Footprints

by Rifet Bahtijaragic

  Irmin came back at five in the morning

  From one of his escapades of all-night Vancouver.

  And I had worried

  For he hadn’t returned from his evening shift!

  This morning I watched the ashy clouds

  Over gray waves of the Pacific Ocean,

  Down there, for miles below the windows

  Of the mysterious Lady Gem .

  The dawn exposed the cracks in the cloudy sky

  And there was no sign of my friends from the universe.

  In the living room of the affluent ground floor

  The friendly poodle Cindy

  Touchingly apologized

  For disturbing my peace with its yawning.

  It is a pleasure to read V.P. by the Bosnian poet Izet Sarajlic,

  And page after page to ask jealously if the poet stole

  My feelings.

  He was waking up in this world before I was

  And before me was gleaning red apples of life

  That moonlight tossed

  From large-crowned trees at midnight.

  With a handful of crumbling soil,

  Ready for the casket of the loved one,

  The poet was angry at his friend Viktor Sklowski’s thought

  That “there is no past and that living hurts.”

  In the awakened cathode screen

  Swings Josh Groben’s melody,

  Whose voice in the family of tenors

  Equals Baroque in Expressionism.

  CONTEMPORARY POETRY

  In the trembling you’re soft, melancholy

  Nameless, shapeless

  Your eyes like pears

  Ripe and juicy

  Worm-eaten

  She danced on my forehead

  In the horse’s hairy tail

  Her smell

  Scattered shadows on the neck

  Reddish foam

  Silky

  To comb, fountain, or chaos alike

  From one dog’s bark to another

  Two long hours

  Of carelessness

  Behind the brows

  Through dreams

  Through softness

  Sweet tear breaking

  Thus audacious you triumphed

  Your song was not a lark’s

  Nor did you chirp in your chirping

  In the morning among blades of grass

  At noon a rosy prominence

  In the whiteness

  SEED

  In the primeval compass

  The heat of the trembling bell

  Plunges

  Down the lumpy furrow of passion

  Like the midnight’s sleeping scent

  The source moves closer to the mouth

  In the desire to return to itself

  To crawl back into the mother’s womb

  Down the dark blue mist

  The bulbous-headed lust sinks

  Beneath the surface

  Its lips distorted

  Long

  Trembling long

  With soft fur around the neck

  In the clench of anxiety

  The bulbous-headed desire sinks

  Beneath the surface

  FATE

  Is not fate proud and mute,

  Tortured by difficulty, wrinkled by a rock,

  Like rubber stretched by hand,

  When returning in dangerous flight?

  Is not fate somebody’s power,

  And pride, mad luck,

  Stick and arrow,

  Bullet and space station;

  For some, may the Creator of fate forgive me,

  Soiled birth into the trash heap?

  Isn’t fate triumph and death

  In the eyes of the victor

  And in the eyes of the victim?!

  That same fate in which the flame sparks

  And dies …

  Is not fate for the spiteful one

  Who turns off the light in another man’s harbour,

  The same as that for the one infected by hate

  Whose encomiums sneak back to a suspicious past?!

  Is fate ashamed of the crystal glasses raised to the sky,

  And of the abyss in the eyes of the unfortunate,

  And of the newly born orphans

  Under the decks of the victor’s ships?!

  Isn’t fate like a comet

  Whose dusty trail

  Batters us across time and space

  And pulls a butterfly from cocooning larvae

  Before our very eyes?

  I SAW

  The geese flew over the imaginative tops of skyscrapers

  And screamed while flying south,

  Where the courage of this frost behind mist fails.

  Where the doors to return are open.

  Window panes offered me a mirror,

  The weary ocean surface offered me wonder.

  I saw steaming sparks in my eyes

  And the memory of the woman with a rose in her hair

  In my pupils.

  I saw … how the gray gloss,

  Like the one on the paintings of wisdom,

  Conquers the gracious arch of dark brows

  And foments melancholy in the bud of surprise.

  I saw in my dream the game of her senses.

  I dreamed of the wind of awakened scents

  Blowing locks of her hair

  Above the crimson spring of thrilling purity.

  I saw. She is being taken down the road of warmth

  Back again into my memory.

