№ 1 she sadly, packing winter clothes in the closet trying to remember where has she lost the past year which was the first and last for many things he leaning against the bed writes meaningless pathetic verses which do not even rhyme but actually trying to remember how and where the heck did he lose the past year he comes closer to the window it’s spring time the street is dark and there is no more light, golden and grainy, from the wooden pole that light that smells of fresh warm bread and of winter do you remember that some time ago we planned to travel to paris and we still haven’t gone together you say your tea is getting cold it’s good to write poetry you always have at hand a little piece of paper on which you can put the seeds from the plum dumplings № 28 I know that the poplar beneath your window is shooting young leaves and that the magnolias and tulips across the road are in blossom yet I give your street a wide berth as, gods knows why, I remember the beautiful vow we made long ago: “my body will wait for yours under a rock somewhere”— by what accident through which torn pockets did we ever lose those mornings the grey ones the warm ones mornings of every kind those evenings spent to a glass of wine quiet music and glances exchanged through sunlit eyes those nights in which I was calm, quiet, curled up next to you on the other hand the rumors are true I still manage to bring a smile to a woman’s face every now and then and some of them even venture to my distant suburb for no other reason but to bring me chocolate fruit cake a bottle of wine a new book to have a cup of tea or a different drink ”life goes on” say the wise but I suspect that those pictures which spin around me all night and all day that hole in my guts that void in my heart will not be mended by time or modern medicine I know we have wasted much deliberately or accidentally much that we could have done for each other instead I know, I know under a vernal drizzle I slide down Lorca street (it is quite clear that new shoes are long overdue) I arrive home feed the turtle sit in the armchair taking strict care not to look at the corner of the room where your painting gear used to stand your easel canvasses paints brushes and things on the table next to me are a bottle a glass coffee untouched since this morning and a vase with those weird little yellow flowers I can never remember the name of which (OK, I’m ashamed) I stole for myself last night from the little park across the road I light my cigarette gaze at nothing in particular and let the yellow petals quietly shed on my shoulder № 16 I remember portobello road where I first touched you to draw your attention to a beautiful façade the passers-by were running from the rain the fruit-sellers closing their stalls I remember the church portal where we listened to the warmth of silence I remember watching you sleep with your lips puckered and listening to your deep breathing I remember the sheet over your hips in a tender outline interesting I can’t remember what your eyebrows were like I remember the row of trees which cut through the vineyard the persistent wind and the way we walked slowly with your hand in the pocket of my coat Listen this may sound corny but before I met you there was really something missing I remember your letters blaßblaufrauenschrift which you left on the pillow every morning while I was still asleep I remember how you waited patiently for me to finish looking at three paintings by monet and remember watching you dance to music all alone and our long walks in the streets around the covent garden I remember us in a train tangled together, sleeping as we travelled or our little room for rich tourists above the café de la paix too expensive but that’s what you wanted the square was teeming with people I remember the record that played on and on over and over again (tom waits, closing time, I think) I remember holding your hand when you were afraid I remember the restaurant with the name I’ve forgotten but which I could still find with my eyes closed and our silence stretching for hours to a bottle of wine hell, that was an ugly silence and this is the book I bought that saturday when I waited for you to finish at the hairdresser’s the streets were moist with last night’s rain or the street washers’ efforts it was early morning still a bit nippy and we went to have coffee together but we didn’t have coffee because we had to shout at each other a little first so things felt awkward afterwards I remember you watering the flowers singing to them quietly so they would grow better and how, cheeks flushed, after work, you downed a tumbler of cognac to which I objected hey have some respect that’s good stuff I remember the spring in greece when you sobered me up with olive oil and vinegar disgusting you followed the advice of the women in our neighbourhood that’s how they tortured their husbands then came the summer and the two of us, sunburnt, lay prostrate in our room with a big wet towel across our backs and we whispered: listen the heat is so strong that it buzzes at night we sat on the terrace nuzzling the cold chenin blanc that’s when we discovered it I look at your profile as you take your shoe off to shake out the beach sand and at your foot tiny my god, what a foot that was I remember how you fought with the waiter when he brought me the wrong drink not the one I’d ordered how we made love with the TV on a romantic movie blaring I teach you my tongue by rolling poetry off it I see you sitting on the edge of the bath while I am shaving you are massaging in face cream the hydrating make-up base whatever I see you collecting dry leaves around the garden only the beautiful ones; they still fall out from books long left unopened I remember when you went to another room to make secret phone calls I pretended to read the paper the financial reports god forgive me, I was so… I remember your dog our puppy, rather who came up to the bed every morning and burrowed between us I remember the first time you left I looked out of the window into an empty street into the night there was a poster for a cowboy movie across the road the radiators were cold the boiler in the bathroom hissed and your eyes were there as soon as I closed mine I remember the smell of your clothes forgotten in the cupboard a large cardboard box full of photos god, what did I do with them? which one of my house moves was the end of them? I remember quiet evenings you painting and me writing or reading in the armchair I remember the flowers which kept arriving each morning suffusing the apartment with their oppressive smell perhaps I should have asked who was sending them perhaps I remember the night sounds your breathing and the muffled song of the drunks coming from below I remember how, when you were to go “somewhere”, I hurried you along so you wouldn’t be late pretending to have no clue and how you came back from hospital alone with blue black rings around your eyes something needed saying I know as soon as I was away you packed your suitcases bags toiletry bags some of the things even spilled over into the woven basket for the market I remember your silence in answer to my question I remember my silence in answer to your silence I remember gazing through the window and the sound of your key on the kitchen table and the sound of the apartment door, opening I remember hitting you on the face (all my life, my hand will follow that trajectory) and I remember you crying well before impact
Dušan Gojkov: Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1965. Yugoslav and Serbian radio director, playwright, poet, storyteller, novelist, composer. Writes in Serbo-Croatian, French and English. Founder of the first European electronic magazine for literature and art, the Balkan Literary Herald, in 1999. (Балкански књижевни гласник). As the editor-in-chief of BLH, he signed about fifty issues of the electronic magazine, fifty-two printed books in the “Black Library of BLH” and around seventy electronic books in the White Library of BLH. Secretary General of the Armãn PEN Centre.