Lidija Cvetkovic Poems

After a decade of absence it’s the crumbling
facades that strike me — chunks of paint split off
like states on the map of former Yugoslavia.
In the tenement flats everyone is spring cleaning —
...

In this grey town, Popa’s
‘white bone among the clouds’
the buildings stand still
like shocked witnesses.
...

What was it like when you were young?
War had left its talismans . . .
From forests and fields we brought in
bombs and metal wrecks —
...

My father draws a blade
along the wired frame
as we watch perfect rectangles
of honeycomb topple into
...

from the pig’s slit throat a red carpet unrolls
all his life he’s been fed for this
...

At first I only sensed the obvious —
in the body’s crypts there were signs
but I couldn’t read their textured meaning —
there was nothing but the shedding season.
...

1

At first I only sensed the obvious —
in the body's crypts there were signs
but I couldn't read their textured meaning —
there was nothing but the shedding season.

I mapped the crests and troughs
looking to heat to tell me the seasons;
but the knowledge was always retrospective
(you only know the highest point
once you have fallen — and because)

I'd carry the sky in my pocket-mirror
if my iris would flush lilac in the bower.
I'd grow a sparse black lace of plumes
from my elbow
to my wrist, speckles of my skin.
Instead I must decipher this body's innuendo.

2

We row in the shallows, suggestion of shadow;
tannins' wash of gold makes luminous beneath
ornament of rotten log, grace of stone.
We glide beneath the bellies of water birds.
Effortlessly they double themselves
in the water's black stillness.
The repetition of ripples, comforting
as when your tongue through the dark of me
like a leaf fallen in sweet water.
Loops of light sew the skin of paperbarks.
Without rain the logs will elbow through
to the harsh light of day to become dead-wood.

3

You hold my hand through the slit of plastic curtain.
The doctor comments on my socks and my
womb appears on a screen, displaced there,
lunar, strewn with shadows.

I wish for a better reception as she
takes the measurement, the egg's diameter.
I turn my head to the side — through the window
a frangipani blooms; I can almost smell

its sickly clusters of scent. The sky
presses down with all its grey weight.
I feel your fingers come to life
as I clench my fist around them.
...

My father draws a blade
along the wired frame
as we watch perfect rectangles
of honeycomb topple into
a stainless steel bowl.

From a hard earned
78 centimetre TV screen
a voice fires . . . massacres mass graves
like bullets into our lounge room
shooting father. Blood
thick as honey runs along
his fragile frame.

On the antenna outside
crows congregate for attack
on the raw liver and heart
he set out as bait.
Father waits by the shed,
air rifle aimed, and fires
a bullet of revenge.

Long ago in his motherland
as he dozed beneath a poplar,
a snake supped nectar
from his angel trumpet ear,
the translucent vessel
of his wisdom. He foresaw
the scenes that flash
before us on the screen.

So we packed our grief and
headed for the land of his dreams
the step-motherland
who'd gag his deepest cries
with lumps of creamed honey.
I watched my father's tongue
sink to the clay riverbed
of his mouth like a stone.

My ageing father
nursing his swollen knees
collapsed under two decades
of laying tiles, when at dusk
he'd return throwing dollars
in the air like pollen.

My father
rescuing drowning bees
and ducklings from his pool;
stuck in the prickly middle
between mother and me —
calling truce between
the warring sides;
bringing in honey
unaware of the sticky
trail he leaves behind.
...

1

from the pig's slit throat a red carpet unrolls
all his life he's been fed for this

the matron of honour lays birds' eggs in her braid
they'll seal the nuptial kiss with their hatching

the bride's kin descends from the hills making wide gestures
with splintered hands, carrying the scent of humus and wolves

they meet at crossroads and laugh through the ruins of their teeth
as they hand the groom a gun

when he shoots the apple off the bride's head
a seed flies into her eye and grows into a seedling

clumsy virgins flirt with guests' lapels, pin rosemary
for fidelity, flaunt drops of blood from pricked fingers

the bride holds back from pulling a loose thread
off the priest's vestment lest it unstitch him

she back-flips her bouquet towards a young widow
marked with mourning, but the wind blows it back

the groom's hand mounts the bride's over the knife
his thumb crushes a frosted rose beneath the arbour

when midnight snips the marionette strings
the bride and groom collapse, cannot hold each other up

the groom chops the slender apple tree
and carves crutches, etches a heart in her iris

2

an apple tree grows from youth's eye
youth saw through its white bow

an apple thumped youth on the head
youth was never the same again

they cut the apple tree to protect youth
somebody etched a heart on the stump

that's all that remains in youth's eye
and a flicker now and then
...

In this grey town, Popa's
‘white bone among the clouds'
the buildings stand still
like shocked witnesses.
Pigeons coo in the ruins of a high rise.
Amid dandelions and debris
a security guard dozes in the sun
in his hand a cigarette smokes itself . . .
pigeons overhead, ash in his lap.

Refugees sell Lucky Strike
and Marlboro smuggled in from Kosovo
they cane smell a cop a mile off
can disappear in a blink.
They are the invisible people
they are the dirty laundry
in Milosevic's basket piled underground
far from the hole in the wall
where he drops his bundle.

Meanwhile, in full light of public eye
Slobo's making links
crossing bridges he's rebuilt
bragging of progress
to visitors from the East.

Everybody's working on an exit scheme.

In an internet café a guy with dreads
extrapolates the physics of tofu
to a blonde bombshell
who's sipping Nescafé — the latest thing
to hit Belgrade since the air raid.

On a street corner a woman, barefoot
sings old socialist songs —
Druze Tito mi ti se kunemo
da sa tvoga puta ne skrenemo . . .

Nostalgia tugs at the heart of a man passing by

the heart which lies behind ‘I Love USA'
rebellious on his t-shirt
and he drops a Deutschmark
at the altar of her feet. She kisses him
not for the Deutschmark but for paying his respects.
A red smudge brands his forehead
like once a star.
...