RIVER POEMS

Four poems form the book “River Certainly does Love the Flood”, translated into English by the author.

The book won the Croatian literary award “Kiklop” (Cyclops) as the best poetry volume in 2006. Several poems form the book were translated in different languages, and some were performed in poetry workshops (poj. poezija, jednostavno)

ariadne

no, there was no theseus
she was alone, spun a ball
of fire and hemp
to make a path through the dark, through weariness, straying
in labyrinth she built on her own
laying abyss underneath her footsteps

for there was perhaps no minotaur either
only some ordinary men
besieging for years some other people’s town
to get hold of their riches, armaments and women

snowqueen

frozen tarn in her room she had
and nobody saw it
two-edged hatchet she had
and kept striking the ice
when nobody saw it
closing her eyes
she pushed her hand into the crevice –
as she drew it out it was all glassy
hand, foot, head, she plunged her whole body –
now street lamps turn out before her
and nobody sits on the chair beside her
and tiny bells in her head keep clanging all glassy:
cold beast I am
wintry queen
the one who fights with shreds and splinters
for the room from the beginning
wasn’t fit for me to live in, that’s why –

river certainly does love the flood

river certainly does love the flood
hardly waiting for the moment when
there’s enough water for brimming over,
disastrous dazzling overflowing
corrosion of borders, for the free step –

only the step isn’t step anymore then, soon
it becomes a crawling, for a river
is stronger when in her bed? – no, no!
she just spends herself differently, on endless
rubbing of edges, chiseling
of the same hollowness

river certainly prefers the flood:
then all of her might gets loose at once
and there is no building that could resist her
and there is no tree that would not be shaken
and there is no thing that would not be drowned

but when they chase her back again, then
begin grey times for the river:
dams are higher then ever and there reigns
general distrust of water
great dream of freedom turns again
into scraping
in the deep

forty fourth commandment

you’ll tell the truth
lay away the red mantle
and wherever you live
you’ll live
in a summer house
on the beach