Poem
Damir Šodan
MEANDERINGS OF REAL HISTORY
I slowed the ball down!What else was I supposed to do?
(Just to feel that at least something was under my control.)
Then I jumped on my bicycle
and headed off to Albert Heijn
for some South African red
(God bless N. Mandela and H. Masakela!)
and then back home and straight out to the balcony
where I sat on the stool remembering
my late grandma and Tadija Bojkanov
an excellent tenor and her courtier
who was never to be (around 1928
in the village of K. in the Dalmatian hinterland
now dead as a stone) and in the same breath
for some reason also the great Dutch doctor
Nicholaas Tulp from one of Rembrandt’s
paintings, a pioneer surgeon, the first one
to cut primates open, but that is altogether
a different story that calls for an additional narrative
frame and that is why I am already watching
the fireworks down above the harbor
(the sky bursting with fiery planktons . . .)
looks like the Italians are going to make it
to the top this year again although we are at the North Sea
never mind the geography being still an issue
only on the pages of parochial small print
where Jela, the fair maiden, still weaves her goblins
and deer come off the tapestries
to drink from the palms of humble proletarians
whereas here the Game compresses the world,
for it is a noose, a deposit, a harmolodics . . .
and there is no way you can escape it,
not even boarded in a casket
ridden with heavy nails.
© Translation: 2005, Damir Šodan
Bespuća zbiljske povijesti
Bespuća zbiljske povijesti
stao sam na loptu.što sam drugo mogao?
(tek da znam da je nešto i u mojoj vlasti.)
poslije sam sjeo na bicikl
u Albertu Heijnu kupio južnoafričko crno
(čast N. Mandeli i H. Masakeli!)
vratio se kući
na balkonu zauzeo štokrlu
sjetio se pokojne babe
i Tadije Bojkanova
sjajnog tenora
i njenog nesuđenog vagiđanta
(u selu K. u Dalmatinskoj Zagori
cca. 1928. danas sasvim mrtvom)
ali i ovdašnjeg doktora Nicholaasa Tulpa
s Rembrandtove slike koji je prvi
skalpelom načinjao primate.
međutim, to je sad druga priča
koja traži dodatni okvir
& zato već gledam vatromet
dolje iznad luke
(na nebu praskavi planktoni . . .)
Talijani izgleda i ove godine prvi,
iako smo na Sjevernom moru, ali nema veze
zemljopis je još samo stavka
u sitnom slogu provincijskog tiska
gdje lijepa Jele vezak veze
i jeleni silaze s tapiserija
da se napiju iz dlanova
smjernih trudbenika
dok ovdje igra sažima svijet.
ona je omča, zalog, harmolodija . . .
i ne možeš joj pobjeći.
niti u lijesu okovanom daskama.
© 2005, Damir Šodan
Poems
Poems of Damir Šodan
Close
MEANDERINGS OF REAL HISTORY
I slowed the ball down!What else was I supposed to do?
(Just to feel that at least something was under my control.)
Then I jumped on my bicycle
and headed off to Albert Heijn
for some South African red
(God bless N. Mandela and H. Masakela!)
and then back home and straight out to the balcony
where I sat on the stool remembering
my late grandma and Tadija Bojkanov
an excellent tenor and her courtier
who was never to be (around 1928
in the village of K. in the Dalmatian hinterland
now dead as a stone) and in the same breath
for some reason also the great Dutch doctor
Nicholaas Tulp from one of Rembrandt’s
paintings, a pioneer surgeon, the first one
to cut primates open, but that is altogether
a different story that calls for an additional narrative
frame and that is why I am already watching
the fireworks down above the harbor
(the sky bursting with fiery planktons . . .)
looks like the Italians are going to make it
to the top this year again although we are at the North Sea
never mind the geography being still an issue
only on the pages of parochial small print
where Jela, the fair maiden, still weaves her goblins
and deer come off the tapestries
to drink from the palms of humble proletarians
whereas here the Game compresses the world,
for it is a noose, a deposit, a harmolodics . . .
and there is no way you can escape it,
not even boarded in a casket
ridden with heavy nails.
© 2005, Damir Šodan
MEANDERINGS OF REAL HISTORY
I slowed the ball down!What else was I supposed to do?
(Just to feel that at least something was under my control.)
Then I jumped on my bicycle
and headed off to Albert Heijn
for some South African red
(God bless N. Mandela and H. Masakela!)
and then back home and straight out to the balcony
where I sat on the stool remembering
my late grandma and Tadija Bojkanov
an excellent tenor and her courtier
who was never to be (around 1928
in the village of K. in the Dalmatian hinterland
now dead as a stone) and in the same breath
for some reason also the great Dutch doctor
Nicholaas Tulp from one of Rembrandt’s
paintings, a pioneer surgeon, the first one
to cut primates open, but that is altogether
a different story that calls for an additional narrative
frame and that is why I am already watching
the fireworks down above the harbor
(the sky bursting with fiery planktons . . .)
looks like the Italians are going to make it
to the top this year again although we are at the North Sea
never mind the geography being still an issue
only on the pages of parochial small print
where Jela, the fair maiden, still weaves her goblins
and deer come off the tapestries
to drink from the palms of humble proletarians
whereas here the Game compresses the world,
for it is a noose, a deposit, a harmolodics . . .
and there is no way you can escape it,
not even boarded in a casket
ridden with heavy nails.
© 2005, Damir Šodan
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