VALIUM Poem by Uroš Zupan

The world is in slow motion, in tune with the morning steps.
Sluggishly it adheres to my soles. I am sitting in a room,
the sun's rays magnifying its space. I slept through
last night in an avalanche of silence. I'd put my skull at
the bedside, my life out of my mind. Dark
hollow figures came knocking at my door.
The love of self thawed like spring
snow. I wouldn't let them in. I kept my skin on.
Out there New York is growing like a cancer cell.
It writhes like an electric centipede, curving up
its tail as if a frightened scorpion. But I am
tucked up inside myself, safe. No longer fighting
the air somebody had smuggled out of
the haunted house. I am seated in my breath.
Nobody gets killed by the sky. A flower
sprouting in crazed blood kills. A razor blade
kneaded into the daily bread by the hollow
figures kills. God is forever counting out
his rhyme, murmuring in his sleep - first,
second, first, second ... I sit to his right.
I sit to his left. I sit inside his
head. Nothing can reach me. First,
second, first, second ... Hands are aflutter in
mid-air like false angel's wings, yet the body
stays faithful to its shadow. A child has
awoken from a bad dream, walked the distance
to his parents bedroom and got
into their bed. Nothing can reach me.
Hell's visitation is put off. The world
shines like gold shrouded in black.