The day was mild say eyewitnesses when a white cloud rose toward the sky First all the Stations of the Cross unwillingly soared up toward the heavens With Jesus in the rear as usual bearing his own cross Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows covered her eyes With a lily in his teeth Saint Anthony looked for the forgotten young […]
When children from Bosnia ascend to Allah falling asleep peacefully in Christ they don’t need a passport any more A black stamp suffices at all border crossings They quickly learn Happiness is Kitsch Antique furniture, Wiehler gobelins with a field of poppies make quite a nice bonfire A proof of existence cogito ergo sum Salt manufacturing in Bosnia is done […]
Stars don’t exist to beautify our nighttime sky They are black coals, remnants of matter that didn’t spare itself they burned up in their own fire and they now live only when light falls on them – the light of other bodies that also burn up unstintingly Thus if we too selflessly burn to the end the glow of others’ […]
Of a hundred inventions and brilliant discoveries, we profit most from the export of ropes for hanging. We satisfy charming tyrants with toys of terror, and these feathers of freedom with which we adorn ourselves were plucked live from the wings of the oppressed birds of the Archipelago of Cancer. We raise our voices occasionally, but faced with overstuffed meat […]
Truths are untenable! We cheered, like at the dog races, for the lies that barked the fiercest. My brother denounced the neighbor’s fat cow for ruminating marijuana. For the sake of future betrayal, we all, like little Jesuses, dragged the cross of hammer and sickle on our backs. And, truly, when the iron curtain, like a shower curtain, came unhooked, […]
The leeches of the military industry crave fresh blood. Directors do not read poetry. There’s no reason – their children won’t go to the trenches. Their servants, the party leaders, take care of it all. They don’t read poetry either. No need! They rule by the magic of fear, and no one will object to taking from schools or cutting […]
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire, And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and […]
No bitterness: our ancestors did it. They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too. Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar. Or rather—for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists— Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who’ll keep Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive, We are easy to manage, a gregarious people, […]
Homeland is a place where we have grown up safe at home with our parents, where we have gained our first experiences and learnings, our first friends and comrades. Wherever we go later and change our places of living, our home, or the place where we grew up, be it a town or a village, forever remains the epicentre and […]
A problem Bosnians face today is the stipulation by her enemies that Bosnia does not have a unifying cultural heritage. The misleading claim argues that, since Bosnia is a myth, it has no basis on which to be a state. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords left Bosnia-Herzegovina in limbo. On the one hand, the Dayton Peace Accords re-affirm Bosnia-Herzegovina […]
I am beauty’s faithful slave. When my mother gave me life From the clouds the fairy of song flew down to my cradle And with a kiss that burned hot like a tropical sun Touched my lips and little child’s forehead. My forehead burns forever with thoughts of eternal love And lips speak them in a song. I […]
To attain that beauty – you must be patient, like a stalactite. To drip and wait. And fulfill no one’s expectations. Sparingly drip to completion the words that have poured over from a world that no longer exists into a body that is no longer the one consigned to you once. If they discover you, or if you open […]
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the death of Musa Ćazim Ćatić, one of the founders of modern Bosnian-Hercegovinian poetry. He was born on 12 March 1878 in Odžak, five months before the Ottoman Empire’s occupation yielded to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his short life ended in 1915, three years before the fall of the latter monarchy. Ćatić spent […]
for Ida Here in this city where I was born thousands of kilometers away from Teheran just as much from Paris too I’ll always be able to have night in the daytime I’ll always be able to have December after January I’ll always have to think about the Papal heresy sleuth Casamaris and about Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror I will […]
Our warrior returned from the war in Greece bringing back a Greek baking pan and wounds on his body. The women told him the pan from Greece was no good because it was too shallow. We told him his wounds from Greece were no good either because they were too shallow. We said to him: We […]
They reap barley, and sing, sing. Their vests burst at the chest. Their shirts tear open. Buttons snap. They don’t care about the vests. They don’t care about the shirts. They sing, sing, our girls from Šipovice. Reaping barley. So it is by day… But at night, they step into the moonlight, fall onto the green, dewy grass, clawing […]
That man with the badge on his cap – so all would know who he is, sat calmly on a chair. And just as calmly, he stabbed a knife into the table – so all would know who he is. And for now, nothing: his knife stays there, he sits calmly there – and for now, nothing: except that […]
Ćamil Sijarić (1913–1989), a Montenegrin-born writer who spent most of his life in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is best known for his novels and short stories. Sijarić’s poetry, however, remains an overlooked gem of his literary legacy. Although his poetic output is modest (Lirika, 1988, and the posthumously published Koliba na nebu, 1990), his poems resonate with remarkable depth and […]
Spirit of Bosnia would like to recommend to its readers the following travel blog where in a lively and engaging way John W. Bills records and recommends his visits to sixteen municipalities throughout the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina.