Krivo Drvo

The Crooked Tree

I

People do not know what is the crooked tree.

They regret not knowing it, but they are not trying, either.

They do nothing to improve the hopeless

                                                         situation.

Humans, they are.

I usually get up, around five o'clock,

This is no prose I have to skip over a thing or two,

I cannot witter as much as I feel like,

Without hurting anyone.

Let alone kill someone,

I can liquidate that one in question,

But this is not going to be considered a murder.

Simply, you dump him from the FB.

II

Bathroom, a coffee, and then you jazz around

and then when you start,

You do the texts offhand, but beginning with these you are

        obliged to, recensions, periodicals, according to priority.

After that you buzz,  buzz like a real buzzer,

Until you land on her, on the right topic.

If you get this, you are on the Pegasus.

And you ride, bro.

You ride and do not let go,

Until a poem appears to you.

Naked.

III

If it doesn't go, and, thank God,

it happens that it doesn't,

It isn't the only day, is it,

And every day a dream,

And they want a new text every day,

As if I, let me not say something rough,

As if I, well, I am not made of iron, either,

I am not wooden, neither,

I am not made from a crooked tree, neither.

When, if I succeed, and it happens,

I write a good text,

I never release it to public at once,

I do not leave it to the malefic eyes of destiny.

It is like when you are alone with a girl,

You only look at each other.

I enjoy in this, in that text.

I imagine how to release it,

How is this one going to react,

How is that one going to react,

I don't care about this,

Only some opinions interest me,

The rest I can produce myself.

IV

I look whether someone is laughing at me,

I think, kind of, behind my back,

I hate that at most,

When I feel that, i get mad and go at once

                                                to the crooked tree.

I would hang that one,

Yes, yes, why are you wondering,

My friends tell me,

And when they think that way,

you may guess what that others think,

They think that what I want is repulsive,

And his disgusting laughter, like a hyena,

And behind my back, at that,

Right next to my ear, so that I would hear it. of course,

Other reason does not exist, either,

Only to step on my nerve, or

                                        cerebellum,

I don't mind that.

Well, I would let him there on the crooked tree,

to sway over these death announcements,

So that people have at least some benefit from him,

                                                            to divert their attention

To those which climbed down the tree

And to these on this famous crooked tree, who got

                                                                            glued to it.

And it would be,

But the soul won't do it.

If, by any chance, the rage and jealousy get hold of you,

Like me a couple of days ago,

The way is easy.

(The length of the way is directly proportional to the quantity of rage.)

And the tree is here

Only a poem is to be waited for.

V

But it is not it's fault, being crooked,

Well,  I experienced some nice moments there,

I didn't even notice that the dead are there on the it,

                                                                        suspended.

I come here, I stay a little,

I look from which side is a poem going to come.

The passers by, like the passers-by, pass by.

Everyone hurries somewhere,

Nobody is paying attention to me,

I am there in that crowd alone,

I do not see them, and they do not see me,

Only the eyes from the pictures of dead are watching me

                                                                        without blinking,

Their bereaved next of kin or

friends put them up on a crooked tree,

Some have been appended with drawing pins,

some have been attached with cello-tape,

and some have been only stuck onto a tree knot.

Everyone is not equal on the tree, neither.

Do you remember that one, they hanged him on a cross.

VI

Therey are here every day, and me too.

Everyone is doing his job,

They do nothing,

And it is a poem I am waiting for, here by the crooked tree.

And if it does not appear till late, I wait, wait,

And I consider, knocking at it's window,

But I don't want to frighten it,

A poem is like a doe,

It gets frightened right away

And bolts into the thicket.

I do not want to upset it,

I don't want to call it,

It 'll come by itself.

It should.

VII

I feel like roaring sometimes,

But I don't want people around me to wonder and right because of

                                                                                                        me.

A poem, if it is a right one,

It does no harm to wait a bit,

And it is not a fault,

It is not a fault of the tree,

If someone is, God forbid, guilty,

that 'll come to light, sooner or later,

And the tree is there to wait next to it.

VIII

I am waiting for a poem,

And the other ones, I look at them as they hurry somewhere,

They do not wait for anything,

I 'll tell you when the time comes.

