Poetry in English

Translated from Serbian into English by SLOBODAN DRENOVAC

DREAMING THE DOE
(SAN O KOSUTI)

Deep lake of the doe's eye with piped music of herbose lullaby. A dream.
In the graceful saddle of her body I see blobs of stars and hear hoofbeats down the hill.
Escorted by the moon she visits the one she loves.
Drowsy and mellow from the beauty of the woods she cannot stop her trot.
She runs all around in three little circles and lays her head on the edge of my soul.
Wrapped in a thin veil of mystery, she opens the bottomless chasm of dreams.
When the moon sets it devours her contours.

Green pond, calm waters full of stillness and whispers, a thin shadow bends and folds.
The dead wing of bird still sways in the air and a handful of stars drown in the depths.
Ask me not what miracle brings me here at midnight to see your beauty from afar.
Ask me not what draws me to lie low and list the slumbering winds on your brow.
A lull falls from birch leaf and both of us are full of a silent fear and chill linked to the
shore, to the reeds.
Stop, you forest beauty, don't drink that star of mine that has strayed into the water.

Two purple blobs of eyes watch me from your dome.
My thirsty fingers yearn to touch you more slender than the milky nocturnal waterfall.
In the reeds wild lights dance the dance of the evil-headed snake.
Fear not, oh Doe, a tree called morning will sprout from its head.
Over the sleeping water the Stag will come.
The Stag will come, oh Doe, over the sleeping water.
Something odd ties us in our insomnia. What got me drunk, what got me drunk?
Taste of wormwood on my tongue, shadows agonizingly shuffle on my palms.
Blind to this night, to this water, enraptured we move through the forest �
the whole forest fitting into her eye.

I run to the hilltop and shout into the distance: Morning!
White light pours down from the heavens.
Shreds of stars fall out and day crosses the river in a silver coach.
We go with bits of gloom in our soul, wrapped in webs of dreams, noose around our neck, ropes of daybreak around our arms.
Before I awaken I shall reach the sea.
Under the tower, under some tree a white rose grows out of my bones.
The doe touches it with her eyes, and it grows a knee higher.
The doe caresses it with her breath, for an armful of buds it fills the world.
The sphere called a dream sways.
Not to bust.

I am the green grass on which she tremblingly treads.
A kind of sweet gratification fulfills me, something that nestles me to the scent.
Her eyes have spent the night in me.
She runs across the field, runs over her own lightsome shadow.
To jump out of myself, to pick up the gull that defected from my skull.
To pick an apple from its tree. Intensify the beauty in me.
I would not like to awaken.

WHO STOLE THE STARS FROM YOUR EYES, ANNA*

(KO TI JE UKRAO ZVEZDE IZ OCIJU, ANA)

The day filled with golden light
Kindling a small sun on the crook of your neck

Who stole the stars from your eyes, Anna
Your narrow waist flowered while you burned

Waiting for the hands of the Pan you loved
Who stole the stars from your eyes, Anna

Secluded beauty lived in the corners of your lips
Swelling in the act of offering the juices of life

Who stole the stars from your eyes, Anna
Your breasts flared up at the start of the day

The granules of your lips were the color of an orange
Who stole the stars from your eyes, Anna

Wind blown blossoms from the apricot tree alight
From the valley of your waist mixed fragrances of Spring

Who stole the stars from your eyes, Anna

___________

* A graffiti from a street in Belgrade.

LAKE BLED
(BLEDSKO JEZERO)

The first raindrops ripple the lake.
Shower, but again the sun pours out.
The glow inside me invisibly writes,
Of beauty that dazzles eyes.

As if all strain and dust are washed away �
Streaks golden now dash through the water.
And the stroke enhancing this beauty,
A girl that runs like the doe.

A waterfall again bickers in my soul.
I hark: silence, a bird, a drop
The inaudible echo elevates me

From sorrows and distant dreams.
Indeed, airy and pure beauty
Brings back faith to the meaning of life.

