NOBODY FOR A LONG TIME

I had traveled like a sky on the sky
in an indescribable crowd among adornments
among miracles where there’s a bowl full of water and a piece of rain-soaked
bread

it so happens that we who carry inside us the world’s infernos and
paradises
can hardly be contained by the chaise-lounge and there was a big nostalgia in
our bodies
it so happens that we rolled through yellow mists
where women’s caresses were woven into the flight of wild ducks
and we were so lonely we started turning wild ourselves
and passed like shadows with weeds on our shoulders

fishes poked their heads out of the water and looked at us scared they said go to
hell
why are you fussing back and forth and weeping on the water
leave us alone with our tranquil dreams
with our dead fiddlers who play for us on verandas
at night when snakes crawled silently toward cow’s utters
I went for a stroll in the woods
by the black water where the trees bathed
I was a tall man I perched on a chair
over there girls with very long eyelashes knew algebra
they spoke words like coffins and they lay down inside them

on my back I wore the skin of a black bull
in winter I wrapped my feet in straw brushed myself off counted the powders
like in the army
and one girl with a striped t-shirt climbed frantically on my back

a half hour of insults ensued
she leaned against the counter looked into the mirrors
she defended her example she knew the words but forgot their meaning
she said that she’d kill me with a stone just like the poet Mihail loved by the physician’s assistant Dobrita
then she calmed down we met again clean as diamond
hey she said I’ve got nothing against you why should I
here’s some grass go peepee
I’ll open the window you should at least foreshadow yourself

there was a state of danger a parchment made of my skin


translated by Alistair Blyth