EXILE SUITE

Mediterranean

is becoming a mass grave  was always a mass grave
as soon as it rises it takes lovers, its bottom covered with keels
luring and lashing: there’s land on the other side, towns to be piled to be fertilized

the sea of heroes equipping their ships with wooden murderous horses
demands the death of a maiden to lend them its waves – to sink them all
on their way back – its bottom covered with shiny shields of Achilles

love apples are not to be traded but fought for

the sea of traders inventing containers for oil for fragrance for words
around them above them they see their ruler creating islands and throwing thunder
in vain they offer him horses

the sea bed is covered with harness with jugs with bronze mirrors with scrolls of words
explaining the world

the sea bed is covered with broken white statues

command of the sea means myriad battles –
clothes of the drowned ever changing leaving no trace on sands of the deep

the transparent blue invites sunbeams to dance, all of a sudden is bored with the calm –
or does it just feel obliged to raise the wind after all those maidens sacrificed?

coffee bar boat blues

in a soft light with melody repeating your safety will you
sill step into that boat
(having sold out all your tiny treasures)?

for whose sake are you moving apart the floorboards
looking for words crushed and forgotten enough to be waterproof?

for whom do you call forth a factory of boats flying carpets flying
off towards cities that lay on their riches as dragons?

ah, beloved dragons, with all their colorful scales their countless
eyes opening up in the dusk – they have to protect themselves against
that invasion of vessels full of unsteady sailors blind for the layered complexity of their lairs –
sailors who see only this: the houses are whole

here, the houses are whole, reflections of streetlights turning on in windows, rainy wind swaying the awning –

but what can you take when you’re boarding on wave, a child to give birth to, wash it in gutter, present it with a dream of a boat?
those left behind?
squeeze them in veils and promises, put them in your pocket?

and who’s there to steer clear?
who’ll be the gentle stranger with barrels that once smuggled your mother’s family into safety making it possible for you to be born?

we did not choose our own luck – if it were up to us, we would have chosen it

among

there are dangerous kinds among them, says a voice from the next table, among us blue shirted waiters, no sea no wire
among them there are fat women screaming while being pulled by a rope through some river-border – we know, we saw it on screen
among us are some who want real long coffee, returning the cup that’s too small –

among them are boys with help banners written in languages they do not speak – but we shouldn’t stick with the obvious

hands that kneaded the edible, rubbed the dirty, killed an animal to make a soup – bodies in urban raincoats, feet with one shoe off, heads with a headache, a lot of screaming mouths because expressive photography awakens empathy and brings recognition to the author –

among us waiters carrying tables inside, it’s too cold and too late, among us a woman with gold belt buckle and big flower bouquet –

among them are some who grew up in an apartment with balcony – they are only men! – only women and children! – who are building with rags some temporary dwelling among us among them among us

there are people reading in newspaper about refugees calling them migrants among us are those distributing names with embedded guilt and indulgence, there are terrorists

among them among us there are people with fever blisters and people with glasses, and those looking very much like some other people already dead – those always trying to tell the same story never quite the same – with limited range of motion with badly shaven cheek – those who wouldn’t leave their cat for the world – there are those who are holding some small box to their breast as if they already lost it –

among them are those who can sing but don’t sing and some who can see colors more intensely than others – there are hands threatening, voices quarreling, a girl entering puberty at the middle of the sea – is there something like that among us? – people with green fingers from un-green landscapes and those who crammed everything into a tiny portable memory – is there anyone with a second hand camera who’ll get fame post festum?

there are those who lift newborns in the air as a pledge – and pledge is something which proves that a hope will come true, says the dictionary

there are women with wisps of hair escaping the scarf, are there scarves as big and flowery as those made in past times by women of my country for the day of their death – is there among us someone with a time machine ready to slide back through centuries into a migration different and same, with river-borders, fence-borders, borders of armed men –

among them are some who do not have a thing, they are coming to request at least something – are there people like that among us?

among them are some who will find both sky and fruit pale in the northern light and the name for that will be happiness

shards for ashraf fayadh

are you able are you willing      to pour yourself      out of safety     I’m trying      socially useful

productive work      deserving      ascertaining: I am the one who is swimming in the rusty pipes of sewage, barefoot   my soul is,

oh,

but the skin of my feet      nail polish ankle bracelets     testify against –

pouring wrong way –

the main thing is      to avoid to escape      the pain –

going      not further than       this      long breakfast

I’d give you asylum, you’re saying, little men and women inside you speaking their own incongruous minds     if it were up to me

if it were down to me

up down

in wind rose      far

from afar

from a safe distance poking around      not the warm not the soft not the sunny       particles      not your own

nothing to touch with      too distantclose       except for the imprints of some light fire

(written in 2015/2016, the four poems entitled “Exile Suite” – or “Mediterranean Suite” – were translated and performed in Croatian, Danish, English and French, and published in original and in translation in a couple of literary magazines;  they were a part of a large-format art-book created by visual artist Iva Valentić and exhibited in Lauba gallery in Zagreb in 2022)