I  'll tell you even if they get nailed like the bearded one,

Maybe it is the real speech, that nail.

Maybe it is the first sign, I do not know,

I am waiting,

I am waiting for a poem, and not for the weeping,

The poem I am waiting for,

I am waiting for it to appear.

IX

Peace is demanded from the people.

It bothers me.

Imagine nothing happening,

I won't be peaceful,

I won't, I won't I wont.

I won't,  full stop.

Ho wants to be peaceful,

Let him make himself pacific,

I won't. I won't, I won't.

I ll wait for a poem to appear to me.

The bearded one appeared to some,

And Bloody Mary appeared to some others,

And I am waiting for a poem!

And I do not even think of quieting down,

Until it appears.

X

Him and me, we live in different times,

So, when I waited for the poem to appear to me,

He wasn't cold, and her neither,

And I was freezing here, by the crooked tree.

He would watch all this from above, from the height,

Dead cool.

But he doesn't care neither for it nor for me,

He has been prescribed, from the theology doctors,

From Arius to this day, such and such

                                                        behavior.

And he complies with that,

Or these cruel episcopes,

led by the emperor would have found another God.

And they would leave me stranded,

To wait without a poem,

To imagine the poem and me flying,

And it is known even without him,

That a human and  a poem can fly,

If they are in  love,

If they are silly,

Ar if they are powdered,

But no one is crazy to fly alone.

Without a poem a human is like a bird without wings.

XI

He left the little one to play in the sand,

He has to make the humans,

Not children, humans from mud.

He got carried away playing in the sand.

Making humans,

In his enthusiasm he made a couple of wrong

                                                                   strokes,

He was not really careful,

He is small, powerless,

The humans have broken away from him,

The multiplication started at an unbelievable

                                                                        speed.

For that failure he has not been punished by the God the Father,

And he was not caned by the teacher,

And hi did not kneel in the corner on the honey-yellow,

                                                                          Aztec corn.

Even the fools can make children,

And only the right men can make a human.

XII

He didn't care for my poem,

Has forgotten it, completely.

And I have been waiting for it,

That it appears, only!

While he has been clowning

When he became the God,

He, even, began showing off

And to play the games regularily, the episcopes

                                                             prescribed,

To him, and to themselves,

From one council to another,

Sometimes together with the emperor, and mostly alone.

Suddenly, it occured to Him,

He guessed that it is profitable,

That he episcopes and the emperor misuse Him,

Yes, everyone was doing his job.

The bearded one remonstrated,

They crucified him and put him up the tree,

Afterwards they declared him God unanimously,

And I stayed alone next to the crooked tree,

To wait for the poem of my own.

I don't have all the cups in my cupboard,

Just imagine how many He missed,

Greater the person, more cups are missing,

But I do not need His empire,

I only want a poem to appear to me!

XIII

One cannot disbelieve,

You  look at him as he believes,

I was naive i believed him everything,

Until my soul appeared like a poem,

He disappeared, climbed through a waterspout

It flashed and thundered so powerfully and convincingly

I remember that,

The flowers in the garden and on the balcony was completely destroyed.

Episcopes killed him and spun a story,

In the great book, he went in order to come.

Isn't that the same as

skimble-scamble and then ramble,

I do not worry for him anymore,

He manages, even dead.

XIV

I am worrying about my poem,

I worry that someone from the city's park administration does not

                                                                                            come to the idea,

That the tree is old, that it should be felled,

Or that it has been planted in a wrong place,

Or that it is too crooked,

Or that the tree has been framed.

When I think of a poem, and it is not there,

Bad dreams approach me in great waves ,

I dream about the crooked tree.

I imagine they carry it off  in parts,

As it still bleeds,

The column stretches long

Following the truck with the tree,

My poem, all in black.

I am not  important,

And the public should know,

To the years, the life should be added,

They are nothing without life,

And the life is nothing without a poem.

XV

From a poem, one's brain spins,

And nothing hurts him.

He goes like that, with a forest-head, in his thoughts, hears nothing,

He doesn't notice, isn't tired either, ears straight,

Like a dog when he is asking, expecting a sweet,

To him, everything is nice, and only thing pressing down on him,

Is that with the poem.

