SARAJEVO Poem by Veno Taufer

two thousand years in the library books maps
in flames the wind carries leaves away from memory
blood sticks letters and pages in stiff fingers

pens tremble as the sound of the spheres reaches the listening
who have only commentaries to resist death
the age pursuing the shot to the heart struck by the echo in sarajevo

sinks with one of those ships in that list in the poem
the elements crumble water disperses into noxious vapours
flames petrify to ash and cold

stone rots to dust swallowed by mud in the depths
the disgusting lips of cracks suck the shredded air
where trees grew the wailing is degraded to drooling

the age pursuing the shot to the heart struck by the echo in sarajevo
sinks with one of those ships in that list in the poem
surviving scribes blinded by the seasons' explosion

scrabble for shards of letters and scraps of parchment
to write down in brief what the ancients already
repeated in the terrible mystery of their fragments

the word couples with mortal flesh to survive
the age pursuing the shot to the heart struck by the echo in sarajevo
sinks with one of those ships in that list in the poem


November 1993

Translated by Michael Scammell & author