Bled, June 6, 1988

DEER
(JELEN)

How majestic his protracted shadow at sunset
As if he stepped down from a painting not out of a forest
His roar echoes across the plain while he manly treads the snow
His loving image faces the sun in the virgin whiteness

Slim horns stumble through threads of twilight
The awesome game of extreme absurdity takes its aim
Man has to be aroused from his sleep and must take the time
To remember all the insults and drops of blood in his veins

Weighty and unrepeatable are the truths related to us
On tenterhooks like the sound between the fetus and death
He is in love with the freedom of intertwining branches �
Why does not the hand of man dream like his heart

CRYSTAL LUSTER OF CLARITY
(KRISTALNI SJAJ VEDRINE)

And
this:
forest, rose, grass
transparent clearness of water
flower of the lulled water lily
green star of leaf circling around
the dream coming to pass in reality
in this crystal luster of clarity within me
Here, you see, I long for a recurrence
of joy's sparkling drop while I
with pillowed head recline
sensing the pure dip
of the birch-tree
Light as a doe
strewn into bits
into dust
f
a
r
a
w
a
y
from everything

HOUSE OF DREAMS
(KUCA SNA)

For a long time my wife and I
have been building a house of dreams.
Bricks, sand, lime...

Red roof
Barrages of showers

But, of all that
It's the green garden that has for years
Brought us the greatest
Joy

Permeated with sweat and water
It bestows us with flowers and
Beneficial fruits

Bricks, sand, lime continue to
Roughen our palms
From the house of dreams
Ripe fruits we see
Counterpointing the Sun and
Sea

WATER LILIES
(LOPOCI)

Prostrated on green islands, their whiteness is so
Tempting. Blue surface spreads out below them.
They dream a dream, eyes fixed on the celestial void.
And go away, blind to the birthplace in which they grow.

The same threads link us to our own soil. On the bottom
Big toes in the algae. In a clear appeal
I extend my bare hands. I am cajoled by the colors
Of thirty brothers. The mute language of expectation.

Dormant, swimming in water they thirstily look at the sun
That melts and drips down their crowns. Their yawn hides
Old scars of splendor. How many secrets have they passed over in silence!
How many stars and eyes have they imbibed as I watch them.

THE EYE
(OKO)

There is a vigilant eye of dreams and dolor
that looks upon one's soul �
it has kissed me ages ago.

There is a lonesome home all by itself mixed in
alien dust and fear �
its shadow cuts me off.
Without delay the dolor silently overtakes me.

From time to time a sad scene shines through.
it is always vigilant,
if follows me night and day.

It exists, I know it exists,
a strong watery light
persistently admonishes me and hurts me
But I have faith in the spark that glistens from his pupil.

THE WORLD THAT VANISHED
(SVET KOJI NESTA)

To Stasia on the InternetTonight Belgrade and Moscow are so remote
Two lonely stars at the ends of our planet
Alone, at this late hour, I scrawl a poetic note
As I open my heart on the Internet

In the dead of the night my soul senses doom
Mournful, lonesome and full of terror
The whole world that once fit into my room
Turns into piles of dust and scenes of horror

I write these letters with dread
Afraid for the land that now dies
As it waits for a new God to come

While culprits drop tons of lead
Unmoved remain the Good Guys
Earth is trampled by feet of scum

THE DOE
(KOSUTA)

Ominous striking of hoofs at a gallop. Billowing breath.
Chords of sunset linked with strings of gold.
Dread runs across the path encircled with trees,
An invisible hand stretches an invisible net.

Without warning a wandering bullet, a fierce lance,
Hits the eye that is full of sky and blueness.
Warm blood of twilight mellows on the moss
The taut nerve relaxes like a loose thread.

The furious stag pierces the day on his horns.
A silver sword tied at the back of his head.
It is late autumn. We part for good, my forest love,
Your body so mystifyingly beautiful against the sunset

THE CHERRY
(TRESNJA)

Every morning, in a state of alarm, I pray she does not open too early, does not burst with whiteness. And she, all her buds bulging, in front of my house, in the garden, already in my room, does not listen. Futile are my pleas. She seems to be in a hurry to spill her charms and beauty.

