Image: The Red Horseman, © Carlo Carrà. Image available here.
Author: Miljan Micakovic
Poems
Under the Olive Tree
(After Babel’s rabbi Osii)
My life earned treasure offered to my sons,
Hopes and fears invade my weary mind,
Will I see their success while turning blind?
Betrayed, shunned, and burnt solely by my suns?
A passionate heart to my woman I gave.
Not only wife, nor life-long living friend,
She pumped, for I survived until the end.
How I could be the man I am so brave?
To you my Faith, my Hopes, Oh, all have gone.
Although I called; Although I’d almost lost…
I wrongly wondered God, you wouldn’t spawn.
The soil that raised, the state that brought me up,
I served, I paid for rights and liberty.
I own myself and drink in my own cup.
All of this, All around; I won’t be free.
I’ve just a place under an olive tree.
Red Blacks
Taken, broken, chased, beaten
Sold, bought, traded, whipped,
Raped, killed, bred, shipped,
Betrayed, burnt, shut, stolen,
Judged, used, kept, crushed,
Shot, locked, hit, robbed,
Lynched, arrested, sent, shaken
Stripped, accused, mocked, mobbed,
Bent, corrupted, tricked, fucked,
And lived.
The English Professor
(For Digby Thomas)
Neat and clean, a handsome bear.
Arrived on time, and set his mind.
Plain and strong was his speech,
while standing fierce and bound
to the ground, to the stage of sounds.
Not a word too fast, not a sign too loose,
He could whisper, yet all was bold.
Even silence made us change our thought.
And yet, the awful end had to come,
Shrill ringing made him stop;
His eyes fixed, and ready to leave,
While we always longed for more.
Rhetoric
Nothing has to do with being right;
Neither you nor I decide it.
What then does set the light?
Asking questions, watching not to spit?
Damn those Greeks, giving their ????,
Drinking wine; inventors of the lounge
Where the laziest and cruellest drinks vodka,
Tasteless, hollow fluid, making you scrounge.
Then fights, so proud of his moves,
leaving the victim, living the dream,
Marching like a needle in the grooves,
As sweet as taking a child’s ice-cream.
The birth, the child, the parents behind them,
All know there’s something out of rhetoric’s stem.
The Student at the Window
She had a pale face, blond hair;
Sitting, she looked at the bad weather,
Despite the rain, she offered a glare.
It was as strong as her will,
‘Cause she wanted a day without rain,
Movement without sound, light in her heart.
Then, slowly, the dark clouds disappeared,
And her face became warm,
And like the dawn her hair was shining.
A Humiliation
Let him beat the shit out of me,
Put me in his mould of depravation
And I, barely breathing under his fists,
will only passively face my injury.
Let him command and rule all the space,
Pour concrete on my bare skin,
A raging glare writing his strength,
while I offer my face, a white page.
Let him set dawn, dusk, light, and darkness,
Crease my skin with his red eraser,
Decide my wakening, the last beam of light,
I’ll wander, yet with no feet under my head.
For I do not abide by time and space,
My only kin is the metal of a Calder.
Eye Contact
How interestingly walking down the streets
Brings nothing but a constant breeze,
People, wind, pass by looking away,
Yet near and firm around your gaze.
All the sudden, as your eye beams
A darker shade, a black hollow ring
Around its frame, All the sudden,
Straight as thunder does everyone glare.
There true faces, such glimmering balls,
Bouncing from side to side, Breaking
The shimmering glass of indifference,
The distance that makes us individuals.
No longer every move blows its air,
But all is centred on our share.
Computer Writing (more or less)
Typing, typing down the screen,
Fingers push not an inch of ink.
Words are formed, regular and bold,
But who’ll give them a soul?
I see, you sit, proud of your bright,
Shining fruit, proud of nothing else,
But sharing a common, colourless tool.
Are you only a shape in the mist?
When at school, your small lines desired,
Round and straight, folded with your art,
Such unique were these tiny scribbles,
Were you ashamed, or else betrayed?
No led, no screen will belong to you,
While you vanish under the computer writing.