WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

  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...

  Mothers   Mothers of my own sins And of every desire, where are you? Mothers who, without stopping, give birth To weary fates in unrealized times.   I have no memory about chosen paths: Only about byways to pave Pulling away weeds on the back of the edges. Mothers, I am alone   Should I ever be ashamed of this scream? I cannot hear my lament: I’m propagating it just like a crow Who believes in his song more than anyone else.   Mothers, I am standing there motionless Gaudy and flowing like M ό nch’s ghost, Bruise and inaccurate like Shiele’s boy, Mothers, I am just and only A backbeated son, A hymn to victory prior to the battle, And, to silence, a voice in counterpoint.   Mothers, perhaps I’m not and I will never be More than an intimate and folded flap of something. I belong to any Story that has been worn out, A date display with three dots at the bottom...       Red   The red houses burn blurry Under this crackling hour That gives a...

  I lit the match that set Laniakea on fire        you, Ely, could perform the miracle of carrying the linden flower down to the empty skull where there is a garden where nothing has bloomed to this day   and you don't know nor you can find out either and always again without reason you carry the linden flower to the empty skull                *     y ou will come with a scared light and a flying brain and the transparent queen will be deflowered   Leonardo in the the Lord's clothes will draw dazzling sketches and will let them fall from the highest height   so high the height is when Leonardo makes the sketches that they will never fall   the transparent queen will stay as virgin as a dangerous verse                 *     w ith the die in her mouth the empress was eating the numerous earthlings ...

  Almost Biblically 7a.   You are that broken body in the twilight which smells of fire because it was never tamed. You are the air which blew through defeated words and transformed into the wheat we gathered for our tomorrow bread. You are the appeal of the coming kiss which invokes the recollection of what is gone with the eyes of the dog that salvaged your touch through his gaze. You are the cliff temptation and the temptation of the inexhaustible garden, full of apple trees and unfathomable threads of poetry. You are the electricity of a Hispanic August at the dusk next to the river as you through a red jacket on your shoulders. You are a city when it drizzles on its syllables: my very own Song of Songs.     7b.   Because there exists an empty room where your luminous hands light up my nights. Because there exists a bed with an Indian tent at its centre to hide us from everyone without clothes or memory; because there at the end of the bed a dog and a giraff...

Cassandra to Agamemnon             I've warned you of the bloodbath: a bath, with your blood in it, literally. But there you go, blundering right in, no hand of fate can stop you, the hand that wants you dead.                                                And I, who will be killed soon after you,       why should I care--when, or of whose hand? So don't stall--go on, go in,                                                  ...

  Stones From Central Park   I brought a handful of stones from Central Park they lay in America for millions of years waiting for my hand   I picked them up from the ground and put them into my pocket   they flew with me over the Atlantic   now they are lying on a shelf and will stay there   I touch them and think–   how much had happened in my life how many times beaten by a club spat on and cheated trembling and going insane I could not touch them   I think about my childhood friends and enemies on the same street about my passions and the birth of children moments of hunger and appeasement   stones from Central Park so warm and so cold   like people–so alive and later so dead   2000   (Translated into English by Stanley H. Barkan & Adam Szyper)       Red Streetcar   I dreamed of a red streetcar gliding on rails in New Orleans full of moving skeletons playing on saxophones trombones trumpets ...

  A Little Bird Winter, hazy, heavy, epidemic The bird died at nightfall It took its curtain call When evening descended Natural, peaceful, at the stairs, a little sad It was no longer lonely. I picked it up, went downstairs And buried it, beside the stairs The instant it died, it was pretty elegant, deserving the reputation of A good bird Burying it beside the stairs Smoothing the soil, and scattering some dead branches Then I went upstairs And continued With my drinking     Wheat Is Still Golden After Being Cut   Privets or ash trees Swaying slightly in the hot air I look at the wheat fields The village is not beautiful Apart from this, the wheat fields are still golden after being cut I discard bad words For accurate expression The Qinling Mountains are dark azure Because of complex clouds Happiness comes from shouting Apart from this What else A trickle of water A silly crowing bird Hiding in leaves and I say: this is not art Flying behind my head It touches my ...

  Love More Mysterious Than The Dead          ... odours of childhood       that welcomed sickly joy ...                          Quasimodo   We thought we had forgotten the smell of the old house, when suddenly, on opening a wooden door, those summer nights came back to us, the mosquitoes' torment, the holidays, their eves and the mysterious resuscitation of our dead.   The years used to age these memories too, used to superimpose other summer nights, other holidays, other eves, another love more mysterious than the dead. Until in an instant there returned the smell of childhood and its sickly joy.     Alexis' Moon   The street has changed: before, night here was wilder: on the corner a lamp would swing in the summer breeze, crickets and frogs were omens of storms and there came ...