The nights are very chilly, and in the morning the fierce bora will blow. So what's the rush, my princess? Remain dormant, my beauty. Let not your blood expose yourself too early, let your instinct stay pent-up for a few more days. Spring is almost here. It's somewhat slow in coming.

I just can't seem to get to your pure soul. Yet I thought that only I understood your secret speech, from the moment that I planted you, so small, and through the years delighted in your luxuriant and submissive treetop. And later I climbed your branches, eating your red fruit and babbling: Cherry my darling, little cherry, who will pick you when I am no longer here?

Now I look to the sky and to the sea and beg April to hurry and warm your giving body. I fear I may awake one morning and, moving hastily to the window, see your white eyes dead.

The bees in your petals are a good sign.

YOU ARRIVE WITH THE SCENT OF HERBS
(DOLAZIS S MIRISOM BILJA)

You arrive: the scent of herbs in your feet
Crown of the rose colored lily in your knees
The sky in your eyes is guide to a flock of stars
Your wet dress makes your shoulders flourish

I am thirsty and tired from the long insomnia
My thoughts find rest on a flower
You are kissed by birds and loved by coronas white
I, unfortunate stag, died in a bygone flight

You arrive: in my arms you will fall asleep
Sleep is a threatening deception sleep is a half-truth
I am the dawn and I bring the daylight to your lips

I am the impossible the poem the water the grass
The old green-like patina on everything around
I am the guardian of your naked body when it sleeps

NOTE ON A MAIDEN
(BELESKA O DEVOJCICI)

Maiden, your body is the sea your arms the waves
Eyes, color of water emitting rays of innocence
All of May sleeps in your hair of floral curls
The freshness of your breath makes me dizzy

I see: gulls flying from the palms of your hands
The struck down sun daydreams in your muscles
Fawns are serene in the meadows of your words
After you the locust-trees are in blossom

Maiden, your body is the sea and within your stature
A small doe from some faraway regions breathes
Something of your footsteps is in the sand

Something of your restlessness is in the wave
And now, my little one, you suddenly want to be
As ripe as tropical fruit, as ripe as an orange tree

A MAIDEN'S LOVE
(LJUBAV DEVOJCICE)

In the southern garden of the moon where cherry trees bloom
In their wordless tongue the birds chirp about your beauty

Blue-eyed boys with sharp knives
Carve your inspiring name into the tender bark of birch trees

And as I pick white cherry flowers for you in the valley
You lie watching clouds gather behind the treetops of the ash

The soldiers passing in front of the scented garden are
Infatuated with your eyes and your pliant spring dress

In the southern garden of the moon where cherry trees bloom
I love you, sweet maiden, oh so tenderly behind the trees

THE MAIDEN BENDS HER KNEES
(DEVOJCICA SKUPLJA SVOJA KOLENA)

The maiden bends her white knees
Two lumps of light, two drops of tenderness
Flowers that disintegrate into petals
Modestly, she loves my palms on them.

My blood brings her out into the miraculous light
But the firm padlocks of love do not open
Even the kisses and little flames secretly
Burning deep down in her eyes are of no help

Her whiteness spreads through the April of her young body
I learned nothing from that first kiss I see
That the hunger grows greater with the years
In the grass we wait for morning to come and for the ligh in the distance.

