Pitao sam sajdžiju

I ASKED THE WATCHMAKER

I

It roosts on the supporting wall,

Looking at me all the time,

And measuring it to me.

It is steadfast and tries to be accurate,

Even if it has stuffed a hundred years already.

It counts all the seconds.

Due to me

It takes the honorary place on the wall,

Only because it has been the father's.

It can be found on the historical pictures, as well,

of Nikola and Miodrag,

They bound it with a little strap,

To keep it from slipping off somewhere,

Not to get lost.

Now it is only mine

And counts only my seconds,

And these belonging to others,

Only furtively.

II

In my head, an infernal machine,

The Jerries planted it to me

When they tore Miodrag to pieces.

In the Nadica's village.

On the same day, his brother

Mirko disappeared from our threshing floor.

Aunt Zorka found her peace long time ago,

The grave alongside her still waits for Mirko,

Like she waited for him,

Till the end.

Till the end of world.

It clicks and forebodes

The explosion of the infernal head.

And when it 'll be,

That question is not for me.

III

Oh, people!

What a nasty machine!

It's needle fell off,

And it is still ticking and ticking.

It's feigning to measure something,

And it is running in a circle,

Like a fool.

It would do better to shut up,

When it is measuring something,

That does not exist.

IV

And when it was young

Because of it, I was late to school,

Of course, no one believed me.

Simply,

It oversleeps

Or dozes off,

Or it is fast,

And you keep running,

And never arriving.

Whichever way you turn it,

This clock went on my nerves.

Grandma did not care about it.

She spoke,

Mine is over.

She was deaf,

Like the grandpa.

She did not hear even when

That much of her life went past.

V

It has got an arrhythmia,

It is not known when did it get it.

The time has eaten it,

It skips

The smallish and large times,

It is all the same to it,

It doesn't choose,

the time to skip, either.

Or which time.

The worm has eaten it's box,

There, what the time does.

You don't know,

You can never be sure,

Which time 'll fall out of it,

And it hangs on the wall,

Only because it reminds me about the time.

VI

We started the war on the day

I went to school.

How did it climb the nightstand,

I didn't dare neither think nor ask.

It ringed crazedly,

Sharply,

Heartlessly,

Several times it brought me to the edge.

I had to,

I repent it now,

But I had to smack it,

To make it shut up.

The consequences are visible on it,

And I feel them.

The weather hurts me.

Left hip mostly,

Both legs,

They are as cold as ice even in midsummer,

Below the knees, I feel nothing,

It wasn't like that before,

And it cuddled itself next to the TV set,

As if that old junk 'll keep it warm.

When I only remember

I wish to smack it again.

Something is not in order with me here,

Instead of that,

I laugh loudly,

so loud that that all the household runs in,

They jam in the door,

Some visibly excited,

Wide eyed, they look at me,

And conclude with regret,

He is okay.

Afterwards, we laugh all of us together,

As if we were mad,

And we are.

And it, the poor thing, keeps ticking.

The sound of it's bell is catching up with me,

Downhill.

VII

As every, even a mediocre poet,

I get up at night,

It is not because of the years, not for that reason,

You got the wrong idea,

Simply, I do my job,

I catch absurdities, that is their and my time.

When in this unbearable heat the midnight strikes,

An unease begins to grab at my throat,

I strain all of myself, I stretch my neck, I lift my ears,

Listening to the pulse of time.

I collect the beads of sweat from my forehead,

All in waiting that they form a river,

That a Poem starts to flow,

But, instead of that,

Without waiting neither for the church bell, nor for my clock,

The owl announces some other time.

VIII

A clock is an obstinate device,

It does not remit to anyone.

If you wait for someone to come,

The clock is not going to shorten the time,

Even if you break it

Or if you devise some other harm to it.

If someone is sick,

It does not care,

Does not even blink,

Not to speak of shortening the time.

And then if we talk about prolonging,

just then, nothing.

The death shall come punctually to a second,

You don't have to wind up the clock,

Or harmonize the time.

Everything shall be on time.

What do you need a clock for, then.

IX

The morning is being waited for, with impatience,

It comes slowly nearer, sneaking through the night

And through the fog in the head

As if it were the only and, God forbid, the last one.

And where do all these mornings hide,

No one to raise this issue seriously.

I must come up with how to get rid of some

                                                             years.

(It is too much for me!

I got burdened,

If i could detach only a pair of them,

The worst ones.)

To this genial idea

I came this morning,

And I laugh at myself.

The most difficult for me are these last ones.

Let me turn the clock backwards!

It is not going to do this by itself,

Not if it's life were at stake.

You have to do it all by force.

I would have to turn the needles

the whole God blessed day,

And both of them, at that,

And the small one is more dangerous,

No one pays any attention to it,

It goes slowly, like a black pussycat,

And when you turn your back, it is at your heels.

And the time bestrode you and rides,

Like it would ride a crowbait

And everyone demands from you

That you feel like Pegasus.

X

I sip a swig,

Shudder,

The first one this morning.

Lord!

Allow me to postpone this consideration

Till next morning:

I have to go, to buy my old lady and me

The bread, milk and and the newspaper.

For something else - no means.

I don't need something else, either.

Our life is enough for me.

Give the death to the devil

He has his ways with it.

XI

I asked the watchmaker

Believe it or not, more than a million times,

And I never got any answer.

So I am asking the Lord now,

How does a clock know exactly.

When a human is to be taken the measure of?

Translated by Slobodan Cekic

Za Meju <3

Ilustration: A Wall, Snezana Stanojevic, 2018