Laurynas Katkus Poems

It smells of gas and ferment.
Obliquely across the pavement,
Vans: oblique letters,
red teats on the underbelly.
...

The road happened to be boggy.
Cars drove by, splashing mud and light.
Below us loomed the blue city of mercury.
Tin and water rusted in its twilight.
...

Truck Driver's Wife In the morning only a leather cap on the shelf.
Driver At first I was really moving- -and thought I might turn over.
Truck Driver's Wife I'm surrounded by cats again. Yarn chokes my neck.
Driver Bremen. Sleet. Dreaming of borderguards.
...

Yo! Wind tore off the door.
Ah, a car, in snow.

Blue evening light,
beginning of Winter.
...

Ich war alt wie ein Rauch
Johannes Bobrowski


once again I pace around the photos on the piano
...

An elevator, murmuring quietly,
Lifts us into a sky of books.
Eyes closed, you twist your hair around your finger:
Slumber is a soft and warm cocoon.
...

And so I live with cobwebs and ficuses,
dictionaries, comic strips, and a heart
which taps at the outskirts of night
...