LADYLOVE
(DRAGA)

Willowy, on the warm summer sand, my ladylove lies
Her eyes open as her gaze penetrates the skies
Her secret protected by her enigmatic smile

I approach and stretch out beside her and wait
For a piece of summer to enter my eyes as well
And I wait a whole eternity and even longer

I have no luck but my ladylove is fortunate
All of her converts into lovemaking and
Inexplicable laughter sticks in her throat

If she desires she can light up a new sun with her lips
And with her slim arms bring it down from its heights

STARS ON THE PILLOW
(ZVEZDE NA UZGLAVLJU)

That separateness
Beauty of years around the waist
Kisses that last

Pale in expectation
She follows my gaze
And the routes of my hands

I know that sign
Secret gesture of love
Huddled shoulders
Eyes under petals
Body trembling with pleasant fear

White as a water lily
So young and tender
I can not even bring her
Into a poem

Only kisses of night remain
And late stars on the pillow

LOVE SONG
(LJUVENA)

You are beautiful my love, my love
More charming than all other charms
More perfect than all the gods

The fires of your lips my love, my love
Inflame me with passion
Through the nakedness of your body and swelling breasts

The curves of your body my love, my love
In the valleys of your slender and long legs
My member disperses a lump of darkness

And you are beautiful my love, my love
So is your dress, your hair, your hands, and scents in the grass
And you are beautiful my love, my love

THE INTOXICATING SIN
(OPOJNI GREH)

The girl hugs me and we kiss.
I can feel her lips melt into mine,
and her body tremble
with fear and desire.

In the silence
of the still unfinished alpine house
there is a smell of early spring
and of her small apple-like breasts.
Evening mists sparkle
and the humidity of rain
fills the erotic air.

She rears on her toes,
Her thighs tightly clinging to my body,
She adjusts her curvaceous hips,
her round belly. . .
her fixed expression dips
into my pupils
and kisses, kisses

I sign my name
with my lips
on her bent neck
while drunk from the thrill my girl grows pale
and flutters like a butterfly without action

We are sinning
she says to me
in a state of fire and desire
stopping our breaths
that go away with the wind.

We are sinning,
she said with even greater fright
and broke away from my embrace,
running down the clearing in the wood and
taking away wet kisses
on her youthful skin.

My eyes do not catch up with her.

A FANTASY
(SAN)

It is that music of leaves
The permanent presence of melodies
that crucify us

Blind to this difficult night
Like delicate threads we lie tightly drawn
between fantasy and love

Those are moments when the soul
like a pitcher fills with anxiety and grief
and we are alone oh so alone

The hushed shudders within us
seem to urge us to take flight
on the wings of the raven

I make a note of this moment
Prior to every dream and before bitterness
open-eyed I see a withering world

How much zooming time passes
from one fantasy to the next
beautiful bloodthirsty beast

We sway through this life and
like fossilized drops stay behind
in the yellow afternoon of the day

Like ants our lips are glued to
the pliant neck of the woman on the strand
the melancholy song of the sea

Getting a hold of ourselves we spend days in expectation
With lusterless eyes awaiting forgiveness
And who knows what are the colors of death

Wake up, my beloved girl and come out of
your own shadows of light without brilliance
I touch your dead heart

The dark green lane of decay comes striding
I speak thee light unknown, thee I speak
so as to outlive you

I'm sure I won't live to see
that sound of coral clearness
as my fingers frantically tighten

The cosmos has gone blind for a thousand years
Its invisible finger beats us violently
for staying under the dome

We stay behind forgotten and remote
Less and less do we touch with our hands
each keeping to one's self more and more

CALM, SEA, DREAM
(MIR, MORE, SAN)

No warmth of woman's breathing. A moment alone.
A room overlooking the sea and its cups of foam.
Face in the palms of my hands and eyes that roam:
A table, books, apples, shadows of a darker tone.

A moment of silence. Light overlays objects with hues of brass:
Woods, birds, meadows, a flurry in the leaves of grass
A picture from bygone days the mind cannot surpass,
A return to times that shined as bright as opal glass.

A small heart twisting in love, a narrow stepping-stone
Spasmodically spattered by the subdued light of day
The boggling hand is overgrown by reeds, sedge, clay.

Calm. Ripped out of the body wanders the bone.
The purple tower of agony grows:
Fiery eyes, tremors, senses in the throes.

LIPS
(USNE)

Moist lips, rose-red fissure, fire!
Like soft pollen you fertilize in kisses,
While your juicy blood cells burn.

