PAVLOVIC, Radko

Abandoned words

Out of crumpled paper

Thrown into the room corner

The words are getting out

Like a fog out of a grove.

They don’t want to be abandoned,

They want me to embrace them again,

To give them their dignity back,

They want to be a poem.

If I do not comply with that wish

They sulk and turn their heads,

And when I turn off the lights

They slip into my bed and my sleep.

Washed and smiling,

They wake up the morning before I do,

And, like white butterflies,

Overfly my desk.

Beamed by their glitter,

I get out of bed drowsily

And hurry to put down again

Last night’s abandoned words.

He who writes poetry

He who writes poetry

Always has a safe hiding-place

To hide himself before the storm comes.

He writes a verse like a man

Who makes a roof above the house,

And hides himself before the storm comes.

Covers himself with a poem

Protects from peevishness

his family and himself too.

Him who writes poetry

Reaches a metaphor, finds a word

Warm as memory of a warm summer.

Such as a swallow for its nest

Infallibly finds the eaves

Under which all the inmates are happy.

He who writes poetry

Is never alone in his loneliness

And never his fingers and his heart become cold.

Innocent mouthful

(Voice of a frightened girl followed by the trumpet made of the willow’s bark with a mouthpiece made of hazel with origin from the sunny side of mountain Kozara)

Where are they taking me, where are they taking you?

Why that morning’s cry, wail of ash-trees?

Why is the river weeping, why is the mountain shedding tears and

Why is the mute wail calling the heavens?

Don’t let them take me, mommy, stay with me.

Burn the wire that separates us with your hot tear,

Bury your nails into the darkness,

Clear the path to your eye and stretch your

Stiff arm.

The morning lost its mind, wolf’s jaws

Are greedily eating a chunk of the day,

The noon is staggering all over the thirsty dust,

Mad sun is asking for some water, some sweat;

And it would quench its thirst with some blood too.

Only the fate, with half an eye, is lurking for

an innocent bite. Can you hear the growl?

Out of dark caves dragons with hundred heads arrive,

Along with elves.

I beg you, mommy, give me your hand.

I don’t want to go to the menagerie, don’t let them

Take me. I want your bosom and my dream there,

Warm as milk, more sweet scented than a ruddy

Bread loaf on the dining table.

Don’t let them, mommy, take me away,

I’ll be just a shiver in your embrace, hank of throbs

And I will never ask for some

Inconceivable bread.