The Escaped Mystery: The Poetry of Momcilo Nastasijevic

Words in Stone

Poems in Translation 131 WORDS IN STONE2 (from the cycle Reči u kamenu) I And there shall be, Upon the water a miracle, A fattened hunger, With infinity the heavens, The heavens? Clamp a heavy lid on the boiling. And so it is, A horde of kettles in a kettle, Did the devil put them on for God’s sake, Or God for the devil’s? II To the living the living a blood-stained debt, Brother eats brother, Friend, friend. Eats, and the eaten A monstrous belly digests The evil into worse blood. III ‘Tis the horde when fly to spider, Satiety’s is To hunger after hunger. And lust’s To sicken after desecration. For, not digesting The last drop of purity, Helpless, it crawls, sprawls Down these hills, 2 First published in the Scottish Slavonic Review, no. 8 (Spring 1987): 42–55. 132 The Escaped Mystery Down bellies, Into warm dawnings. IV Solidly Between lives a wall. Stonily For each loaf Calloused upon the palm A corn. And a lock, And beyond the lock, The key of keys in the door of doors. To treason this The more silently insinuates. V Bedeck, you who come, Blooden your fist, To these locks each a blood-red rose. Of inhospitality With blood let seal the rust The tired God. For fatigue the broad sky, Gentle distance for dying, Warm earth the mother. VI And they say, For two drops Of fragrant oil upon the body A cartload of roses is plucked. Poems in Translation 133 And that In the noble larva Perishes a butterfly, A couch to darkness, Their flesh. But it fires not into love, This lie. VII Flesh for silk. Fornication to fornication A silken thread this to infinity, Decay to decay On the unwitherable blade. And thrusting, Behold, truth shall be, And fruit begot. For even in the cellar’s mould The pale mushroom, The child, smiles. So rejoice Isaiah, When with gall the unwanted child Pierces the parent. VIII Of two A crossing before sun-up. Ghostly Of night in the night that foot-beat. To sleep through, Pull through to God’s day. 134 The Escaped Mystery For the night traveller’s thirst Is to quaff his own image. The day-lot of the day-man His neck in the yoke. Staggers The night-foot its home way. Gentle the old callous Thrusts to its load. Down windows slides the day. IX Their step Ever in the hunt. The hand sets the trap, The foot in the trap. They hunt, But are caught. At evening, oh sadness, Who prey to whom? X A cross at the crossroads, Here is learning. You did not crucify the son, He crucified himself. Not the mother’s bosom, Nor loins. When in the sacrum of her Birth to you and suckling, Poems in Translation 135 Oh, surely for future crucifixions There shall be an innocent. You did not crucify the son, He crucified himself. XI The lamps lit low, Night falls. Unrest That starry peace To their repose. Since they sprinkle not The ceiling, Secret against the walls Recoil the whispers of God. It fills the rooms, The little rooms, From out boxes glimmers Their day. XII Low and lower, Down the depths of God, Where the nether side turns up its face. The blue-blooded old man Orders an old Wine and a girl. Oh, thrice Would the dry branch leaf, Thrice would Around the rotten stump Entwine summers as many As of her and the wine. 136 The Escaped Mystery And only and only A wrinkled hand on a nipple. Sister, may no newborn Coo upon it. XIII Under fornication’s window, Just there, A little of the garden is raked up. To odor fragrance, To fragrance odor. And if, oh plant, they sense The breath of putrefaction, ’tis from you, On stalk and leaf. XIV And so and so, And ever so. Upon the boundaries of pestilence She shall be immaculate When she stands. Of corruption the drop Has chastely separated And fallen. With the moon Only then, softly, Emerges the melancholy fool. And so and so, And ever so. ...