Species Vulnerabilis

We walk around wearing
our vulnerabilities,
blinking in shyness
with eyes averted
carefully, from insecurities
of others, too much like ours.

Harelips, club feet, lazy eyes,
birthmarks, pockmarks, dumbo ears,
thick skin, thin skin, wrinkled skin,
voices, murmurs, memories,
words unsaid, and words outsaid –
a collection of wounds

we wrap around us and
carry, paradoxically,
like a protective shield,
a comforter, a motherly
armour, lulling us to our
baby sleep, hoping that those

we meet along the way won’t
shake us awake too rudely.

Rođendanska pesma iz naftalina / Birthday Poem from behind Mothballs

I am a light-to-moderate user of Facebook. I have about 100 FB friends, two-thirds of whom I don't really communicate with, and that's ok. But what I like the most, is to bump into someone I haven't talked to in lifetimes, and win a small victory over Death and the Nought, which invade sweepingly the end of anything.

When Vlada and I reconnected the other day, we both came alive again, the way were were almost 20 years ago, when we shared the precarious net of days lived in the same neigbourhood in the ruffled Belgrade of the early 90s. In honour of that, I dug through my treasure boxes which I keep dragging with me from continent to continent, and unburied this poem I wrote for his birthday in 1992.

This was me, then, full of rhymes and steady rhythms and upbeat, cheeky advice given out freely. And this was Vlada, forever celebrating his 24th birthday, in the poem.



ROĐENDANSKA PESMA
(Vladi Stevanoviću)

Vremena su gadna, al’ šta se tu može
Ne pobeže niko iz vlastite kože.
Daleko je sunce, tvrde mnogi znalci
Kažu - u areni, spušteni su palci.

Ne daj da te neka od tih priča stuži
Razapni sva jedra i vetra se drži.
Nek ti tamne misli po glavi ne hode
Pusti da te zvezde u sazvežđa vode.

Do susreta novog, u ko zna kom svetu
Hteli il’ ne hteli, delimo Planetu.
Dok još uvek tu smo, reći ću ti ovo:
Besmrtnim te čini ovo moje slovo.

(1992)