SOUTH WIND
And Theseus sails to harbour in the midst of the open sea.
The continents have pushed the ocean back, the islands erased
like pallid grass in the vestibules of abandoned
temples. Bring over the sea: sailors shout to him from their ships.
Dark has taken dominion over all.
Anchors float beside lighthouses.
Gulls already black from the night’s precipitated
sediment enter tunnels of air.
The land has slipped away from the Moon; although
constellations of fish bleach on cracked rock
with no high or low of tide. On the radio
they forecast a south wind.
The horizon creeps through the links of ships’ chains.
The open sea has drawn back.
Patches of damp dissolve between house walls,
nearer the cape and the tower. Dark falls inwards.
Rope won’t settle into mud. Inscriptions
and left-over letters melt on pavements like fishscales.
The inner yards in the port quarter smell
of swallows’ nests.
What painter sketched the tracks of the marathon
swimmers in an endless curve?
He switched the transparent waves for soot
freed from underground. Appointed good to be evil.
The shore’s caved in; under its slabs of stone green slime
spreads over the dry land. South wind.
Illusory fields sway in the building’s stifling corners,
the seeds of palm trees.
You study a water-logged branch, like the beak
of a beached wader. The wind has split the slats
of the window, overturns sunshades and wicker
chairs roped to the trees. Is the boat just a shadow
among submarine springs?
An awkward ship’s piano sounds from the café.
Someone calls from the ships, quiet curses.
Hurried steps along streets. A cigarette coal below the terrace.
Perhaps you forget the way, and where you were going?
The bell-tower’s vertical is erased, and the face
of the town clock. The square is like a cobweb
torn in a mass of mesh.
Likely it’s no better behind the high wall
surviving on the edge of the drowned shore.
JUŽINA
I Tezej plovi do luke u središtu pučine.
Kontinenti su potisnuli ocean, otoci se brišu
kao bezbojna trava u predvorjima ispražnjenih
hramova. Prenesi more: doviknu mu s barke mornari.
Mrak je obuzeo sve predmete.
Sidra plutaju pred svjetionicima.
Galebi već crni od zgusnutih
taloga noći ulaze u zračne tunele.
Zemlja se udaljila od Mjeseca; iako bez plime
i oseke zviježđe riba zabijeli se
na raspuklu kamenu.
S radija najavljuju južinu.
Kroz krugove brodskog lanca promiče horizont.
Pučina se povukla unatrag.
Među zidovima kuća, bliže rtu i tornju,
rastvaraju se vlažne mrlje. Tama se urušila.
Konop ne tone u blatu. Natpisi i preostala
slova, otapaju se kao krljušti, na pločnicima.
Unutarnja dvorišta lučke četvrti mirišu
na lastavičja gnijezda.
Kakav je to slikar u beskonačnoj krivulji
nacrtao staze maratonskih plivača?
Prozirne valove zamijenio garom što se oslobađa
iz podzemlja. Dobro imenuje zlim.
Pod kamenim pločama urušene obale zeleni mulj
nadrasta kopno. Južina.
U zagušljivim uglovima zgrada njišu se iluzorna
polja, sjemenke palminih stabala.
Promatraš razmočenu granu, nalik je kljunu
nasukana ronca. Vjetar je rastvorio rebrenice
prozora, preokreće suncobrane i slamnate stolice
privezane uz stabla. Zar je brodić tek sjena
među morskim vruljama?
Iz kafea čuje se neugođeni pianino.
S broda netko se tihim psovkama odaziva.
Niz ulicu žurni koraci. Pod terasom žar cigareta.
Možda zaboravljaš put, i kamo si krenuo?
Briše se okomica zvonika, s njom kružnica
gradskog sata. Trg je kao paučina raskidan
u mnoštvu pregrada.
Vjerojatno nije bolje ni iza visokog zida
što je preostao na rubu potopljene obale.
ISOLATION
Nothing in this room is mine.
When I close my eyes the walls move apart, slant
into thin surfaces; so quickly do they change.
Ants pull the woodwork apart, the distance between
things lessens. In the garden, the tiny tract of an
imaginary country is getting smaller. Stems transport dark sounds.
At night the paths vanish behind glazed doors;
slide over unknown horizons; the balcony, the pavement
and the street. Cocoons of plucked leaves collect in heaps
beneath the shadows. An echo cracks in the marble, flows along the corridor.
The sky wheeled through separated roofs, clouds hurried.
I see: the lawn is changing; ever weightier pillars come nearer,
within reach. Between them green or blue fabric
sinks into water. Deserted places die quickly.
Marijana M. asks: Coffee or tea? Violet raisins
shine pictured on an empty saucer.
Mistletoe grows upward in her steps, dwindling the stones.
On the stairs, ceramic flowers. Portraits of ancestors
darken in their gilt while in Venetian glass
the twilight ebbs. Cupids like orchids, their wings
spread among the shelves.
As the clouds shift I feel a blueness: the space in the
birch bark is measureless.
Crystalline leaves in the grass like a grain of rice, the wind
blows away fine fragments of wet flowers that journey about the earth.
At the picture’s height cities wide open, raised benches,
glazed parks, greenery of the river.
Birds are sleeping, concealed behind the clouds.
We sit beneath what was a family tree
pictured long ago. The past rises between us with words:
Like a house, the isolation of an extinct tongue.
OSAMNICA
U ovoj sobi ništa mi ne pripada.
Kad zatvorim oči zidovi se rastvore, ukose
u tanke plohe; tako se brzo mijenjaju.
Mravi rastaču drveninu; zbližava se razmak
među predmetima. U vrtu, sve je manji komadić
zamišljene zemlje. Peteljke prenose tamne zvukove.
Noću iza ostakljenih vrata nestaju staze;
preko nepoznata obzora klize; balkon, pločnik
i ulica. Pod sjenama gomilaju se čahure istrgnutih
listova. Jeka naprsne u mramoru, prostruji hodnikom.
Kroz razmaknuti krov okrenulo se nebo, brzaju oblaci.
Vidim: mijenja se travnjak, sve teži stupovi bliže se
nadomak ruke. Među njima zelena ili modra tkanina
tonu u vodi. Ostavljena mjesta brzo sahnu.
Marijana M. pita: Kavu ili čaj? Ljubičaste grožđice
sjaje oslikane na praznom tanjuriću.
Za njenim koracima uspinje se imela, usitnjuje kamenje.
Na stubama keramički cvjetovi. Portreti predaka
tamne u pozlati dok se u venecijanskim staklima
gasi suton. Amoreti kao orhideje, među policama
razapeta im krila.
Kako promiču oblaci osjećam se plavo: neizmjerno
je prostranstvo u kori breze.
Kao zrna riže u travi kristalni listovi, vjetar otpuhne
usitnjeno vlažno cvijeće što putuje oko zemlje.
U visini slike rastvoreni gradovi, uzdignute klupe,
Ostakljeni parkovi, zelenilo rijeke.
Iznad oblaka spavaju skrivene ptice.
Sjedimo pod onim što je već davno oslikano
obiteljsko stablo. Prošlost među nama buja s riječima:
Kao kuća, osamnica mrtva jezika.