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

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

Anne Pennington

Until her last breath she enlarges Her Oxford house Built in Slavonic Vowels and consonants She polishes the corner-stones Until their Anglo-Saxon shine Begins to sing Her death is like a short breath-stop Under

Far Within Us #3

Unquiet you walk Along the rims of my eyes On the invisible grating Before your lips My naked words shiver We steal moments From the unheeding iron saws Your hands sadly Flow into mine

The Prisoners Of The Little Box

Open little box We kiss your bottom and cover Keyhole and key The whole world lies crumpted in you It resembles everything Except itself Not even your clear-sky mother Would recognize it anymore The

A Conceited Mistake

Once upon a time there was a mistake So silly so small That no one would even have noticed it It couldn’t bear To see itself to hear of itself It invented all manner

Far Within Us #1

We raise our arms The street climbs into the sky We lower our eyes The roofs go down into the earth From every pain We do not mention Grows a chestnut tree That stays

The Admirers Of The Little Box

Sing little box Don’t let sleep overtake you The world’s awake within you In your four-sided emptiness We turn distance into nearness Forgetfulness into memory Don’t let your nails come loose For the very

The Victims Of The Little Box

Not even in a dream Should you have anything to do With the little box If you saw her full of stars once You’d wake up Without heart or soul in your chest If

Hide-And-Seek

Someone hides from someone else Hides under his tongue The other looks for him under the earth He hides on his forehead The other looks for him in the sky He hides inside his

Last News About The Little Box

The little box which contains the world Fell in love with herself And conceived Still another little box The little box of the little box Also fell in love with herself And conceived Still

Far Within Us #2

Look here’s that uninvited Alien presence look it’s here A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup Rust taking hold On the edges of our laughter A snake coiled in the depths

Far Within Us #7

Toothed eyes fly Over still waters Around us purple lips Flutter from branches Screams hit the blue And fall onto pillows Our homes hide Behind narrow backs Hands clutch at Flimsy clouds Our veins

Far Within Us #6

From the wrinkle between my brows You watch till day breaks On my face The waxen night Is beginning to singe The fingers of dawn Black bricks Have already tiled The whole dome of

In The Village Of My Ancestors

Someone embraces me Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf Someone takes off his hat So I can see him better Everyone asks me Do you know how I’m related to

Between Games

Nobody rests This one constantly shifts his eyes Hangs them on his head And whether he wants it or not starts walking backwards He puts them on the soles of his feet And whether

Wedding

Each strips his own skin Each bares his own constellation Which has never seen the night Each fills his skin with rocks And plays with it Lit by his own stars Who doesn’t stop

The Tenants Of The Little Box

Throw into the little box A stone You’ll take out a bird Throw in your shadow You’ll take out the shirt of happiness Throw in your father’s root You’ll take out the axle of

The Judges Of The Little Box

to Karl Max Ostojic Why do you stare at the little box That in her emptiness Holds the whole world If the little box holds The world in her emptiness Then the antiworld Holds