Oh mother,
after this lap of childhood
I will never go forth
into the big people’s world
as an alien,
a fabrication,
or falter
when someone else
is as empty as a shoe.
anne sexton, iz ”Mothers”
foto: tata
your dear nylon-covered legs, / are the horses I will ride / into eternity.
Prosinac 14, 2009
FOR ELEANOR BOYLAN TALKING WITH GOD
January 3, 2009
God has a brown voice,
as soft and full as beer.
Eleanor, who is more beautiful than my mother,
is standing in her kitchen talking
and I am breathing in my cigarettes like poison.
She stands in her lemon-colored sun dress
motioning to God with her wet hands
glossy from the washing of egg plates.
She tells him! She tells him like a drunk
who doesn’t need to see to talk.
It’s casual but friendly.
God is as close as the ceiling.
Though no one can ever know,
I don’t think he has a face.
He had a face when I was six and a half.
Now he is alrge, covering up the sky
like a great resting jellyfish.
When I was eight I thought the dead people
stayed up there like blimps.
Now my chair is as hard as a scarecrow
and outside the summer flies sing like a choir.
Eleanor, before he leaves tell him…
Oh Eleanor, Eleanor,
tell him before death uses you up.
anne sexton
foto: google
January 3, 2009
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.
anne sexton
we’re always touching by underground wires
Lipanj 30, 2008
The past is a grotesque animal
And in its eyes you see
How completely wrong you can be
How completely wrong you can be
The sun is out, it melts the snow that fell yesterday
Makes you wonder why it bothered
I fell in love with the first cute girl that I met
Who could appreciate Georges Bataille
Standing at a Swedish festival discussing “Story of the Eye”
Discussing “Story of the Eye”
It’s so embarrassing to need someone like I do you
How can I explain, I need you here and not here too
How can I explain, I need you here and not here too
I’m flunking out, I’m flunking out, I’m gone, I’m just gone
But at least I author my own disaster
At least I author my own disaster
Performance breakdown and I don’t want to hear it
I’m just not available
Things could be different but they’re not
Things could be different but they’re not
The mousy girl screams, “Violence! Violence!”
The mousy girl screams, “Violence! Violence!”
She gets hysterical because they’re both so mean
And it’s my favorite scene
But the cruelty’s so predictable
It makes you sad on the stage
Though our love project has so much potential
But it’s like we weren’t made for this world
(Though I wouldn’t really want to meet someone who was)
Do I have to scream in your face?
I’ve been dodging lamps and vegetables
Throw it all in my face, I don’t care
Let’s just have some fun
Let’s tear this shit apart
Let’s tear the fucking house apart
Let’s tear our fucking bodies apart
But let’s just have some fun
Somehow you’ve red-rovered the gestapo circling my heart
And nothing can defeat you
No death, no ugly world
You’ve lived so brightly
You’ve altered everything
I find myself searching for old selves
While speeding forward through the plate glass of maturing cells
I’ve played the unraveler, the parhelion
But even apocalypse is fleeting
There’s no death, no ugly world
Sometimes I wonder if you’re mythologizing me like I do you
Mythologizing me like I do you
We want our film to be beautiful, not realistic
Perceive me in the radiance of terror dreams
And you can betray me
You can, you can betray me
But teach me something wonderful
Crown my head, crowd my head
With your lilting effects
Project your fears on to me, I need to view them
See, there’s nothing to them
I promise you, there’s nothing to them
I’m so touched by your goodness
You make me feel so criminal
How do you keep it together?
I’m all, all unraveled
But you know, no matter where we are
We’re always touching by underground wires
I’ve explored you with the detachment of an analyst
But most nights we’ve raided the same kingdoms
And none of our secrets are physical
None of our secrets are physical
None of our secrets are physical now
The Debutante
May 22, 2008
When I was a debutante, I often went to the zoo. I went so often that I knew the animals better than I knew girls of my own age. Indeed it was in order to get away from people that I found myself at the zoo every day. The animal I got to know best was a young hyena. She knew me too. She was very intelligent. I taught her French, and she, in return, taught me her language. In this way we passed many pleasant hours.
My mother was arranging a ball in my honor on the first of May. During this time I was in a state of great distress for whole nights. I’ve always detested balls, especially when they are given in my honor.
