“Zapis” by Adem Garić
Translated by Mario Frömml (02/20/2019)
In the mornings I call my mother.
Or in the afternoons, on my way back from
the mosque; the scent of blossoms rushes
through a crack in my car window.
White tree tops line the streets
like the kind words I often miss.
It dawns Here when
Bosnia prays the zuhr.
A day is at its zenith when Their
maghrib brings it to its close.
Time is Here a gold dust.
Prospectors all over the place pitch
their tents on the slopes of their days.
Gold, burried in the pits of time,
is running out, ever so dwindling.
I notice that the sky is blue,
and green is the grass, the soil
so wet, right after the rain.…
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I thought we wouldn’t get the timing
right when
she stopped eating
I tried chicken
bison dried lamb lung
one day I had nothing
she wanted
she turned away
disappointed
then she stopped drinking
on her last walk
she dragged us through the meadow
to the dog pond and stared at the water
watched the dogs run …
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With the harsh kiss of midnight,
bruises like blooming lilac, the blinding
embrace of jasmine, and the ache of beaten-down
shoulders, I’ve reached into a hunter’s moon
and pulled blood, black as murder, for our Eucharist.
I want to preach the sunless morning,
invoke the holy rite of the tabby cat’s
wandering and the acidic smoke of fireplaces
from a dozen neighborhoods, to ease
the chilled breeze, the salt air, and the sea.
I’ve testified to traffic lights and peeled
layers of moonlight, thin as onion skin,
so cats and mockingbirds, possums and raccoons,
the entire congregation of the nocturnal
can raise up a chorus of blood and smoke
and blossoms from their sewer dens, their treetops,
to your doorstep where we share
the spoils of another day.…
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Don’t expect comfort
from the steady dripping
on porcelain
like someone’s fingers on a drum
in a continent
you must sleep to visit.
It’s not so hard being here
in the land of sleepwalkers
where the stars are cemented in place
until you vanish with them.
That’s not really confusion.
It’s like being in someone else’s dream.
Everything will be
the way you want it
whether you know it or not.
– Stan Sanvel Rubin…
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I dredged the river of my childhood,
cajoled every voice, pressed every drop
of juice out of silence. Confidence
was an orchard in the sun, rays
revealing the shiny plumpness of apples.
Ripe. Ready. Like a ritual, every gesture
was its own reward, like the return
of the father in the sunset,
who was walking home
bringing a round loaf of bread
and a bottle of red wine as if nothing
had happened. As if he didn’t know
how long he’d been gone, his eyes
lit up: he liked what he saw.
– Lucia Cherciu…
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Will you taste as good in death
as you do in life?
You say that’s up to you, isn’t it?
After you’re cremated, you said,
you don’t wish
to be scattered, rather
you want to be spooned into my daily
morning espressos. I agree.
Sugar ruins the bitter
anyway. In Massachusetts
you’re mandated
to be burned in a coffin,
so I’m already imagining pine,
robin songs
trapped, Costco-brand
lacquer, the wood’s cheep
eons commingled with your tattoos
savory memory, the guttural
romance of your unmentionables,
every still-uncooked
bone. This delectable grief
should take years,
you say. Revolting how we’re supposed
to sit out eternity on a shrine,
or bubble wrapped in an attic,
or tossed to the wind
like a common grandmother.
No. Death, you say, must feed, nourish.…
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for Tony H
Your canary no longer sings.
Its empty beak is filled with foam,
wounded by the body’s unfortunate guest,
a softness disease has taught us.
When color of the sky found us silent;
before illness captivated you, reminding
me of when that hard rain came & we
walked around the block, hands clasped,
as the chemo froze every word, and
we talked to simply stay warm.
If Love is a language that doesn’t exist
until conceived by a bounding sound, rising
in your chest, we’ll put you to bed to sleep
& dream behind an ethereal curtain.
Holding beauty is hard, especially when your
hands are hurting from the strain of letting go.
– Kevin LeMaster…
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