Afghanistan
They‘ve killed our interpreter: who will interpret for us? Who will take us out of this fucking movie when we have no interpreter? When we are deaf to what we hear and blind to what […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]