Vasko Popa
Give Me Back My Rags #1
Give me back my rags My rags of pure dreaming Of silk smiling of striped foreboding Of my cloth of lace My rags of spotted hope Of burnished desire of chequered glances Of skin
Far Within Us #5
The nights are running out of darkness Steel branches grasp The arms of passers-by Only anonymour chimneys Are free to walk the streets Which slice across our sleeplessness In the gutters our stars decay
The Little Box
The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now
The Enemies Of The Little Box
Don’t box down to the little box Which supposedly contains everything Your star and all other stars Empty yourself In her emptiness Take two nails out of her And give them to the owners
The Benefactors Of The Little Box
We’ll return the little box Into the arms Of her inconspicuously honest properties We won’t do anything Against her will We’ll simply take her apart We’ll crucify her On her own cross Piece her
Give Me Back My Rags
Just come to my mind My thoughts will scratch out your face Just come into my sight My eyes will start snarling at you Just open your mouth My silence will smash your jaws
Race
Some bite from the others A leg an arm or whatever Take it between their teeth Run out as fast as they can Cover it up with earth The others scatter everywhere Sniff look
Give Me Back My Rags #11
I’ve wiped your face off my face Ripped your shadow off my shadow Leveled the hills in you Turned your plains into hills Set your seasons quarreling Turned all the ends of the world
Far Within Us #4
Green gloves rustle On the avenue’s branches The evening carries us under its arm By a path which leaves no trace The rain falls on its knees Before the fugitive windows The yards come
The Owners Of The Little Box
Line the inside of the little box With your precious skin And make yourself cozy Just as you would in your own home Make space voyages inside her Gather stars make time squirt its
Before The Game
Shut one eye then the other Peek into every corner of yourself See that there are no nails no thieves See that there are no cuckoo’s eggs Shut then the other eye Squat and
Give Me Back My Rags #4
Get out of my walled infinity Of the star circle round my heart Of my mouthful of sun Get out of the comic sea of my blood Of my flow of my ebb Get
Give Me Back My Rags #12
Enough chattering violets enough sweet trash I won’t hear anything know anything Enough enough of all I’ll say the last enough Fill my mouth with earth Grit my teeth To break off you skull
A Forgetful Number
Once upon a time there was a number Pure and round like the sun But alone very much alone It began to reckon with itself It divided multiplied itself It subtracted added itself And
The Craftsmen Of The Little Box
Don’t open the little box Heaven’s hat will fall out of her Don’t close her for any reason She’ll bite the trouser-leg of eternity Don’t drop her on the earth The sun’s eggs will