Koper. Capodistria. Borderzone.

Borderzones, border-landscapes, border-cities always impress me. I find there, in the interstice of space, the fullness of the void, of the spatial emptiness, of the indefinite and undefined shadows of non-space, the breathing of Time, the relentless memory of space.

These photographs are taken in a cold winter noon of December 2011: the above one on the outskirts of the Adriatic sea from the train facing the borderland between Trieste and Istria and the below one is when I arrived in Slovenia with the train, which connects Venice, . On the crossroads between Italy, Slovenia, echoing Austria and Croatia, I felt the palpitation of the non-belonging, of being unhomed, homeless, or homed everywhere, belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Blocked in a shifting cement blocks, remembering former Yugoslavian architecture, only me and few passengers waiting for a bus to Ljubljana, I noticed this clocked on a railway where no train comes. My task was to interview Stefano Lusa, the journalist from Radio Capodistria: from this urban palimpsest I moved towards a super modern shopping mall. History of space. Time of change. One can witness here the inter-zone I refer to, the liminal dimension of space and memory, of nostalgia and uncertainty.

In this broken space I was feeling cut off from everybody, everywhere, anything. Wonderful feeling. A burning heart, a burning coldness, a fire in a forest. I recall Plato saying that poets are the scribes of a God who moves them against their own will, against their intentions, just as a magnet is moving iron rings. But the detachment is precious, is vital. The lack of memory, the lack of motion, the lack of emotion, the lack of interest. Time stood still. The clock stood still. The railways sings a melody to the sky. I dwell here too.

This poem I call UNHOMED. I translated it from Macedonian. I hope it is still there, in the frozen portion of time, in the tectonic motion of space, published in my poetry book SKIN.

 

UNHOMED

 

If I have to describe the horizon I will give you a string that is pulling

underground trains with no drivers nor seconds nor directions

If I have to tell you what I learnt from all these wanderings

the chardonney wine smells like a cat piss

 

And I smell  under Bir Hakeim as a silver knife dip in a fermented butter

Like a cat on metal roof

cackling seeds quacking lies secreting traces

pshhhhhttttttttttt

 

Shut up!

 

When you see the dark women reading on minus 20 degrees

In a dirty street waiting for the warm breeze

From the underground train

 

train

across

a bridge

in my chest

 

try to understand that she is pulling with her an entire continent

and the 44 sides of the world will not be enough for you to understand

how I draw and splutter and yowl

a serpent underneath an overheated string of a hungry cat

 

If you ask me what is the sound of the airplanes

Hyenas before copulation

If you ask me what is the taste of the itinerants

Ostriches diping their head down the sand

If you ask me what do the downs look alike melting down with the highways

Love symphonies made of coffee, croissants, oranges and hope

But if your ask what encourages me to leave without knowing where I go

What makes me waiting for the yoga teacher with broken shoes

searching for a smile from the black woman in the metro and being happy

Serene since she wished me a nice journey

waiting on a bar at Monte Carlo a personification of meat and esothery to appear

losing myself fearless in the faces rushing to the unconsciousness

winnowing in snowy valleys while the air hostess is trying to sale an anti-wrinkle cream

searching tiredless for the word the verb the nerve and you

I will tell you then, the home!

The home!

The home that I carry from within

 

And I do not have you

And I do not have it

And I do not have

Myself

Either

Deserted train station. Liminal interzone.

 

Bon voyage!

Yours, Natasha

Lace around your eyes

LACE AROUND YOUR EYES

 

Four men in you I saw

And when you came in I felt you were searching for me

And everybody shut up and the world around fall apart

And all movement turned slow and blind

 

The clock was beating with the sound of a home

Green leafs and red female tongues were burning

Hungry for your thirst you pulled up my head

With a silk string you pulled me proud to you

 

All those women that made you lonely reached me

Grasping my feet

But my hamstrings and cartilage were bursting into pieces

And my ankles were calling you voiceless

 

Do you understand?