On the morning of the first of May 1934, very early, I went to visit the hyena.
“What a bloody nuisance,” I said to her. “I’ve got to go to my ball tonight.”
“You’re very lucky,” she said. “I’d love to go. I don’t know how to dance, but at least I could make small talk.”
“There’ll be a great many different things to eat,” I told her. “I’ve seen trucksoads of food delivered to our house.”
“And you’re complaining,” replied the hyena, disgusted. “Just think of me, I eat once a day, and you can’t imagine what a heap of bloody rubbish I’m given.”
I had an audacious idea, and I almost laughed. “All you have to do is to go instead of me!”
“We don’t resemble each other enough, otherwise I’d gladly go,” said the hyena rather sadly.
“Listen,” I said. “No one sees too well in the evening light. If you disguise yourself, nobody will notice you in the crowd. Besides, we’re practically the same size. You’re my only friend, I beg you to do this for me.”
She thought this over, and I knew that she really wanted to accept.
“Done,” she said all of a sudden.
There weren’t many keepers about, it was so early in the morning. I opened the cage quickly, and in a very few moments we were out in the street. I hailed a taxi; at home, everybody was still in bed. In my room I brought out the dress I was to wear that evening. It was a little long, and the hyena found it difficult to walk in my high-heeled shoes. I found some gloves to hide her hands, which were too hairy to look like mine. By the time the sun was shining into my room, she was able to make her way around the room several times, walking more or less upright.
We were so busy that my mother almost opened the door to say good morning before the hyena had hidden under my bed.
“There’s a bad smell in your room,” my mother said, opening a window. “You must have a scented bath before tonight, with my new bath salts.”
“Certainly,” I said.
She didn’t stay long. I think the smell was too much for her.
“Don’t be late for breakfast,” she said and left the room.
The greatest difficulty was to find a way of disguising the hyena’s face. We spent hours and hours looking for a way, but she always rejected my suggestions. At last she said, “I think I’ve found the answer. Have you got a maid?”
“Yes,” I said, puzzled.
“There you are. Ring for your maid, and when she comes in we’ll pounce upon her and tear off her face. I’ll wear her face tonight instead of mine.”
“It’s not practical,” I said. “She’ll probably die if she hasn’t got a face. Somebody will certainly find the corpse and we’ll be put in prison.”
“I’m hungry enough to eat her,” the hyena replied.
“And the bones?”
“As well,” she said. “So, it’s on?”
“Only if you promise to kill her before tearing off her face. It’ll hurt her too much otherwise.”
“All right. It’s all the same to me.”
Not without a certain nervousness I rang for Mary, my maid. I certainly wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t hate having to go to a ball so much. When Mary came in I turned to the wall so as not to see. I must admit it didn’t take long. A brief cry, and it was over. While the hyena was eating, I looked out the window. A few minutes later she said, “I can’t eat any more. Her two feet are left over still, but if you have a little bag, I’ll eat them later in the day.”
“You’ll find a bag embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in the cupboard. Empty out the handkerchiefs you’ll find inside, and take it.” She did as I suggested. Then she said, “Turn round now and look how beautiful I am.”
In front of the mirror, the hyena was admiring herself in Mary’s face. She had nibbled very neatly all around the face so that what was left was exactly what she needed.
“You’ve certainly done that very well,” I said.
Towards evening, when the hyena was all dressed up, she declared, “I really feel in tip-top form. I have a feeling that I shall be a great success this evening.”
When we had heard the music downstairs for quite some time, I said to her, “Go on down now, and remember, don’t stand next to my mother. She’s bound to know that it isn’t me. Apart from her, I don’t know anybody. Best of luck.” I kissed her as I left her, but she did smell very strong.
Night fell. Tired by the day’s emotions, I took a book and sat down by the open window, giving myself up to peace and quiet. I remember that I was reading Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. About an hour later, I noticed the first signs of trouble. A bat flew in at the window, uttering little cries. I am terribly afraid of bats. I hid behind a chair, my teeth chattering. I had hardly gone down on my knees when the sound of beating wings was overcome by a great noise at my door. My mother entered, pale with rage.
