your dear nylon-covered legs, / are the horses I will ride / into eternity.

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

hey amogh

I miss you.

foto: bindiimoments.deviantart.com

FOR ELEANOR BOYLAN TALKING WITH GOD

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

Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

anne sexton

Zgra kra gka fok!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

.

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

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.

*

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

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)