PAVLOVIC, Radko
Abandoned words
Out of crumpled paper
Thrown into the room corner
The words are getting out
Like a fog out of a grove.
They don’t want to be abandoned,
They want me to embrace them again,
To give them their dignity back,
They want to be a poem.
If I do not comply with that wish
They sulk and turn their heads,
And when I turn off the lights
They slip into my bed and my sleep.
Washed and smiling,
They wake up the morning before I do,
And, like white butterflies,
Overfly my desk.
Beamed by their glitter,
I get out of bed drowsily
And hurry to put down again
Last night’s abandoned words.
He who writes poetry
He who writes poetry
Always has a safe hiding-place
To hide himself before the storm comes.
He writes a verse like a man
Who makes a roof above the house,
And hides himself before the storm comes.
Covers himself with a poem
Protects from peevishness
his family and himself too.
Him who writes poetry
Reaches a metaphor, finds a word
Warm as memory of a warm summer.
Such as a swallow for its nest
Infallibly finds the eaves
Under which all the inmates are happy.
He who writes poetry
Is never alone in his loneliness
And never his fingers and his heart become cold.
Innocent mouthful
(Voice of a frightened girl followed by the trumpet made of the willow’s bark with a mouthpiece made of hazel with origin from the sunny side of mountain Kozara)
Where are they taking me, where are they taking you?
Why that morning’s cry, wail of ash-trees?
Why is the river weeping, why is the mountain shedding tears and
Why is the mute wail calling the heavens?
Don’t let them take me, mommy, stay with me.
Burn the wire that separates us with your hot tear,
Bury your nails into the darkness,
Clear the path to your eye and stretch your
Stiff arm.
The morning lost its mind, wolf’s jaws
Are greedily eating a chunk of the day,
The noon is staggering all over the thirsty dust,
Mad sun is asking for some water, some sweat;
And it would quench its thirst with some blood too.
Only the fate, with half an eye, is lurking for
an innocent bite. Can you hear the growl?
Out of dark caves dragons with hundred heads arrive,
Along with elves.
I beg you, mommy, give me your hand.
I don’t want to go to the menagerie, don’t let them
Take me. I want your bosom and my dream there,
Warm as milk, more sweet scented than a ruddy
Bread loaf on the dining table.
Don’t let them, mommy, take me away,
I’ll be just a shiver in your embrace, hank of throbs
And I will never ask for some
Inconceivable bread.