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THE SMALLEST POEM
This is the smallest
poem.
It’s smaller then the smallest toy.
There is a smile in it
and a letter for a boy.
If you know who wrote
it--
I don't have to tell you any more.
If you don’t know who
wrote it--
you don't need to know any more.
Miroslav
Antić
Translation: Dragana Konstantinovic
A LOCK OF BLOND HAIR
A lock of hair we
usually wear
on an eye
or on a nose instead;
but, there is a lock of blond hair--
imagine where?
It’s in my head.
How can hair possibly be
in someone’s head?
Sure it can.
Right in the head.
It's not my lock of
blond hair,
but Sanya’s from grade six who’s really fair.
So what?
You’ll see for yourself
if one day
a lock of somebody else’s hair
somehow comes into your head.
And you become harsh,
and you become stiff,
and little by little--you just blush,
and suddenly you start biting your nails,
and hiding your face into the ground,
and sending secret notes around,
and you feel tender, and you feel tense,
and you learn the lessons but can see no sense.
You mix up roots and
rhomboids.
You mix up notes and pyramids.
You mix up butterflies and sports.
And cities and handiwork sorts.
And tropical plants. And Old Greeks, too.
And you just don’t know what to do.
Now you see how it looks
when a lock of blond hair
plays games in your head day after day;
it turns a boy who’s really cool
into a nerd and into a fool.
Miroslav Antic
Translation: Dragana Konstantinovic
NON-RETURNING POEM
When you start going to
the world,
never look back or go behind.
"Won't" does not do--"will" is the word,
the only right word you should find.
I also run without return.
I don't look back 'cause I am bold.
Anyway, what means the old Sun?
Well known old paths?
The door-sill that's old?
All these things you could cherish.
For these things your heart could run pettish.
But, if you ever do come back,
I have to say:
That's where you'll stay.
And just stay.
A boy runs to the world
through his eye.
His head fights all those evening pleas.
He learns from a river how to fly
towards the oceans, towards the seas.
He learns from millions of sparkling stars
to reach the sky, to gleam and shine.
He learns from roads how to get scars
and boldly go further to reach the divine.
It is dangerous like a
snake,
it is dangerous like a shell
if my beginning is awake,
if it's always so good and well.
And I would like to run wild.
I hold my heart.
I shut my eye.
When I start going I won't look back
because I'm eager to try to fly.
I don't know where.
I don't know why.
I don't know what's hidden far behind.
I know that here--
as I cross a line,
they try to smear,
they try to bind
all that I find.
It is dangerous like
lightning.
It's dangerous like a shell
if my beginning is fighting,
if it's still so good and well.
That is why I run away.
That's why I run.
That's why I seek.
I make dawns out of the evening Sun.
Let the life learn how to flow
the very same way I have done.
I'm miraculous in a way--
when I start something, I'm not slow;
when I start, I am eager and gay--
my impatience
and curiousity grow...
I don't know what will bring a new day
hidden in those fogs far away;
but, if I easily get the golden glow,
or if I have to go through the snow,
I'll always go onward and only forward.
I'll never, never, never
go back.
Miroslav Antic
Translation: Dragana Konstantinovic
AN IMMORTAL POEM
I
It you hear that 1 died
and it I was dear to your heart
may be that inside yourself
you will tee! dreariness, all of a sudden.
Fog on the eyelashes.
An ashy trace on rhe lip.
Have you ever thought
about the real meaning oi lire'
Like snow on your palm
childhood melting away in yourself.
Worries....
Do they really exist? Sorrows...
Do they really exist'
On the ladder of imagination boldly climb up to your youth.
It's waiting lor you over there, A beautiful bur enticing
rainbow,
And live your life.
Live it to the wry last drop.
Don't nibble .it it, like a mouse his days.
Chew the air with all your teeth.
Run taster than rhe winds and the birds. Overtake them al
Never fbryet that all durations are short.
Smiling laces
in some mirrors,
all of sudden get wrinkled.
II
If you hear that I died
let me toll you what it will really mean.
Thousands of fish of different colours and shades
will he fluttering through my eye.
And I'll be hidden under the ground
and weed will cover me up.
In the meantimes I'll he soaring...
High up.
Do you really think that my hand,
my knee,
or my head,
could, tomorrow, turn into
a willow's root
or grass.'
Do you really think that a small secret,
or a silly fear, 15
could, tomorrow, turn into
silence,
darkness,
or dust?
You should know that I, actually, come from the stars.
That light created me.
Therefore, nothing will become extinguished,
or shrunken inside me.
Only, one day, and it usually happens at dawn,
I'll return to my distant Sun
with golden eyes.
Because, I am meant for the theatres
a good deal of heart and plenty of zeal,
the theatres of laughter and tears,
where there is no order,
the theatres with a lot of quarrelling,
a lot of singing,
screaming,
and applause.
With the end of the performance known in advance.
I the aimers where you don't expect them to be tears waiting in
an umbush.
Troubles arrive on tiptoes.
The years are getting drearier and drearier.
While walking
you feel the world getting tighter anil tighter
and smile muter and muter,
and somehow - distorted.
Therefore, live your life.
Live it to the very last drop.
I lived my lite that way.
In firry years
I have been in so many centuries.
I admit that it was a silly lite, in a way,
siunetimes topsy-tuivy...
But 1 never stayed put...
All the time on the go...
on, and on...
Now, honesty, tell me
have you ever thought what it really means to die?
And where, in tact the dead disappear.'
What is it that was trying to get him all the time?
Hon t go to the cemeteries - there, you will understand nothing.
Cemeteries are the dreariest fair grounds and an ugly theatre.
"You are not meant for such theatres,
with no hope, or zeal,
the theatres ot dried up tears
operating according to the graveyard rules,
with no quarrels, no songs,
no applause.
With the end known in advance.
Ill
I have lived a magnificent life because I knew how to do it.
But, it you heat that I died,
- don't believe it.
Because it's something I don't know how to do.
|6 Live was the only air
I was breathing.
And smile the only language in the world I understood.
I have just dropped on this eanh, in passing, to give you a
wink.
To leave behind me just a fluttering trace.
Therefore, don't be sad
because the only thing I want is
to remain silly in your eyes and strangely dear to your heart.
At night, when you lift your eyes up to the sky you too, give me
a wink, let it be our secret.
In spite of the dreariness of your days whenever you notice a
shooting star making tin- sky blush,
remember: that's actually me, crazy as I am, still (lying and
living.
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