FILTER JUGOSLAVIJA Poem by Predrag Lucić

On the red box of Filter Jugoslavija
Produced by the Prilep Tobacco Factory
The new letters of Oriental
Shine where Yugoslavia
Once used to be

And how can you now explain to brothers
Who hone hawthorn stakes
Driving them into her dead soil
All the way from Potkoren to Gevgelia

That you can no longer approach a kiosk
And ask for Yugoslavia and matches
And that nowhere
I mean nowhere
Can you crack
That ancient joke

So may they leave her ashes alone
Because Yugoslavia
Can no longer go
Anywhere
Can go nowhere
Not even up in smoke