You are the chain keeping me in bondage
The sweetness that plunges into me, turning
faith itself into make-believe and tenderness.

THE KISS
(POLJUBAC)

The fire I seek in female fragrance and tender passion
From the most wondrous wound that clings to me
Moving on tiptoe like the crests of the waves on the ocean
A small floating light, red bloom of lips, comes to be

The halved cherry and its softness and its sweetness
How innocent her face in the great midsummer night
As I kiss her the kisses pick the sweet fruits of ripeness
Little birds within her breast flutter in their lonely flight

Oh how splendid this world when we warmly osculate
And this river and this tree and this bird of our imagination's play
The air above our hands and within our rosy palate

While kisses last our pains and fear of bullets will run amiss
Oh love, the innocence of your eyes and blonde locks of hair say
If you love me there will never be an end or a beginning to the kiss

THE MAIDEN COMES OF AGE
(DOZREVANJE DEVOJCICE)

that girl
pointed cup-shaped breasts
delicate swimmer
an otter cutting through the blue wave
has been coming of age all summer

sometimes she flared-up
in the sand
ablaze
while I kissed her
kneecaps

restless was the seagull
of her thighs
and the she-wolf of her groins
the belly with grains of
sunshine's dust

she entwined me around her waist
blooming like the flower of the sour cherry
while I tasted the sweetness of the fissure
and the lust of the playing body
now and then saying
kiss me
She unfolds fully
like summer unfolds to smells
giving
and slightly sighing
and
when all is done
for a long long time
her astral eyes
gaze at the sky

PRETTY WOMEN
(LEPE ZENE)

Pretty women are petals
That burst
Into our lives

The sweetness of their lips
When they kiss
And the traces of their kisses
Stay with us

They come and go
They
The pretty Penelopes
Loving and graceful
With enigmatic smiles
In the corners of their lips

Warm scars in the heart remain

And a whispered ah

In the deep embraces
Like peach blossoms
Unsealing the floral scents
From their dresses

The evenings that burned themselves out
Leave the blades of grass, my love,
Behind us

All our kisses
Are not worthy of the depths
In pretty women's eyes

THIRST
(ZEDJ)

The Sun's necklace inflames the waxen sky
The uniformity of sky and the underbrush rubble ablaze
Scorched climate extinguished in the thirst of the clay
Exhaustion and thirst decant my body

The sky's amber and sunflower melts and dribbles
Land in glowing heat spreads effervescently
In the broiling days of drought fires intensify
Outside of reach the tree at the roadside will burn

Furtively a quail alights onto my shoulder
Lest the blazing sky should notice her
Wings to extinguish my burning face

With a sip we shall first dry out the lake
Quenching the thirst of my dry tongue
The ripped open sky erupts on my cheekbones

THE SECRET
(TAJNA)

You are not destined to prevail
Robust in your body in seclusion
In the thin membrane of purple skin
You've burnt on tongues of telltale

Already fractured during delivery
You dropped out of your shell
Losing your name in the clime
Now you rely on the guessing tree

You've not been given a name of durability
The thirst for your juice spreads like fire
And spilling you flood the entire world
Even if ridiculed you still fulfill infinity

THE RED APPLE
(CRVENA JABUKA)

Never falls far from the tree, does not flee
From her mother, from the invisible father.

I sometimes notice the top of the tree
Secretly kissing with the evening star
Blending her juices with starlight.

I can hardly wait for autumn to pick her
And taste her sweetness in my mouth.

She will not come down easily while hardy,
Yellow leaf and distant vista do not bore her
She does not want to be an adornment in my room.

THE APPLE
(JABUKA)

I see granules of sunlight
Blend into her skin.

All her appeal amassed
In the arc of her reddish glow.
The silence of distant mountains
Creeps into her through the stem.

It's as if she has just come running
Into one's hands, books . . .
She offers herself with lust, like a mistress
As she lies there on the plate.

Her mouth opens with secret keys
And she sheds her fine granules of sunlight.