But it pleases him,

That is why he begins invoking the bearded one,

He starts shouting, roaring and lamenting,

Accusing, scolding,

To extend his poem.

Not the life, the poem.

XVI

The rain begins to fall more intensely,

It is getting through the thick branches and even thicker leaves of the

                                                                                                    crooked tree,

I am looking through the window into the distance,

I wait for a poem to appear,

It usually comes with the spring,

Donning the dresses in cheerful colors,

It is  not stuffy like an Englishwoman,

It is not freckled,

It is not haughty,

It is not.

XVII

On the crooked tree, over the death announcements,the students are applying a

                                                                                                                        poster .

They rebel against the state, it wants to take the poem away

                                                                                                from them.

They borrowed the worn out slogans from the bearded one,

Even if they know that neither him nor Darwin were

                                                                            right,

When they claimed that it's easy to make humans,

Children maybe, although, even that point is questionable,

Still, they have chosen him.

The students, they are.

They counted on the millennial experience of the cunning

                                                                                    episcopes,

How would the episcopes hold their own, if they have not been like that,

                                                                                            by some chance.

He is going to bring them into the next millennium,

And their only obligation should be,

To plant a tree,

And to wait for their poem.

XVIII

The times have changed,

Only here and there is to be heard, very quietly,

Priests, thieves!

He does not appear, either.

He appears from a burial to a burial,

The people cross themselves, what is he doing here,

Some ask themselves, is that really Him,

That  crucified one,,

Who disappeared,

All of them disappear when the things go rough.

And here He is!

Looks like the God the Father,

Bit it is not HIm,

He is, without doubt.

XIX

Now it is time to divide the guilt,

And it is not a small one,

I am going to take my part at once,

I 'll  wait for my poem.

Is it too little?

Not the crying,

No, no, no,

Noooooooooooo!

Only the first cry is a poem,

Everything else is only crying,

And that is another poem.

XX

They brought in two trucks,

They loaded the branches in to the smaller one,

On which the starlings, crows, sparrows, doves and

some other bird or two, as well, squatted all day long,

waiting for a student to drop

this last and sweetest crumb of a meat pie,

Or, with a girl student, to suddenly start

                                                             kissing.

Just like,

No one sees them.

Like the world does not exist,

And the world like the world, evermore, it is turned to the

                                                                                     stars.

In the bigger brute of a truck, the trunk has been put away.

Who would have said, that some time would bring it's end, as well,

And so to say, until yesterday, the coach drivers

Have tied their horses to it.

Once upon the time, much, much earlier,

A round dance winded under it,

People sat in the shadow,

No one found anything wrong with it,

Neither for being slightly crooked,

Nor for not being an oak,

Everyone waited for someone here,

Everyone kissed here, really everyone,

Even these who went to America and England,

And we who stayed here,

Here Ia am still waiting for a poem to appear to me,

And I am raging because these trucks keep coming to my

                                                                                        head.

As if they couldn't drive away something else ,

And not our tree exactly,

And I got up this night,

I was ready, tense,

All strings taut,

To open the door widely,

When the poem comes,

But the damned trucks came.

XXI

Many in the today's world  are dealing with an old

                                                    mathematical problem.

Many are trying in vain, to discover,

How did it happen to them,

How did they get in love,

(I didn't tell them it is impossible!)

They act like a child,

When you give a watch to him,

he presses the watch on the ear,

Then he tries opening it.

To spill out the little springs, screws, levers,

                                                                the magnet.

I don't, I have got my magnet.

Simply, I do not tinker,

In order not to break it.

I lean on the FB-wall ,

I watch the crooked tree and

I wait, for a poem to appear.

I enjoy,

I praise the Lord,

let the scene last longer.

XXII

My dear,

Just before the end of this year,

I fell ill, badly,

From love.

Yes, yes,

I know, no cure for me.

One doesn't know which calamity is worse,

This one or the poetry!

Do not worry about me

I ll love you till  the end,

And afterwards we shall see,

What should we do.

Translated by Slobodan Cekic
    ♥ Za  Meju