The National Anthem
We moved a lot. In the waters of countries and cities, our fingerprints have washed away; in alcohol, our blood group has evaporated. We no longer belong to anyone. Any national anthem I hear, I […]
Articles
Waiting for the Bogumils
For Mak Dizdar Just as Tibetan nomads choose their headman by a throw of dice in which the one who loses the gamble wins, it’s fallen to me to continue to wait for the Bogumils […]
Compatriots
On various continents, at airports, at stadiums, everywhere I meet people who more than twenty years ago, escaping war like I, settled far and wide around the world. I feel they are there around me, […]
Tuzla
I can hardly keep in mind anything from yesterday’s day, but the past I remember clearly. The early years are the first to sink into the dregs of a lifespan, just as the grime of […]
A Letter
No one chooses his life: the pecking of boats at the ramparts. My messages to friends, my shame toward those whom we will conquer: you know the end and the beginning of everything, the words […]
The Balkans
I’ve never anywhere seen a quince, but lindens bloom in Scandinavia also. Rinsed by the tea of rains, though, their scent is faint. Like a strong perfume, the scent of the Balkan linden tree in […]
Tongariro
Hung on a cloud, the cloak of the Tongariro volcano is clasped at the neck with a single round button: Blue Lake. At the bottom of the lake, at the height of the heart, a […]
New Poems
AWARD In the courtyard of the National Library, workers are loading a truck filled to the brim with obsolete books, sentenced to death by combustion in the city’s heating plant in order to free shelf […]
Discoveries
I read papers when they’re just brought in from outside, from minus 27 degrees, fresh and cold off the presses. From all the morning papers I remember only one self-sustaining article: like the recipe for […]
Friends in the Universe
Those I know have all grown old, my scattered friends. The snow is getting rusty in Sweden, from the other side of the globe brief electronic messages buzz in: there’s a fire, or else there […]