“We’d just sat down at table,” she said, “when that thing sitting in your place got up and shouted, ‘So, I smell a bit strong, what? Well, I don’t eat cakes!’ Whereupon it tore off its face and ate it. And with one great bound, disappeared through the window.”
Leonora Carrington
slika: Leonora Carrington, Self-portrait
Zgra kra gka fok!
May 22, 2008
The Loch Ness Monster’s Song
Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl -
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot – doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl -
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp
Edwin Morgan
foto: guiltjohnson.deviantart.com
Pismo
May 19, 2008
da vjetar ima što zaljuljati
a onda sam se umjesto pjesme pojavila ja
precizna božja sva prozirna životinja
držeć se za ruku kao što čine žalosni stihovi
kada u tijelo tvoje uđu kao u tunel
da su puna usta riba koje sada cvatu jer
su se rastopile lisnate im tame, da ova
bijela pisma nesretno plutaju baš kao dvije
siromašne kolibe iznad podzemnih voda
pa da mi kažeš
a da ti ne uzmem
jednog dana kad budem lijepa
obična mala smrtonosna pahulja
tik uz samu opnu
od noćiva od tvojega, koji piješ kristal, moje
šumsko mlijeko, mač i katedralu, što kroz smijeh se
uspužu u buktinju smijeha, da kakvi su to nasadi,
breze breze blesulje, te rahle žene slavenske, što
sva bih u kost pobjegla i uvis, pa ako po rubu
klonula to je samo haljina kada me ne dozivaš
bijela kosti breze, dođi da se susretnemo. gašen
tvoj kreč i nesretno žensko pismo, a što će mi
taj stih ako nije moj, jer breza breza duboka
si voda ti, duboka si pa se ne vidi, sam tkala
tvoju zjenicu, sam tkala tkala tkala ju
Anka Žagar
foto: lucidzirkus.deviantart.com
the boys i mean are not refined
May 18, 2008
the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night
one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined
they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite
the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss
they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
ee cummings
foto: borko?
soft fists insist
May 18, 2008
Mushrooms
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
Sylvia Plath
foto: antic-hrist.deviantart.com
XXV
May 18, 2008
my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell
and hearing and sight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal
tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of chrome and ex-
ecute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am becoming
something a little different,in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shreiks and scarlet bellowings.
ee cummings
foto: draž
Oatmeal
May 17, 2008
I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal with John Keats.
Keats said I was right to invite him:
due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unsual willingness to disintigrate, oatmeal should not be eaten alone.
He said it is perfectly OK, however, to eat it with an imaginary companion, and he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
He also told me about writing the “Ode to a Nightingale.”
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
but when he got home he couldn’t figure out the order of the stanzas, and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they made some sense of them, but he isn’t sure to this day if they got it right.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas, and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up and peer about, then lay itself down slightly off the mark, causing the poem to move forward with God’s reckless wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
When breakfast was over, John recited “To Autumn.”
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn’t offer the story of writing “To Autumn,” I doubt if there is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just-harvested oat field got him started on it, and two of the lines, “For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells” and “Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,” came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him – drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into the glimmering furrows, muttering – and it occurs to me:
maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of the amnion’s tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneaously gummy and crumbly,
and therefore I’m going to invite Patrick Kavanagh to join me.
Galway Kinnell
foto: stphne.deviantart.com
slučajno smo otkrili da ova pjesma slavi rođendan. sretan joj!
May 17, 2008
valjda si me putem pogubio
skrletne moje note dok se krećem
zanošenje, sklizak tanker
mojih bokova dok te guram kroz sve struje
silne ljudi punih ulica
lijevo – desno
kokošinjac u prstima, kokošinjac
jer sam te zobala i grebla i
vukla iz tebe crve crne zemljane,
malo krvi
kako si me pogubio redom kao kemijske
i upaljače
i sve lako gubljive stvari
kako si me izgubio
samo šetajući gradom
nije din don zvona nije dum tres
nema onomatopeje dok na stolu ostavljaš
moju naviku da se ovlaš perem
da se skidam bosa da ne trčim
da mnogo i sočno plačem
ja ti nisam zvijezde s neba skidala
nego avione
ciljala nacerenim noktima crveno
i vrapce malim kamenjem
da prinesem na oltare
(magritteova djevojčica
u vrapca gura oštre zube
da mu se trbuh raspukne
kao sapunica)
ti si zube ugurao u moj mobitel
ja to ne mogu izgubiti jer i sad vidim
sitne tragove kao nožice ptica
\/\/ \/ \/
snjeguljici su ukrasile pitu, meni ericsson
i jednako smo blijede, gdje svaka sličnost staje:
sve su prijetnje smrću meni uvijek moje
(prijetnje se kotrljaju
crvene jabuke otrov crn
pred tvoja stopala kao mutno mračno more)
koliko sam ti puta obećala
da će taj dan biti zadnji ako odeš
(nije ni čudo da ti nisam dama.
