poetry

Sonja Manojlović: I Remember Everything

Sonja Manojlović was born on March 15, 1948 in Zagreb. She graduated in philosophy and comparative literature from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb. Her poems have been included in anthologies and translated into more than fifteen languages.

A Decision by Watching

Not a woman, not a child, a happy beast
in a shallow wood, I lie in a shop-window
turning the city with my feet
so I went to see
to hear a bullet, a scream of food
as if I would hunt, catch up with, eat
biting by the neck
No
Not today, not tomorrow or ever

I Am Calling

I am calling
with words from my life
Sometimes they say
shut up, mouth
Sometimes
they turn the word
over here and over there,
the beautiful ripe fruit
riddled with senses,
on their fingertips,
indecisive

Adjectives of the Black Queen

I only just live so,
I enumerate, I choose,
through the dead ends of senses there loom the adjectives
Not a name, not a shelter!
Why is the moonlight pouring around the house?
Why do they kiss without lips?
It has been said why a hundred times
over a lyrical
fire
with a scream of a mantra
I fall to you
at your command
- Unusually simply stop,
you!

He Comes Any Time

He comes any time
I wake up and lie down alone
We sit at the table
he has my body for lunch and for dinner
We peep also into family documents
here are the recipes for everything that has ever
been abundantly prepared for his mouth
What do I want from him?
Play, child, you don't care!
To elicit a smile?
Not a single one!
When an empty voice sings
if any word has stayed behind

I Remember Everything

If this is all, I remember everything,
houses scattered into what can not be heard,
children's speech, squeezed, possessed

in the garden, among the strawberries
bites of life,
do you forgive then, in the simplest way

Those narrow eyes!
It is not forgotten!

She will kill everything I love,
read from my mother's hand,
the dryness of the world, words go across the water,
this is such a city, destroyed into objects
One by one
So much remained from home

                                                                Translated by Miljenko Kovačićek 

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