Vasko Popa Poems
A collection of select Vasko Popa famous poems that were written by Vasko Popa or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Vasko Popa
Once upon a time there was a number
Pure and round like the sun
But alone very much alone
It began to reckon with itself
It divided multiplied itself
It subtracted added itself
And remained always alone
It stopped reckoning with itself
And shut itself up in its round
And sunny purity
Outside were left the fiery
Traces of its reckoning
They began to chase each other through the dark
To divide...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
to Karl Max Ostojic
Why do you stare at the little box
That in her emptiness
Holds the whole world
If the little box holds
The world in her emptiness
Then the antiworld
Holds the little box in its antihand
Who'll bite off the antiworld's antihand
And on that hand
Five hundred antifingers
Do you believe
You'll bite it off...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Each strips his own skin
Each bares his own constellation
Which has never seen the night
Each fills his skin with rocks
And plays with it
Lit by his own stars
Who doesn't stop till dawn
Who doesn't bat an eyelid or fall
Earns his own skin
(This game is rarely played)...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Toothed eyes fly
Over still waters
Around us purple lips
Flutter from branches
Screams hit the blue
And fall onto pillows
Our homes hide
Behind narrow backs
Hands clutch at
Flimsy clouds
Our veins roll turbid
Bed and tables
Of shattered bones
Noon has fallen into our hands
And turned all gloomy
An open grave on the face of the earth
On your face on my face
Trans. by Anne Pennington...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Once upon a time there was a mistake
So silly so small
That no one would even have noticed it
It couldn't bear
To see itself to hear of itself
It invented all manner of things
Just to prove
that it didn't really exist
It invented space
To put its proofs in
And time to keep its proofs
And the world to see its proofs
All it invented
Was not so...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Unquiet you walk
Along the rims of my eyes
On the invisible grating
Before your lips
My naked words shiver
We steal moments
From the unheeding iron saws
Your hands sadly
Flow into mine
The air is impassable...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
The little box which contains the world
Fell in love with herself
And conceived
Still another little box
The little box of the little box
Also fell in love with herself
And conceived
Still another little box
And so it went on forever
The world from the little box
Ought to be inside
The last offspring of the little box
But not one of the little boxes
Inside the little box in...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
I've wiped your face off my face
Ripped your shadow off my shadow
Leveled the hills in you
Turned your plains into hills
Set your seasons quarreling
Turned all the ends of the world from you
Wrapped the path of my life around you
My impenetrable my impossible path
Just try to meet me now...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Enough chattering violets enough sweet trash
I won't hear anything know anything
Enough enough of all
I'll say the last enough
Fill my mouth with earth
Grit my teeth
To break off you skull guzzler
To break off once for all
I'll just be what I am
Without root without branch without crown
I'll lean on myself
On my own bumps and bruises
I'll be the hawthorn stake through you
That's all...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Not even in a dream
Should you have anything to do
With the little box
If you saw her full of stars once
You'd wake up
Without heart or soul in your chest
If you slid your tongue
Into her keyhole once
You'd wake up with a hole in your forehead
If you ground her to bits once
Between your teeth
You'd get up with a square head
If you ever...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Someone embraces me
Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf
Someone takes off his hat
So I can see him better
Everyone asks me
Do you know how I'm related to you
Unknown old men and women
Appropriate the names
Of young men and women from my memory
I ask one of them
Tell me for God's sake
Is George the Wolf still living
That's me he answers
With...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Green gloves rustle
On the avenue's branches
The evening carries us under its arm
By a path which leaves no trace
The rain falls on its knees
Before the fugitive windows
The yards come out of their gates
And stand looking after us...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
The little box gets her first teeth
And her little length
Little width little emptiness
And all the rest she has
The little box continues growing
The cupboard that she was inside
Is now inside her
And she grows bigger bigger bigger
Now the room is inside her
And the house and the city and the earth
And the...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
We raise our arms
The street climbs into the sky
We lower our eyes
The roofs go down into the earth
From every pain
We do not mention
Grows a chestnut tree
That stays mysterious behind us
From every hope
We cherish
Sprouts a star
That moves unreachable before us
Can you hear a bullet
Flying about our heads
Can you hear a bullet
Waiting to ambush our kiss...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Some bite from the others
A leg an arm or whatever
Take it between their teeth
Run out as fast as they can
Cover it up with earth
The others scatter everywhere
Sniff look sniff look
Dig up the whole earth
If they are lucky and find an arm
Or leg or whatever
It's their turn to bite
The...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
From the wrinkle between my brows
You watch till day breaks
On my face
The waxen night
Is beginning to singe
The fingers of dawn
Black bricks
Have already tiled
The whole dome of the sky...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
We'll return the little box
Into the arms
Of her inconspicuously honest properties
We won't do anything
Against her will
We'll simply take her apart
We'll crucify her
On her own cross
Piece her bloated emptiness
And let ooze
All the blue cosmic blood she gathered
We'll sweet her clean of stars
And anti-stars
And everything else that rots inside her
We won't make her suffer
We'll simply put her together again
We'll give back...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Don't open the little box
Heaven's hat will fall out of her
Don't close her for any reason
She'll bite the trouser-leg of eternity
Don't drop her on the earth
The sun's eggs will break inside her
Don't throw her in the air
Earth's bones will break inside her
Don't hold her in your hands
The dough of the...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Someone hides from someone else
Hides under his tongue
The other looks for him under the earth
He hides on his forehead
The other looks for him in the sky
He hides inside his forgetfulness
The other looks for him in the grass
Looks for him looks
There's no place he doesn't look
And looking he loses himself...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Sing little box
Don't let sleep overtake you
The world's awake within you
In your four-sided emptiness
We turn distance into nearness
Forgetfulness into memory
Don't let your nails come loose
For the very first time
We watch sights beyond this world
Through your keyhole
Turn your key in our mouths
Swallow words and numbers
Out of your song
Don't let your lid fly open
Your bottom drop
Sing little box...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Look here's that uninvited
Alien presence look it's here
A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup
Rust taking hold
On the edges of our laughter
A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror
Will I be able to hide you
From your face in mine
Look it's the third shadow
On our imagined walk
Unexpected abyss
Between our words
Hoofs clattering
Below the vaults of our palates
Will I...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Shut one eye then the other
Peek into every corner of yourself
See that there are no nails no thieves
See that there are no cuckoo's eggs
Shut then the other eye
Squat and jump
Jump high high high
On top of yourself
Fall then with all your weight
Fall for days on end deep deep deep
To the...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
The nights are running out of darkness
Steel branches grasp
The arms of passers-by
Only anonymour chimneys
Are free to walk the streets
Which slice across our sleeplessness
In the gutters our stars decay...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Nobody rests
This one constantly shifts his eyes
Hangs them on his head
And whether he wants it or not starts walking
backwards
He puts them on the soles of his feet
And whether he wants it or not returns walking
on his head
This one turns into an ear
He hears all that won't let itself...Read more of this...
by
Vasko Popa
Until her last breath she enlarges
Her Oxford house
Built in Slavonic
Vowels and consonants
She polishes the corner-stones
Until their Anglo-Saxon shine
Begins to sing
Her death is like a short breath-stop
Under the distant limetrees of her friends...Read more of this...