dame čuvaju obećanja
i arsen van dohvata djece)
ja sam ti ljubav činila mnogim glasovima
i harpije i hartije i harfe
si pogubio
da sve te upaljače upalimo:
zbogom, ameriko
plamen si obris
gori gori od izgubljene mimike
od svake mene koju nikad neće naći
.
March 22, 2008
iz Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound
There go my dark girls,
their dresses puff
in the leeward air.
Oh, they are lighter than flying dogs
or the breath of dolphins;
each mouth opens gratefully,
wider than a milk cup.
My dark girls
sing for this.
They are going up.
See them rise
on black wings, drinking
the sky, without smiles
or hands
or shoes.
They call back to us
from the gauzy edge of paradise,
good news, good news.
Anne Sexton
foto: ssuunnddeeww.deviantart.com
nina i ja
March 21, 2008
Lady of Miracles
Since you walked out on me
I’m getting lovelier by the hour.
I glow like a corpse in the dark.
No one sees how round and sharp
my eyes have grown
how my carcass looks like a glass urn,
how I hold things up in the rags of my hands,
the way I can stand though crippled by lust.
No, there’s just your cruelty circling
my head like a bright rotting halo.
Nina Cassian
prev. Laura Schiff
a onda sam je malo usrećila, na brzinu
Lady of Miracles
I walked out on rags, my head, your hands
rotting and sharp,
the way you stand, a urn of cruelty,
a corpse (have grown in the dark,
crippled my eyes) of glass and glow.
”like me like me”
no
though your circling carcass =
my bright lust, a halo;
(one by 1 by)
up in the ‘ ‘, round.
the hour sees
my looks and things I hold
”no like? how how how?”
I can.
there’s just:
I’m getting lovelier since.
foto: ja
nema puno smisla, ali čovjeka (mene) veseli.
*
January 14, 2008
Neću više da se sećam belog zla
Ne mogu i neću više da se sećam belog zla.
Bio je sneg dubok. Ni senke. Ni ptice. Pusta plaža.
Učinilo joj se da se neko sunča. To je bilo detinjstvo,
mramorni dvorac što je iz vode izranjao.
Skinula je kaput sa repom veverice. Kaput je odskakutao.
Neki zaboravljeni brod, kojim su putovala leta
kao zeleni mrtvac neprimetno se javljao.
Izgubljen kao i sve lepe zveri
dotakao sam joj kolena.
Sunce smešno i žalosno, u isto vreme
silazilo je stepenicama
niz jednu nedovršenu zgradu.
Ona nije imala briga koje ljudi trpe. Bežala je
sve više u sebe i javljala se žalosnim kricima.
Bilo je to podne zimsko. Podne kakvih nema nigde.
Ona je od tad rešila da se drukčije češlja.
Posle je plakala…
Ne mogu i neću više da se sećam belog zla.
Slobodan Marković
*
foto: gargajo.deviantart.com
MonoLogical Poem # 2
January 14, 2008
From time to time
I have these days when
I feel like embarking
on a poem again
of a kind that still isn’t
all that popular. I mean
one without any meta-
physical refinements or
that thing that lately has stood in
for such . . . that type of
cynical genuflecting
at the stilted progress of history
or standing gasping akimbo
in the tough East-West marathon
as if you were one of
Alighieri’s damned
with a sthich. Poems
someone said to me the other day
only attracted him if they
were full of surprises
written at those
odd times when
something still inchoate
a daydream a single
line begins somewhere and
undoes you.
Durs Grünbein
(trans. Michael Hofmann)