  I saw her blue eyes

  In my dark ones.

  Then I saw … The reddish water has awoken,

  The waves’ crowns like seagulls.

  Fishing boats hastened to the harbor.

  The sky in the dark depth of water.

  I saw the eclipse of the sun

  And the world frightened of darkness at noon.

  Behind my back

  The screen invited me to watch Michael Moore

  Grabbing the ruined statue of Bush Junior

  From the hands of angry patriots

  And carrying it in his hands

  To the graveyard of the great.

  To the place of no return

  From where the sun never comes.

  Beyond the eclipse. Never …

  WOMEN IN MY NIGHTS

  The women in the nights of my conquests

  Were stronger,

  Stubbornly confident when we touched,

  Warm and polite,

  Playful at the edge of trust,

  Offering blue irises to the eyes of passersby.

  I crept into their power

  With a feeling of hopelessness.

  The trembling of their bodies bewilders passion.

  They stole the fragrance of their plump bosoms

  From my eyes.

  On my face they drew smiles.

  While I was fighting the boiling breath in my lungs,

  They roamed the pages of my innermost feelings.

  The women performed the ballet of their hips

  On the frozen lake of my wonderment

  And threw the boiling balls of powdered snow

  At the membrane of shyness

  Under my eyelashes.

  They are only

  snowflakes of mute greetings

  in the carriages of my midnight shamelessness.

  MAESTRO

  The rain came down softly

  And sat on a wooden bench

  Still warm from lovers’ bodies.

  Just
awakened nocturnal darkness

  Attracts rare winged creatures

  Under the shimmering warmth of street lamps.

  A robbed seagull squeaks on a balcony’s fence.

  Through the half open window

  The smells of sweet dishes in a magical Chinese feast

  Bring voices that paint the dilemma

  Of the beginning of the new age.

  On the cold edge of the untrod pavement

  A poor man huddles close to the bare back

  Of an equally wary dog.

  There,

  Beyond the oracular waves of water,

  Only two steps away from the street lamps,

  Melancholy sounds of violins start calling.

  And then,

  Over the facades of the surprised city

  The raving sounds of a piano

  Spill crimson riffs of passion.

  It is the mysterious genius

  Diving boldly through my tranquil soul

  And stealing the mirth of windplay from my eyes.

  The notes play a daring pirates’ dance,

  Dashing boldly through the magic treasure of my past,

  And, like torches in the awakened genes of imagination

  Create their version of her face.

  He penetrates shamefully through the spaces of my egoism,

  Rousing feelings in the time of my innocence,

  His hands reach for her hair.

  Touch the silvery strings of her pride

  And then the fingers retreat ashamed

  Of their daringness to touch the intimate.

  Somewhere

  From the Pacific Islands of Haida-Gwaii

  The flakes of the late snow start falling

  Performing a game of some other life

  In front of the astonished eyes of a tiny white puddle.

  DESCRIPTION

  The blue violet opens its crown

  In the sea of hawthorn bushes

  With whiteness in their emerald hair.

  The yellow breeze passes downhill

  Past the murmur of the red chrysanthemums

  In the blossoming fire of the sterile quince

  The humming of the endless blueness brings dew

  The bluish flame of the morning furrows

  With the flight of anxious birds

  Toward tomorrow’s nuptial orgies

  Packs of blitzing antennas

  To roads murmur adheres

  Like a dizzying blue universe

  Of extravagant inner awakenings

  AN ODE TO WOMAN

  You came to me quietly from scented dreams

  Like an agile doe

  With fear in your eyes.

  You approached with suspicion,

  Like a wave approaching the cliff.

  You feared our love …

  You came to me from another world

  Where the imagination of the young men reigns,

  You, my rose, with fear in your eyes.

  I created your face through cobwebs

  Behind closed eyelashes.

  As you trembled in the leaf of a delicate willow

  You held out your hands to me downwind

  And caressed me with your whispers.

  You came to me softly from willows by the river,

  Like a wave approaching a cliff,

  You, my rose, with fear in your eyes.

  BEGGAR

  Toss me a coin

  But softly, please.

  In the basket of my silver weaving

  Feelings are silent.

  Don’t roust the dream of the dreaming one.

