Mother's Passing
I watch as she crosses the river
without touching the water, freed of all
that could be measured by weight, by anything that could
on this cold morning and in the heavy night
burden her arm, her liver, her mere sleep.
She was arranging her shoes, her dress, her wool scarf,
preparing her final departure,
as though to go out for the evening.
She poured myrrh, alone as her farewell
to this side and the other side
awaiting her call in peace.
And all that remains on this bank:
discarded skin, excess baggage,
as in her dissimilitude she arose
like a glint of silver across the holy water,
leaving behind this warrant—that her absence
only be measured by a word.
September. The Aged Scribe Near Tamiš
I shudder when I think I will not see anymore
the red jackets of the picnic-goers
submerged in an October day flourishing in
saffron and gold, as if on the green landscape
of some Cezanne, but I realize it is only
the one step of the journey from the first voice bursting
within me, reverberating through the eardrum of the infinite.
And what if I fail to see the jeep on the bank
which the young Apollo drove through the budding sky,
bearing his love, seared by his own fire
in which I, too, burn, though I am already fading
in this age laden with thievery and lies?
What if I fail to see the tent
unfurled over this corner of the world, over the devil's field,
if I don't glimpse within it the lovers
with their bodies intertwined, united under the sun
and on the grass, in heat, straining to grasp
the ungraspable, to extend what cannot be
extended, to topple the clock from the lighthouse
rising above them to embrace God's joy
and forever to preserve that moment?
What if my image were extinguished this instant,
in that picture cut out from the air,
when my body sprang from its birth pangs,
from its feasts and wars, from women's mouths and women's wounds,
from the blood of sin, from the innumerable dead
rolling off the city's ramparts
overrun by the just-born and the yet-to-be born,
inundated by the sacred water which has blessed
those fallen into disfavor, rising up to their eyes...
So what if I am left without air, here on the bank:
Once I was all these things and am returning again.
Where Are the Addresses, Phone Books, Telephones...
With each new step upwards—I lose
yet another address in the gleaming expanse,
and wherever I step one more familiar phone number
disappears: the thin wires snap,
and the radio waves fade between me
and warm hearth of the world...
Every time I move—in the sky above me
another notebook is lost:
carried off by the wind and rain are dates,
letters scattered across the encroaching void,
like a storm, over the high mountain range
behind which no eye has yet been able to see.
Whenever I step forward—I lose keys
for the familiar doors behind which
mercy awaits, fear lies ready to ambush in darkness...
As if someone wise wishes to relieve me
(in all his gentleness) of all my burdens
and clear my path.
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
October, 2009
Poems
Biljana D. Obradović translates Bratislav Milanović
Bratislav Milanović was born in 1950 in Aleksinac, in present day Serbia. He grew up in a mining colony, Avramica, near Zaječar and Knjaževac where he finished high school. He studied Yugoslavian and World Literature at the Philology Faculty of Belgrade University. He published his first poem in 1968 in the magazine, Student. He is one of the founders of the Philology faculty literary magazine Znak, which occasionally still comes out. From 1974 he publishes reviews and essays about poetry books in the radio show called "Radio Belgrade Third Program Chronicle," "Open Book," on TV Belgrade, and in literary journals such as Književna Reč, and Književne Novine and others. From 1974 to 1978 he was the secretary of the Literary Youth of Serbia. He has been working in Radio Belgrade from 1978 as a journalist, anchor and editor in such programs as Belgrade 202, First and Second programs of Radio Belgrade, which dealt with literature and culture. Now he edits literature at Belgrade One program, of Radio Belgrade and he anchors the cultural show "10:30."
He has been a Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia since 1976. In 1978, for the first time, he was elected as Member of the Board for International Exchange of the same association. From 1980 to l982 he edited the poetry in Književne Novine, the association's literary magazine. In 2000 he became the President of the Board for International Exchange of the same association, and from January 2001 to January 2005 he was the artistic director of the International Meeting of the Association of Writers of Serbia. In March 2005 he was elected Editor in Chief of the Serbian Literary Magazine—Relations, published in foreign languages by the association. He lived in Paris from 1989 to 1992. Now he lives in Belgrade.
He has published the following poetry collections: Jelen u prozoru (1975, Branko award), Klatno (1980, Milan Rakić award), Neman (1987, Djura Jakšić award), Balkanski pevač (1995, Srboljub Mitić award), Vrata u polju (1999, Prosveta award), Silazak, (2004, Rade Drainac award), Male lampe u tamnini (2006, Zmaj award). He has also published a novel, Potok (2001, Nolit, Belgrade). His poetic play Sto na raskršću was performed in 1995 at the memorial park amphitheatre in Kraljevo, as a play Srbija na raskršću, directed by Dejan Mijač. Radio Belgrade in 1998 performed his radio play Vučija večera. He published over two hundred reviews and critiques of books of contemporary Serbian and world poetry in newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs. At the meeting "Zlatno pero" in 2002 in Jagodina, he received the award "Zlatni Orfej" for his contribution to contemporary Serbian literature. His work has been published abroad in Sweden, the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, and the U.S.A. Special selections of his poetry have been published in Poland, Hungary, Romania, the U.S.A. and Italy. His collection, Balkanski pevač has been published bilingually (Serbian and Romanian) in Romania (2001, Marafet).
Biljana D. Obradović, a Serbian-American has lived in Greece, and India besides the U.S.. She has a BA in English Language and Literature from Belgrade University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her first collection of poems, Frozen Embraces, a bilingual edition (Belgrade, Center of Emigrants from Serbia, 1997), won the Rastko Petrović Award for the Best Book of 1998, and is in its second edition in the fall of 2000. Her second collection is entitled Le Riche Monde, a bilingual edition (Belgrade, Raška škola, 1999). Her poems also appear in Three Poets in New Orleans (New Orleans, Xavier Review Press, January 2000). In addition to her own poetry, other works include her Serbian translation of John Grey's American Ghosts: Selected Poems, a bilingual edition (Belgrade, Raška škola, 1999), Serbian translations of Stanley Kunitz, The Long Boat, a bilingual edition (Co-published by Plato, Belgrade, Serbia and Cross-Cultural Communications, Merrick, NY, July 2007), as well as Fives: Fifty Poems by Serbian and American Poets, A Bilingual Anthology, as editor and translator (Co-published by Contact Line, Belgrade, Yugoslavia and Cross-Cultural Communications, Merrick, NY, 2002). Forthcoming books include a new bilingual collection of her own poems, Little Disruptions, and In the Lilly-of-the-Valley Dew, the poetry of Desanka Maksimovi ć translated form English. Her work has appeared in such anthologies as Like Thunder: Poets Respond in Violence in America and Key West: A Collection, as well as Kletva [Curse] and such magazines as Poetry East, Bloomsbury Review, Prairie Schooner, The Plum Review and Književne Novine. She also reviews books for World Literature Today and others. She received the Masaryk Academy of Arts Medal for Artistic Achievements, October 20, 2000, Prague, Czech Republic. She is a Member of the Association of Writers of Serbia and Associate Professor of English at Xavier University of Louisiana, in New Orleans.