the Starovlah shepherds
and solemn priests in golden robes
bowed before this human love.
And he carried, for a long time,
along the imperial roads from the Ibar to Thessaloniki,
one beloved face…like a talisman.
Now when all is dust
and all is sacred,
I stand in front of the church and the river, then fall silent.
And I wonder
if that man died young,
like Giorgone,
or ancient like Titian?
Raška (Rascia) was a medieval Serbian state that existed from the end of 11th century up until 1217 (when it was transformed into the Kingdom of Serbia).
The House of Nemanjić was the most prominent Serbian dynasty in Middle Ages.
The Stari Vlah-Raška Mountain Range is a highland in southwest Serbia.
Svetislav Mandić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), February 17, 2025
CYPRESSES ABOVE PERAST
The lonely cypresses stand among the rocks,
like swallow’s wings fallen from the sky,
or as if a sailor’s wife
had carved
black masts.
And all day long she watches the sea
hoping to resurrect the dead ships
so they might finally tell her
where to find white sails
for them again.
Svetislav Mandić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), February 14, 2025
A SINGLE FLOWER ON THE ASHES
I came but couldn’t find my birth home
and there was no one to embrace the weary guest.
Only a single early flower greeted me on the ashes
and even that was enough, enough…
I shed my tattered coat by myself,
I washed the soot from my pale hands alone,
and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry,
or that my heart didn’t freeze.
Risto Tošović (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), February 10, 2025
I have a ring,
an old ring of an ancient Roman,
taken from a grave.
For some time now
that ring has been troubling me:
I keep feeling that Roman is telling me
that he, too, when he was alive,
wore that ring on the same, small finger.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), February 7, 2025
I came across an abandoned path through the woods.
Branches had grown over it, grass had taken root.
I came upon a grave by the path –
two stones, one above the feet,
the other above the head.
And now, of all the travelers,
it’s only the two of us here.
The one who once stopped on this path…
And me.
I continued down that abandoned
path through the woods.
And it feels as though I’m no longer traveling alone,
as if, alongside my own, I hear his steps too.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), February 3, 2025
Our drummer died long ago.
At night,
when silence blankets the graveyard,
when the winds are still,
you can hear
the drummer beating his drum
for the dead.
Then, it feels as if no one has ever died.
Then, the distance between them underground
and us above
is no greater
than the span
of the drummer’s two drumsticks.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), January 31, 2025
SEVEN REPRIMANDS
Seven times I have despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek
that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping
before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy,
and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself
that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbode for weakness,
and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face,
and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise,
and deemed it a virtue.
Kahlil Gibran, January 27, 2025
FEAR
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that's where the river will know
it's not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
Kahlil Gibran, January 24, 2025
That man
with the badge on his cap –
so all would know who he is,
sat calmly on a chair.
And just as calmly,
he stabbed a knife into the table –
so all would know who he is.
And for now, nothing: his knife stays there,
he sits calmly there –
and for now, nothing: except that in the café,
a lamp still burns
on the beam.
Outside, it’s a beautiful night.
If the windows were opened,
moonlight would pour in –
and for now, nothing: except
no one speaks.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), January 20, 2025
We have fierce girls in Šipovice.
They reap barley, and sing,
sing.
Their vests burst at the chest.
Their shirts tear open.
Buttons snap.
They don’t care about the vests.
They don’t care about the shirts.
They sing, sing,
our girls from Šipovice.
Reaping barley.
So it is by day…
But at night, they step into the moonlight,
fall onto the green, dewy grass,
clawing at their chests with their fingers,
tearing locks from their hair,
and they scream, scream in anguish
at being girls
from Šipovice.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), January 17, 2025
IN THE DEEP MUSEUM
My God, my God, what queer corner am I in?
Didn't I die, blood running down the post,
lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin
of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost?
Surely my body is done? Surely I died?
And yet, I know, I'm here. What place is this?
Cold and queer, I sting with life. I lied.
Yes, I lied. Or else in some damned cowardice
my body would not give me up. I touch
fine cloth with my hand and my cheeks are cold.
If this is hell, then hell could not be much,
neither as special or as ugly as I was told.
What's that I hear, snuffling and pawing its way
toward me? Its tongue knocks a pebble out of place
as it slides in, a sovereign. How can I pray
It is panting; it is an odor with a face
like the skin of a donkey. It laps my sores.
It is hurt, I think, as a I touch its little head.
It bleeds. I have forgiven murderers and whores
and now must wait like old Jonah, not dead
nor alive, stroking a clumsy animal. A rat.
His teeth test me; he waits like a good cook,
knowing his own ground. I forgive him that,
as I forgave my Judas the money he took.
Now I hold his soft red sore to my lips
as his brothers crowd in, hairy angels who take
my gift. My ankles are a flute. I lose hips
and wrists. For three days, for love's sake,
I bless this other death. Oh, not in air --
in dirt. Under the rotting veins of its roots,
under the markets, under the sheep bed where
the hill is food, under the slippery fruits
of the vineyard, I go. Unto the bellies and jaws
of rats I commit my prophecy and fear.
Far below The Cross, I correct its flaws.
We have kept the miracle. I will not be here.
Anne Sexton, January 13, 2025
OUR WARRIOR RETURNED FROM THE WAR IN
GREECE
Our warrior returned from the war in Greece
bringing back a Greek baking pan and
wounds on his body.
The women told him the pan from Greece
was no good because it was too shallow.
We told him his wounds from Greece
were no good either because they were
too shallow.
We said to him:
We could have given you deeper wounds
at home.
Ćamil Sijarić (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), January 10, 2025
NEMOCNÝ SARAJEVA
Nechápal jsem
před třiceti lety
verš Anonyma ze Sarajeva
tři sta let starý
Ve vlasti
zůstal jsem dychtivý
po vlasti
To co jsem
před třiceti lety
neuměl pochopit
se mi dnes děje
Abdulah Sidran (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), January 6, 2025
ASSISI
poznali jsme krutost třešní v květů
a vyšli na vrchol kopce
odkud je vidět zvonici v údolí
nad hranicí sněhu a vavřínu nad níž
Aurora rozhazuje skoupý oheň
moc jsme spolu nemluvili šli jsme obejmutí
jako utopenci jejichž krev v sobě nese
i polibky i hvězdy i blízké břehy
potom jsme sešli do hospody v údolí
posadili se do kouta a pili čaj ty s citronem
já s rumem a ty jsi vydržela můj pohled
a já jsem vydržel tvůj pohled
neživot se slévá do polibku který nás
nechápe v soustředné kružnici
ročních období smířených s listím
a kostmi na které se jako na kukátko
píská v dětských hrách
Shaftesbury v plášti mluví o hře
ve které Ctnost a Neřest
v jedné osobě nutí k volbě akustické lidi
a já vím a já vím že Shaftesbury a já
a ty s nahrbenými rameny tady v koutě
představujeme jednu malou schoulenou smrt
Dragan Kaluđerović (Přeložili Adin Ljuca a Dominika Křesťanová), January 3, 2025