  Whole fields of seeds sleep

  In the basket of my silver weaving.

  Lay it down gently.

  Let it murmur only.

  In its song my happiness dreams.

  In the midst of our city,

  Somewhere under these candles,

  My gleaming palace lies hidden

  Among massed yellow tulip gardens.

  In crimson sleep shadow my yearnings

  Empty joy from the ewers of aromatic vines,

  And sighs of melancholy breathe life

  Into purple fragrant flowers.

  Give me a coin

  And that only

  When your gift bears no silent anger

  That I live among the lives of others.

  Give,

  As from the depth of the sea

  A dolphin’s play

  sprays a salty dew drop to kiss

  A blade of grass on an arid rock.

  Don’t give a lot!

  In your coin my hope lives.

  If you gave me the riches of the city,

  The desire that fuels dreams would die.

  Lay it down softly

  Lest the ringing metal disrupt my dreams.

  I enjoy in dream

  The richest life

  In the basket of my silver weaving.

  LIFE

  Life is a congregation of flames in a fire

  That burns out and passes away,

  And a blade of grass waging fierce battle

  To emerge from under the horny soil

  And reach for the sun.

  Life is like water when,

  Conceived by the sun,

  It soars toward the azure sky

  And when above

  In its inspired adventure

  Into curious shapes,

  Inspirational and horrific,

  Transforms,

  And to the artist offers its Sistine idea,

  And to the sorcerer, predictions

  Of the fruits of his sorcery;

  And it awakens hope for a fresh drop

  In the thirsty blade of grass

  And in the withered human creature.

  Life is a like a torrent of roiling waters

  Just before rampaging into the open sea,

  Death of the self in an abyss full of other lives.

  Or sometimes hiding under thick blocks of ice

  In the liquid of crystal wine glasses

  Awaiting its spring.

  Life is found in the coarse games of crazy politicians.

  It is conceived in deaths,

  Regenerating in the bacilli of rotting meat.

  Life is the perpetual movement from beginning to end

  On the circle of time,

  In which each imagined point

  After merciless climbing

  Into the adventure of certain descent falls.

  Life is spewed forth by the volcano’s lava.

  Undefeated, from the sleeping city

  It retreats, from the frozen churchbells

  And, like the intoxicating smell of fresh bread,

  Life transforms into the games of lives of tomorrow.

  MEN AND GOD

  Some people have God

  To help them on the path to happiness.

  Some swear to God till death

  As if taking him out of their pockets.

  To some God is a hidden hope

  For something better when this life ends.

  To some he is just a façade

  To reach personal goals.

  Sometimes God is blamed for sorrows

  People encounter on their life paths.

  At times they raise his name to the heavens

  Or push him into a half-broken vessel.

  For him they built mighty and lavish edifices

  Filled with darkness and wax candles,

  Instead of giving him fields

  Adorned with the sun and fragrance of fl
owers.

  Some show him reverence piously and passionately

  For all that sets him apart from humans.

  For some he is the designer

  Who created order on Earth and in the universe.

  Some grasp God firmly in their fists,

  Waving with him.

  And he, perhaps, smiles mysteriously

  And casts an eye on my rhymes.

  To me is beautiful the old idea

  That even the sons of Satan feel

  They can wash away their repulsive origins

  If they follow God’s paths.

  THE BLIND WITH THEIR EYES OPEN

  How wise

  Under the veil of hidden dreams

  You are, Pandora, the queen!

  In an empty glass imagination reigns.

  Paths of ignorance teeming with footsteps.

  In my head, the heavy silence

  Of the drenched city.

  All wait for the miracle when the blind recover their sight.

  Antennae in my bosom thread

  Crimson contours of consciousness.

  Within a political scene of drunken doctors,

  Hippocrates

  Sees a new arena of human lives,

  And changes his will.

  Mixed rules in the confusion of madness.

  Bodies bind with grass roots …

  Barbarism instead of hope!

  In my soul souls murmur:

  Pandora in chains!

  Gods bound, hallucination …

  Bouquets in broken vases.

  The blind dash in with their eyes open.

  In the underworld of limp power

  Odors sprout.

  IF HE EXISTED …

  If he existed,

  Would so much pain rumble over this planet,