WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

               *1   Give me the fruit of innocence – whilst I breathe, I gaze at myself in the mirror’s entirety – if indeed it has been catalogued in the scientific archives of ethnic groups. They say no, as if they did not understand that evidence does not keep in its registries menus of ephemeral sensations. The nobility catalogued in the West does not recognize innocence as a sensible and visible value. Let us consider its wonders – since innocence is an immaterial asset of little worth – what they add to the subtraction of their nature as cheap magicians ; the dull language of pretence; the immoderate plundering of blood traded in the commerce of values added to the gluttony of misery; (the absence of a Book is telling) pacts & regime pacts for a unifying perspective, perhaps the bellicose side of terror, of those inept at assessing innocence. Investing in the feast of ignorance, they peddle market-stall gods, tribunes of accusations...

  201   A mouse listens to a scops owl’s cry. By day a dog with nothing else to do listens to a calf lowing.   I listen to Uighurs talking. While coming from far away, far away, from that unbounded place on the western shore of Qinghai Lake, meaning having vanished, only the sounds remain.   I listen to ethnic Koreans’ Chinese. I listen to English. I listen to British English and Californian English respectively. In the state where meaning is nullified only the sacredness of sounds remains.   Meanings, interpretations, truths that are this planet’s catastrophes, you’ve worked hard for thousands of years. Now be off with you.   Farewell.   I listen to your words as the call of a goose by night, only as the fossils of sounds as a snail or a butterfly listens to my words.   Meaningless consonants and vowels ! Reality in the origin, sounds !   (from “Untitled Poems”)       I Will Sing   I will sing. When I suffer pain I wi...

  The City                                  —after C.P.Cavafy   You tell me: I’m going to another country, another city, another body. Perhaps my heart will stay uncertain, and I will destroy my history but I am leaving. Even if on every street, I find the ruins of our bodies, I’ll roam like a restless soul anyway.   I tell you: You won’t find a new country, new city, new body. You’ll return to roam the same ruins, same streets, same quartiere , return to complain in the same room of the same house, return to the memory of our intertwined bodies. You will always end up in Roma: I will always remain in you. And maybe late, you’ll see, what you destroyed is worth more than all the worlds you wasted your time in.       Intermezzo   You can’t trespass an open wound   the smell of September on the breast of a lover   you desired but can’t remember, ...

  One’s Own Position in the Sky   With the thought that you accomplish me with a perfect creation you unnoticeably entered my dreams. I’m glad. We connect the incompatible, by a light gesture of hand, invisible thread of the lit dreamology. We sow. By the balance of pleasure and restlessness. By the balance of blossomed will. The harmony from field grasses and urban smog. Like, unstable, this summer is. Originating from as far back as the Old World. Sprung. By dreaming you reinforce you position in the sky. By dreaming you draw away from life. By participation of the spirit, in dreams, you find your goal. You are like all others, truly. Women I love. Even when you don’t recall your dreams, you keep the feeling of dreaminess. You know whether you are warm or cold. You feel dreams, always. In the part between the body and soul, in the inter-step with them, dreams have arranged their volume. They made time easier for you. They filled in the space for you and filled you with them...

4   between two hummingbirds                                               oscillating in the breeze beneath the tame sunflower light nightburned in the intense split of the pitcher we left outside shyness perfumes                              with basil cunning the horizon will fail but the light undresses in the maples   a hummingbird is allayed                                           on the steel curve behind its...

  The Verb ‘’ I Write’’ I write I wrote I’ve written.   Fine up to here.   But the future is lacking. Unidiomatic the imperative. And the indicative is optative Euphemism.   An irregular verb, really. Intricate.   Who can learn it?     A Poem   Since no definition Is definite And since of the thousand versions None answers             What             A poem is, I imagine three more words Won’t be too heavy:             Rhythmically             Cogitating             Feeling.     Thus We   Like Cynegeirus, the brother of Aeschylus. You know.   Who when the Persians retreated from Marathon To the safety of their ships He obstructed a trireme by sticking H...

  Not  Everyone is Friedly to You   (Nisu ti baš svi skloni)   Not everyone   is friendly to you, as you think, the world is unfriendly place.   But I have no other family.   Do you hear the summer screams?   Yes, they   descend on   our garden, pluck   heads, they swallow   oxygen and all our babuskhas they will disappear forever like pets through the bush in the corner of our garden       And It Isn’t Allowed   (A to se ne smije)   You smile, even without a collocutor, with your eyes, into space, into a volcano’s crater, to a human face which should be loved   only not to their market-places, not to shadowy places where things and people lose their names   it’s there that shadows of smiles fly over human shadows   You walk through the city, looking into their eyes, and it isn’t allowed You break the door apart and enter, the mouth smiles of its own accord, the mouth does its job – let’s...

    My Angel   My angel, I am not worthy — Neither by night, nor day’s bright glory. All I boasted was empty, vain, But you — do not leave me in pain! Stronger than all is feeling’s sixth, Like the jig of rain and fire’s mix: My angel, I am not worthy, true, But do not leave me — stay in view! Life and death I meet standing, still, Not exalting, not cursing, by will… My angel, I am not worthy, yet, Do not abandon me, I beg you, yet!     For a Last Drink   Hosts! One last drink — for wine! All was delicious, proper, fine. I do not look: kiss as you please… Ah yes! I’m glad that you — his spouse with ease. Though this speech may seem absurd, And my role, plainly, is misplaced word, Do not explain — I know, in truth, But I drink the cup, as is the custom, to the tooth. And now? One last drink? Wine again? No. A smoke first — by the windowpane. What’s strange? I drank a little, sure. Such times occur, of that I’m sure. Yet the cup must be drunk to the last, To ...

  The Lost Language of Trains   Those who can hear the lost language of trains, who almost understand it, wake some nights to flooded turntables and torn-up sidings in birch-woods doomed to redevelopment.   But they believe in the smoke in a brasserie mirror reflecting the paintings of Paul Delvaux, in black trains stealing at dusk through abandoned stations where the lately departed drink to the night, to the night.   Have they lingered too long, these believers, an eye on the signals, an ear for the marshalling-yards where trains are rehearsing vast chords of farewell?   Smoke fills the doorway and dissolves, and silence follows where language has gone. Have they listened too long? Does it matter?       Yours in Haste   What time do I call this? Time enough to kill the suitors, hang the housemaids, dig the faithful dog a hole (I didn’t want to wake you)   and make ready to depart.         ...

  Time Smokes Laughter   It rains like the news, and snows like an advertisement.   The sound of ripples and smoke... Things gossip more than people.   Caught up in life, we must seize opportunities, grab what we want, and get a job… get a something…   we must look through the cracks of the 'now.‘   Even if we can't keep our promise, we must keep the 'flow.‘   The present is an exclamation point. Painting paints on nouns.   Once we start living, we want to keep living. It's a drug, more than a drug.   Time smokes laughter.     Picking Up Time with Tweezers   I pick up time with a pair of tweezers.   “Just what on earth?” opens its wide eyes in surprise the sky’s shell, watching, and even the clouds begin to stir.   No room, no house, no entrance , “now” is a boundary.   People, like objects whose names we know yet do not understand, answer “yes, yes” as they resist, scratching the back of the present.   What...