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
natashasardzoska 