Translated from the Serbian by Persida Bošković

Your Private Spot

How often do you think of
that most important spot
in your head?
And do you know,
why it’s the most important?

How many are there, those most important,
do you ever count them?
Do you ever compare them,
with each other,
or with something else?

What do you even compare
your life to,
how do you recognize
the spot that shouts out,
joy that shines,
and pain that is
neither the spot nor the road?

And do you know where you are
when you sink into the sleep
of daily life?
In which spot are you the shadow,
and in which the sun?

Which day
is important and yours,
where you are always
and where you are never?

—

The Problem of Spreading
In All Directions

Every day
I authenticate the transcript of the soul.

Non-identical completely,
it smiles at me shamelessly.

Alone and nowhere, I recognize myself
in the middle of a sentence wordless forever.

Slow enough to dream about attainability,
I worry about words which will pronounce me not.

—

Methodology of Illusion

Pieces of temptation
form engravings of experience.

I’m hiding in proportions of the impossible.
With a hundred wounds,
I hide from myself.

I’m building a house from implication,
hammering inevitability into balance,
that I might put into use the irreconcilable.

I’m working on perceiving
the methodology of illusion.

In the shelter of a shadow
hidden is the law of self.
Barely escaping time,
foreign and its own,
existence flickers.

—

 There’s No Safe Place

The mirror is telling me there’s no me,
it also shows me when there’s no me.

And it’s up to me to determine,
how there’s no me.

Submerged in idleness,
I determine how it could be that there’s no me,
when I already am.

—

I’m Wrapping Myself In
Unfounded Optimism

Nestled in the safety of these words,
hopelessly secure and complete,
lounging on both sides of nonexistence,
I lent my own attention
to the encounter that invariably lasts but a short time.

How many faces, how many moments
are melting away within me?

It’s not just the question of grammar,
but also the difference between the silence of a being
and the time of owning illusion.

—

 I’m Verifying Presence:
 Confirming Reliability

Do I have enough solitude
to take a step outside myself?

Where am I even walking,
as I repeat that which has been repeated for all time?