People/Ljudi Poem by Miroslava Odalovic

There are people and out of these people
The people that are like shadows
They shake hands with their own masks
Somewhere below the twilight of the facial lines
There are people coming and people who left the stage a long time ago
For another picture to put them into a frame
And for another drama to call them into Act

There are people and among these people
People striped and in a floral design
And dotted people and people completely ragged
Who carry their rags and patches so simply
The way the great among people carry their words
From morning to nightfall they carry relentlessly

There are also those who have escaped from such endlessness
With a deep feeling of triumph in their heart
They direct their proverbs toward the sky
Like little arrows against the 10 points in the game of darts
And out of that sky – from out there
Only the rains fall the suns burn it gets cloudy and nothing more

There are people who can only ride their bicycles at twilight
Ride them until they cannot
They circle circle the circles of the twilight
With splintered feet for at daytime they walked
They went ahead ahead like hands of the clock
That never completely clasp the morning

There are people who are so tiny
And still they are people
So tiny that they know nothing
About either the bicycles twilights or the wheels
Not even about the fact that they are people

There are people who wonder about the meaning-
If they are people at all
They slip over the angry gods
Who always so strangely lie across the earth
Who are so strangely eternal-like the earth

And there are people who do not want to know anything anymore
About either people or gods
Those who consent to humanity only if life’s a dream
Even if dreamt at the top of the mean’s bed

There are people who say that people are nothing
Nothing but the deception of existence or an incidence
Or nothing but a hint of some future human
Motionless construction goal of the growth
Into the endless?
There are people who never wanted to be people
Who never wanted to be painted
Written down or let alone live
And there are people who are not that
Even if they wanted to be people

There are people and out of these people
People who vanish
And there are people and among these people
people who through a momentous layer
get lost in other people’s eyes
Like all the people of the past and all the people of the future
Whom in fact there are none
As if they’d never been on earth
As if they’d never be

Postoje ljudi i od ljudi ljudi što su k’o sjene
Što se sa maskama sopstvenim rukuju
Negdje u primraku lika
Ljudi što tek pristižu i oni što odavno otišli su sa scene
Da ih u ram stvai neka druga slika
I činom pozove neka druga dram

Postoje ljudi i među njima ljudi prugasti
I oni na cvjetiće i oni na tufne i oni sasvim u dronjcima
Što svoje krpe i zakrpe sasvim jednostavno
K’o veliki među ljudima kad svoje riječi nose
Sve do jutra sve do noći i tako u nedogled-nose

Postoj i ljudi što savim su od takvog nedogleda utekli
S dubokim osjećanjem pobjede u srcu
Oni usmjeravaju poslovice ka nebu
K’o strelice spram desetke u igri pikada
A s tog neba-a odande – samo padaju kiše
I prže sunca i oblači se i ništa više

Postoje ljudi što umiju samo
U sumak da neumorno voze bicikla
U krug u krug u sve krugove sumraka
Sa žuljevitim stopalima jer danju su hodali
Sve unaprijed naprijed
K’o kazaljke na satu što nikad do kraja ne sklope jutro

Postoje ljudi sasvim majušni a ipak su ljudi
Što ništa ne znaju o sumracima biciklima i točkovima
Čak ni to da su uopšte ljudi

Postoje ljudi što se pitaju za smisao-
Jesu li ljudi
Pa se o bogove srdite sapletu
Što uvijek tako čudno leže po zemlji
Što uvijek tako čudno ko zemlja vječni su

I ljudi što o bogovima i ljudima više ništa ne žele da znaju
I oni što na čovjeka pristaju tek ako život je san
Pa makar i na opreznom uzglavlju tvrdice

Postoje ljudi što kažu da ljudi su
Tek obmana bivstva himera slučaj
Il’ nagovještaj nekog budućeg čovjeka
Nepokretno složenog cilja rasta
U beskraj?

Postoje ljudi koji to nikada da bdu ni htjeli nisu
Što nisu htjeli n da ih oslikaju
Ni da se zapišu a kamoli da žive
A postoj i oni koji to nisu
Čak ni kada to žele da budu

Postoje ljudi i od ljudi ljudi što nestaju
I postoje ljudi među ljudima od kojih
Drugi ljudi mrnom trena u oku se gube
Kao svi ljudi prošli i svi ljudi budući
Što ih u stvari nema
Što k’o da na zemlji ni bilo ih nije
I k’o da ih nikada ni biti neće