Jovanka Uljarević: A journey
| I am not here where you see me or there where they know me There is here for me And here is too far It is like when madmen in a madhouse tell you that you are mad And you call them mad Asking yourself whether they could really reveal your madness Or is it only an insanity they want to confront with their own We have also been given a name So that they could call us with no meaning I went to see a shrink He was a "she" and did not call me by name I was so small And she mounted me to the window in her room To show me some pigeons' nest It was so ugly that I liked it I said it was beautiful I remember her perfectly And the look on her face while telling me that I was sane I think we understood each other. A DETAIL I am a wax figure upon your shelf A decoration no one notices any more A charming detail that enchants with its superficiality Like those melted candies in the cupboards of our aunts So old and forlorn By expecting some joy that might swallow them But which stopped caring for candies long ago And does not want to find them But they are here again Odorous like when they came into being And mute And dear untasted Like all the light congregated within me. IF YOU EVER HAD A WISH If you ever had a wish to kill yourself Do it tonight This evening was made for such things The moon is rounded in the sky Drawing his belly in, belching He has slept with all the stars And all is even for him right until there Where we will never be able to see. They said it will rain Just a drizzle There will be no new flood soon I want you to take note of this opportunity. A WORD It could be spoken solely in those moments When only the speaker's ears would hear it And when its only sense would be in being spoken It could claim its place in the dictionary Where no one would ever pay attention to it So that even those who laboured upon it Would be unable to notice its presence It could be a creator of a feeling that would have power To tear down a being after settling in it And a meaning that would send all the others to nothingness It could unconditionally possess Annihilating all the efforts not to be remembered Surely it could become the only real thing So real that everything we knew before it With it would be lost forever ? Only if there existed such a word. Translated by: Zoran Paunović |
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