detail from: KRK Art dizajn

PICTURE

I went to a contemporary art exhibition

Stood in front of one picture

Which was anempty frame in fact, in an empty Hall

Watching it for a long time

I cannot tell why

There was something to it.

Then, on the other side, I noticed

A stream of people entering, in striped suits

With pocket watches that played schlagers

Womenwearing extravagant jewelry

With ginger meringue-like hairstyles

Big green hats

On which young pheasants mated

And small red monkeys on a leash.

It was astrange, miraculous picture.

Then I heardsome comments

Coming from that vivid crowd:

Look at the ingenuity of that simplicity

That irresistibly wonderful ordinariness and unpretentiousness

That unique picture which kills by showing life in the void

That bizarre, plain title that makesevery spectator sad:

SLAVKO

What a unique experience, my dear, this picture is priceless

Said a lady with stuffed baboon scrotum on her ears,

Armadillo arm shell on her shoulders and dried fingers

Of a cotton picker

Around her neck

Oh, how God gave to some

such an easy simplicity of life!

ATTIC

In the attic of my purple house

there are no cats, kittens, mice, rats

or house snakes.

Only someone breathing, surdly grunting

like a moribund leper

Invisible, hidden from oneself

Red sour cherries disappear every day

from the branches

that outgrow the roof

Some fall, roll over the road dust

Children play marbles with them

until the rain washes them up

Then they eat them up like birds of prey

red juice dripping down their lips, like blood down their white shirts

While somebody is surdly grunting in the attic, there’s noone and nothing in it

except for breathing that sometimesshuts up as if immersedin thoughts

And this is when the whole life stops for a moment

Only the sour cherry keepstrembling ...

THE MIRROR

I know you are here

on the other side of the mirror

I can smell your lipstick and cigarette smoke

When I broke that wine color with my fist

my fingers rolled away from it

I saw your hand collecting them gently

wrapping them in a napkin

You release a bird from the dark

it sings like a snake

Silently, with no sound, floating

drops of blood dripping like stigmata

down the mirror that resembles an icon

blood streaming down

The mirrorfades away

like a curtain in the leprosy theatre

Sad, mutilated lovers

bowing on the stage

Ilustrations: Ilij@Saula.art

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