 

I do not understand why this night washes me away as wine

From where do you yowling elegantly and softly

You eject a wolf cry weaved with opal

You hit me with your tongue through your open leg

 

I am not afraid that I will not have you

Nor I go away from your exit gate

I have thrown on your eyes a veil weaved with my hair

So you can see me better in the middle of a burning forest

 

A nomad lost in the void of his own sea

I pronounce mutely your name

I call inclement your skin

I caress your slowly in my mouth

 

Beauty deeper than all sensual thoughts art you

Dark knight bewildering white horses

Soft node leather rein translated into rhythm

You are coming from distant cities powerful

 

You are swelling down the boulevards deaf for any other luxurious inquietude

You are expelling sparkles underneath your leather shoes

While you are boiling steaming in the coffee cups of my silver mornings a

A balcony red wine row meat and livid sunset you sip in me

 

birds beak

liquid breath

broken lace

satin hours

whirlwind pine trees

irritated tigers

glowing

in my womb

Tribute to Julio Cortazar.

In Paris I was wandering and roaming around Xeme arr. and I discovered by chance the place where Cortazar dwelled in Paris, so I wrote this poem.

CORTAZAR’S HOUSE

 

Tongues of black wild orchids are thrusting from the subway

When I go out I behold nothing in my hand but I know where I go

Black people with waived hair stop me on their way

The tenth arrondissement is screaming like an express boiling pot cooking meat

The breath is becoming ticker as I walk to you, me, alone, while I step down

the fall of someone’s else bravery, cigarettes tucked in the paving stone, mute souls

before the great morning when you wake up, when you wake me up with your hand in my hair

on the wooden floor you are searching for your socks, knees, grass, rainbows

I am stepping down fragile branches, and I fill glasses until I start scrolling down within

The high heels are grumbling and sticking to the sound of the bandoneon

And all those tongues, serpents, dragons, rhinoceros are blazing on my head while I am coming into you

And frightened I stick tight in my hand the number of your door

Of your hidden household.

 

 

 

Poetry written in the harsh winter of Saraevo city

SARAJEVO

 

Storm of ice and earth crumbs flows into our room

Outside I hear fear, losers, someone else’s silence, an insidious plot

I am Haunted by a troop of wolves at every step I take, frozen stones

But I feel them devoted and faithful I follow and caress them tenderly

Wolf

Because this is what we are

Bodies, excommunicated from the world, like a distant radio frequency that no longer exists

• but still shimmers on the highways –

Chess, wine, schnapps, rug and weaved snowy curves –

 

I give you my body like a pledge

In this city that rage never knew but rage is now

This night

In me

The rage is

 

This bed shifted by the water flowing underneath the bath

They say, yes, the plumber did not come and the tube is plugged

So let all the evil tongues get plugged and all the dirty throats get strangled

In a helm of disparate movements towards me

Red roses, leaves splashed with sperm and Hannah Arend’s book falling down

The white sheet

Falling down on me all that lair

Crawling in the black and white paved hotel

Almost a crime, I commit

Windows breaking through all around my hips

Ready I am ready to become a shooting mark

And a bloody heat

Because I know a woman has disappeared in the night and now the dawn is blurred

And I shall drown in your lies cruel brutal times of hoofs raging underneath my skirt

And I shall say nothing, I cry, I beg for mercy, I prey

To give you mornings filled with bliss

To walk silently down the snow without leaving any trace

Not to hurt your love

Please, give me your endless hours

The night is ours, Sarajevo!

 

 

Poetry. Skin.

SKIN

 

Yellow leaves on your skin

Pulled pores of some impalpable silence

Cracked lips

And fervid valley of thoughts and nipples

Liquid

I say, are you alone

Or time flows away standing still pretty distant from the conventional clock

But I hear on the pale layers drops slipping out

Secretion, tears, wine

Yet, it is not the first time nor is once

But nonce, a perpetual returning back

As you close your eyes facing the choice you do not want to take

As this time comes by, this autumn

On your skin

In an eruption of inconvenient improper indecent spaces