INTERSECTED BY LIGHT
(SVETLOSCU PRESECENI)

The moment when frozen silence
Mellows on a cryptic clue
And blood boils in frenzy

Intersected by light
Our tired hands rest on the table
Showers of sunlight
And autumn in the red apples

Each minute an eyelet
Is laced onto a golden thread
While lips slurp up the sky
Blue loves rend us asunder

This floating water lily
And the flapping of a bird's wings

SUMMER ON THE LAKE
(LETO NA JEZERU)

A reed in our eyes flickers for hours in a row
The sun swings suspended from a golden chain
Warmth of August spatters skin with heated glow
And lo, upon the lake, fall the first drops of rain

A downpour. But a minute or two after that
The torrid heat fervently glows once more
We, lulled by life, in love and detached
Again lazily gaze into the water and bore.

THE UNFAMILIAR SEED
(NEPOZNATA SEMENKA)

We see her but we don't know her name
We don't know what will sprout from her

Mute and brimming with some rare secret
From our palms she gives us a cryptic smile

Where should I sow her and with how much sunlight
Silence and how many drops to quench her thirst

Will she grow a fragrant flower or release
A toxic thorn or fill the eye with brightness

Nipped in the bud of her green knees
Will she crop a new leaf

The more we look at her the less we know
She will shoot up through the cracks in our soul

THE SWAN
(LABUD)

She is dead and white
He threw himself off the cliff

Till yesterday together
They cut across the lake
With their fervid love

The water is lifeless and green
The water is like a mirror

Never say, not even in your dreams
That you're tired of love, that it's come to an end
Like all colors white is death

THE NORTHERN ROOM
(SEVERNA SOBA)

Why did you abandon the northern room
Oh my fluttering little darling

Each night I come to
Spend the night in that room
In those eyes that do not see me

I did not notice you, oh Sun
Partly cracked, you visit my threshold

The world expands with every breath
You won't see it with your eyes
You won't touch it with your palms

NORTHERN ROOM II
(SEVERNA SOBA II)

The autumn that invisibly enters
The room with its small window

Apples and old books lie about
The quince with grains of sunshine
On the wardrobe and smells that exalt

That is the northern room of poetry
Where little arms want to break away

From shoulders and nothing happens
No twitch no throb no wide-eyed look
As big as the darkened world

SO MUCH SUMMER ON THE BALCONY
(TOLIKO LETA NA BALKONU)

At high noon exactly she opens the door
And leaves the silence of large rooms

There is so much summer on that balcony
In the plants the names I don't even know
So much longing in those small hands

Afternoon meditations and foreboding
Eyes gazing at the back of a neck

She turns with Lips calm and still
After to flow over into a dismal lake
So much summer on the balcony and in the hands

THE SMALL MOUTH
(MALA USTA)

Her small mouth calmly
Opens and closes the dimmed world

On a bed of pain, nothing said
Mum's the word, mouth speechless all night
Not a word of what's been accumulating for years

An eternity, a whole eternity goes by
From one word to the next

Even the odds of the sun's breaking loose
From the vault of heaven are more likely
Than my chances to get a taste of that small mouth

INFATUATED BIRD
(LUDA PTICA)

Above the gleaming smoothness of the forest lake
Suddenly plunging down like an enthralled Narcissus
Headlong into the silent abyss with sharp beak and eye
She leaves her wits back there in the peaceful sky

Above the blue of the untarnished mirror
Like a projectile fired from the unseen
She flies besotted as if in self-destruction
Falls sinking into torpor from lust of life

The sun clips her soft wings
Pricking her body with pins of gold
Down she drops with breath held
To keenly curve up towards the sky

IN LOVE WITH THE WOODS
(ZALJUBLJEN U SUMU)

Nobody can cure me of love
Like the tremulous fawn in love with the woods,
I lie under the centennial trees. I ponder:
How beautiful the light when eyes fade out.

