An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Drago Ivanisevic (1907-81)

Drago Ivanišević (1907–81) Ivanišević was born in Trieste and had a life-long interest in Italian literature as well as Croatian: for example, he wrote his dissertation in Italian, at the University of Padua, on Dante in Serbian and Croatian literatures. His poetry is difficult at times to understand, with obscure references and unclear syntax. It is unencumbered by punctuation. Relatively few of his poems have made it into English. The following are taken from Most iv (1987): 46, 48; the translator is Vasa D. Mihailovich. An Anthology of Croatian Literature 178 Paris in the Throat Paris a dark grey room behind the wall a Negro calls his night on the bed you in mourning black staring into the night I kiss your white arms afraid of myself what can I do but keep silent on the ceiling the captured constellations rotate down the street gyrates your arms are turning into an increasingly darker night and you suddenly depart into the night no matter that you are here beside me no matter that your hair is between my hands your coat your shoes and socks I perceive on the chair you depart into the night deserted are the streets empty the trees my darkness and his and I stretched on all doors for you are behind all doors That I Have That I have averted my face from you my dear ones was not my will an invisible hand has played a joke on me and I am no longer looking at you but at some wall grey and high is that wall and on it disappear all pictures which I carried in my eyes in vain I shout my own ear does not hear me and thus loud within myself I will fall silent for you and instead of my heart my watch will tick Drago Ivanišević 179 At Last We Approach the Sea Conciliatory At last we approach the sea conciliatory as something unknown we touch our hand our face our eyes turned toward darkness Everything will remain incomprehensible to us the wind which we traced in the distance all our love and hatred the rocks by the road over which others too will stumble and distant brightness as an echo in the hills above which the ancient stars grow bigger. My Grandfather My grandfather kept company with stars, with the sun and with the moon, my grandfather kept company with a donkey, and with a snake and with a nanny-goat, my grandfather kept company with rain, with every wind, with frosts arid beasts. For my grandfather has from his childhood from his childhood devoted himself to the earth. And when barefoot he fell silent on the grass my grandmother with her eyes of a hawk my grandmother could not recognize at all his feet among the roots of an olive-tree. Thus my grandfather took his place near God. ...