Past Poem by Zvonko Maković

I opened the door and, having stopped at the porch,
I noticed how I experience my movements
as something perfectly slippery,
something deprived of decisions, deprived of agreement.
Time was passing outside.
I used to recognize it quite clearly
as little heaps of events,
of something strange to me,
unknown and unreachable.
But also unwanted.
I accepted what was seen only in reflections:
without any demands.
In reflections directed to somebody else who
should be me,
but who can not
and does not want to.
The undefined awareness of my own emptiness
appeared full of self-sufficiency.
That in front, that could clearly be seen
from my porch, was only an unwanted distance,
another pole of one and the same time which
passes stopping now and then.
One quick jerk is enough for
a smooth membrane of the real to crack
and for fear to break out of the fine rifts -
this only real feeling that connects
the seen with the one who is seeing.
But no: efforts are made to keep the peace,
not to disturb such a well
constructed relation full of deep not belonging
to which shiny fragments that pass through my eyes
would be directed.
Someone points with his hand
to someone who is passing.
Someone is stopping wishing to
address somebody and, failing that,
imposes an expression of dumb oddity on his face.
Somebody, who is only jumping in place,
is protected by accidental,
quite accidentally discovers contempt hidden long ago.
Confusion
slowly breaks out of the mute surprise.
That above all.
Then - unexpected joy
that can really be separated from figments.
Then doubt about the correctness of such categorization.
Then again panic fear
that nevertheless nothing is reachable.
Then calming,
then blunt surrender,
then the membrane hardens and things become
distant, distant...
Two zones resembling magnetic fields
without the power of attraction;
two worlds that do not even contradict.
Two accumulations that felt their transience
a long time ago.
Two events (events written with a small letter)
that unconsciously decide for the position past.
"Exactly so: to be on the position past" -
this is not a sentence written again.
This is not a sentence.
This is to be past everything written.
This is also to be unconsciously somebody unknown
to oneself and to the others.
This is a sentence written once upon a time.
This is only a sentence.
And this is, and this would be perhaps,
just what is getting used to distinguishing.
Separated - in the door frame.
Separated - in the street that can be seen from the door.
Concentrated on its little collecting passions
which somebody names things
that flow through time.
With things that could be avoided.
With things that slowly melt,
that without memory creep into words.
Into words full of quiet fears.

Translation: Miljenko Kovaèicek