Green lakes gleam in the orbits of my eye.
Among bulrushes and reeds, gulls unfurl the sky.
Roots of plants shoot up through my soul.
How beautiful the light when eyes fade out

.
Nobody can cure me of love.
I'm not even grass any more. There is no me.
Warm thrill of flesh pierces the top of a tree
How beautiful the light when eyes fade out.

BULLET IN AN ANIMAL'S HEAD
(METAK U GLAVI ZIVOTINJE)

Bullet in an animal's head, still hot
Jets of warm blood splutter the moss
Also a chunk of sky in the half-open eye
And columns of ants in frenzied attack.

Sweet forest smells. Frozen silence of shadows
Caught off guard and in disbelief we stare at the hide,
Tranquilized, forever. Still is the hoof that yearned far-away places
And the dandelions crushed in the clearing in the wood.

Bullet in an animal's head. A broken thread.
Yellow sun glows in the small pupils.
Our words are tongue-tied, deadness in our soul...
Even so a vein keeps on throbbing and snarls at us.

CASCADE
(SLAP)

We keep the window open overnight and the heart
For years. Like silenced gods we stare up
At the pregnant stars while the light
Plunges down into the sea without a resonance
To hover over the pebbles on the beach.
Only one eye glitters in the sky, I know no other.
We suffer from sleeplessness as we grow old
Thinking of death and flesh. To all appearances we are still happy
Thinking about the stars and keeping the window
Open so as to look up at the heavens.

In that silence we often fail to apprehend a cascade
Of moonlight, like the beauty of a woman that appears
With the soft lines of body, yes I repeat, we do not
Apprehend the cascade of light that
Forebodingly carries us away into ruin.

THE TREE
(DRVO)

The tree grown from my eyes
Holds a bird in its crown
Holds a secret in its roots

The tree that has fled from home,
From a landscape of beauty.

What delight beneath it!
Imprisoned in a fortress of dreams �
I have no will to move.

Moss covers us both.
My blood and its blood expands.

WOMAN IN BLUE
(ZENA U MODROM)

The day spreads the water under her feet
Over the green sand and folds of sunset

She flees from the dormant depth with drops
On her dress of purple threads around her fragile waist

With the giggle that flowered from her lips
And bits of sunshine that glowed in her hair

She slips out of the sea and oozes around vivid curves
Even under the water her indelible trace remains

The woman in blue runs along the beach the beach from which
He shouts: come here, girl, come to me

He yearned to impress the seal of a hot kiss
Onto that lip that was mum on the day of dumb fish

He wanted to adorn her smile with a coral star
To unresisting listen to the music of the depths

Humbly exhausted she welcomes him on the beach in summer heat
Where kissing her lips and knees he strips her of her aquamarine

She pulls on her cloak of shame to remodel the close of the day
And in his eyes disguise the moonlight with her robe of nudity

The day spreads the water under her feet
Over the green sand and folds of sunset

That whole night I leafed through her velvet thighs
That whole night her lips set his muscles on fire

All wet and white she promised him sons who would be
The same as he, well measured pace of hours in the night

Gliding over terraces of vineyards on this late flight
Two birds of pretty profile glued to the moss

The did not see the seagulls in the pupils of each others eyes
When morning entered their arms he said: I love you

The day spreads droplets under her feet
Boundless in her absence she goes on dreaming

AN EXCURSION TO TRSAT CASTLE
(IZLET NA TRSAT KULU)

How beautiful the sea in the distance
Said I, my love,
How shines its surface.

This night I die enthralled
Kissing the arch of your neck
Like the blue in the
Snow-covered hills.

The night bends our fingers
Into rings of spring
As we dream of the warmth of home.

At the foot of Trsat castle
Lovers lie.
Two silences, you and I.
April and flowers
A dormant shadow of sadness, I see,
Forming around your lips
And thin wrinkles around your eyes.

Wolves tear the moonlight to shreds
In me,
Like in my native mountains.

With each day our sadness grows larger,
My love we climb up to the castle again
Like two silences
Cut in half by the shadow of the moon.

