The Great Gates of War
Rent from DeepDyve- The Great Gates of War
for Davor Sefić
We drove 2,000 miles all across Europein our Golden Boy, Robi’s old Kadett:the three of us,smoking, listening to the radio,long arrows of lightstretched along the wet road. Miles pile behind us
and night emerges; we stop onlyto change at the wheel, continuing on, breathlessly.Drinking, smoking, listening to the radiothat’s how we meet the daylight. The sky expandsand you’re saying,40 years, that’s just about right. I don’t need more,that’s long enough for one life.
Shortly afterward a tank grenade near Dubrovnikwill take you up into the atmosphere; you lived 23 yearswill take you up into the atmosphere; you lived 23 years
Seven years agowe had driven relentlessly all across Europeup to that Chetnik* roadblock at Plitvice.It was Easter
and we passed through the Great Gates of War. [End Page 70]
In your only photograph taken in uniformyou have a curious look, as if you can see what’s coming ahead.On the wall above you a flash of white lightcoming from the Spirit—its everpresence. [End Page 71]
Tomica Bajsić, from Zagreb, Croatia, is the translation editor of Poezija journal and founder of the Druga priča publishing house. He is a veteran of the Croatian Homeland War and secretary of the Croatian pen Centre. His work has been published in numerous anthologies and literary journals. His first collection, Južni križ, was awarded the Ivan Goran Kovačić Award for younger poets, and his collection Zrak ispod mora received the prestigious Dobriša Cesarić Award. His most recent work is the novel Okavango.
Damir Šodan was born in Split, Croatia. He is the author of four volumes of poetry, most recently Drugom stranom (Different Drum). His work has been featured in the American Poetry Review, as well as in anthologies such as New European Poets (Graywolf P) and The World Record (Bloodaxe). He has translated Raymond Carver, Leonard Cohen, Charles Bukowski, Charles Simic, Richard Brautigan, and Denis Johnson into Croatian and works as a translator for the United Nations in The Hague, Netherlands, where he has lived for many years.
Footnotes
* Translator’s note: Historically, Chetniks were Serbian self-styled monarchist elite military units established before World War I. In World War II, they sided with the fascists and fought against Tito’s Partisans. In the early 1990s, they resurfaced as right-wing nationalist paramilitaries responsible for many atrocities committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