How beautiful the sea in the distance
Said I, my love,
How blue its surface tonight.

My words blossom into a lotus
Into the splendor of your face
The flower blooms, I see...

POEM WRITTEN WITH THE FIRE OF MY LIPS
(PESMA KOJU PISAH VATROM USANA)

Woman, I spill my breath over your skin
Like invisible ink like love letters
I print upon your neck words that nobody will ever
Be able to read from lips cracked with spleen

Up to here, to this hot fire that bursts
Out of you I would come and fall on my knees
Burning and diving into the lakes of your eyes
Among the shells and crabs up to the arcane gates

Today my soul is empty and alone at summer's end
The years embark on the sea coast and
Sail away to the end of the world and in vain my
Efforts to write the most beautiful love song with my lips

SLIM YOUNG WOMEN
(MLADE VITKE ZENE)

Slim young women, with rivers of rustling thighs,
Sad-eyed, abysmal depths into which we fall,
The lakes that one discovers under eyelashes...
What will become of them after ten years?

They walk the streets with bodies as lithe as the roe's
Still maidens even now, flying into our stares of desire.
Their budding souls are as open as the years they've reached,
While they seductively sway rounded hips in their stride.

Like sea waves penetrated by the softness of spring
Those breasts, those doves roused from their slumber.
Tomorrow, give birth to girls, we say, so that we may
See you reawaken in them like white flowers on the water.

REED-WOMAN
(ZENA-TRSKA)

I led her to the lake, and she resembled a reed.
All tremulous in her laughter of youthful charm
She pledged her love for me as I opened her
Little hands and knees. Searching for the truth of her words.

In those dreamy eyes, in their gracefulness I tried to find
Something of my future daughter in them. I was thirsty
Ever more thirsty while I sucked the honey of her flower lips
I was so aloof from myself and deep down into her.

I took off her dress, and before me was the body of a reed-woman
As white as a water-lily on the lake. Her slim body
Her palms on my face. The force of my manliness frightened me
As she trembled in my eyes like a reed like a reed

THE EYES OF MY BELOVED AS SHE SEES ME OFF
(OCI MOJE DRAGE DOK ME ISPRACA)

My beloved has eyes like raindrops in a rose
As she sees me off from the threshold of our home
A dark sun dances under the roof of our years
Lightning of despair flash through our veins

A warm sunset oozes over the purple hills
And enters my beloved like a perfume thief
My beloved puts her ear to a shell and hears nothing
But the striking of sea waves

She waves her hands like a swallow waves its wings
I don't see anything anymore but I kiss the dear eye of my beloved
As I anticipate the bitter years of absence
Everything barren just a broken heart remains

BODY OF A WOMAN
(TELO ZENE)

Body of a woman, touch of copper and gracefulness, like a flower
When it sees the sun for the first time, offering itself
To love and time, lying in the sands of August
What strength and beauty in those lines! I love

Those shadows, that sweet melody hidden in the depths
Of her eyes, that waist with is stroke of slimness.
A rearing roe. I love that body in my arms
Fervent passion and a desire to surrender. I love

Those translucent fingers, slender and soft, on my face, that
Remote night in Kostrena where the violet veil of
Twilight slides over the waves. Infinite is

My hunger after every embrace. In the coves of her
Eyes I see the same hunger, in her glassy breasts
I find desire and on her lips a lust to be kissed.

A QUINCE OR A WOMAN
(DUNJA ILI ZENA)

Why aren't you a quince, its smell, mark of freshness
Color that seduces the eye and leads the mind astray
Bare flesh clothed in mist of desire, those
Hips under the dress in the folds of the wind

I wondered, how to draw you unreal
As you run across the surface of the sea to disappear
Far away into a point of white flesh like a seagull
I ripped myself away from my soul as I fled

And I spelled out the color of your iris in my thoughts
I went into the unknown to explore your little heart
I kept my eyes peeled on the quinces on my table
Their voluptuous form like the pink skin of your body

Translated from Serbian into English by SLOBODAN DRENOVAC