Long Serbian Poems

Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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Like the twelfth
juror in the play
I must say I am not
convinced
For I know a recipe
for trouble 
I have seen the
double standards
And I do not approve
this for Kenya
I will never approve
it, and neither
Would you, dear
friend of...

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Overarching Genocide

Noah built the wooden Ark in his homeland instructed by God
to save his wife three sons and their wives from drowning a life 
raft rescue boat of sorts with three decks and only one...

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Letter to My Wife
by Miklos Radnoti
translated by Michael R. Burch

A poem written during the Holocaust in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944

Deep down in the darkness hell awaits--silent, mute.
Silence screams in my...

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The first world war started because of poverty
The first world war started because of greed
The first world war started because of an assassination
The first world war started because of Ideas
The first world war started because...

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The sun shines beneath the blue Serbian Sky's
As the wind gently blows across the land.
Singing Birds flying on the tree tops 
And seashells washes up on the sand

Flowers blooms and fruits on the trees
Mothers nature...

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They say
?There are a million ways?
To say I love you

In this day and age?
I could only find
?In my computer’s brain?
The words 
to say I love you?
In 53 languages 
of the 10,000 languages
?Spoken on this planet

Someday...

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Gavrilo Princip wanted to kill the Arch-duke Franz Ferninand
To integrate Bosnian-born Serbians into the Greater Serbia
So with bombs and pistols supplied by the Serbian military
With another seven conspirators who positioned themselves
Along the route in Sarajevo...

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...Hoender - Afrikaans, Pulë - Albanian, ???? - Arabic, ?????? - Belarusian, ???? - Bulgarian, 
Pollastre - Catalan, ? - Chinese (Simplified), ? - Chinese (Traditional), Piletina - Croatian, 
Kurecí - Czech, Kylling - Danish,...

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The house is boiled cabbage
goose fat, gizzard stew, and beets.
Windows steam and simmer,
you can write your name on the glass
winter or summer.

If you can live among rutabaga
or borscht; if pickled eggs haunt your palate
then this...

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Mark Halliday

Son of a California Englishman
And a small-town Utah Mormon.
In his youth, nothing extraordinary;
Later served in Europe as a missionary.
Pianist, marching flutist, then a Guitarist;
Enlisted to be an Army Intelligence Analyst.
Speaks French; spoke Spanish, Russian,
Serbian,...

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Every New  year dream fresh Dreams
         renew your life, turn your life
         another...Remember keeping Dreaming
   ...

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(Rhyme scheme : abba abba cde cde)

I met a pessimist walker in Optimist Park,
She walked with a walker and a co-walker
Crippled, stressed, depressed, a fatuous talker.
Swaying on either side, not in her mark.
Troubled by winged...

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I am a Hyperborean living in Serbian land.
I am an Atlantean living in Serbian land.

I have fed hundreds of swans flying, I have fed
Hundreds of swans flying. I embrace
The pillars of Hercules, I am an...

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I remember his words, not that long ago
Telling of such times when crimson flowed
My Grandad, my hero, who's memories told
My bedroom window I look, it all unfolds

Neighbours fighting neighbours, why I cry
People talking yesterday now...

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Entrusted by the Gods
with the secrets of heavens,
Nikola Tesla, *

like a new Prometheus, **
 
into the deem-lighten world of
phenomena walked
determined to dissipate ignorance's fog
and
let divinity's knowledge of universal
laws shine bright.

Alas,

Man's haze of confusion and doubt
didn't...

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The semi dessert place of the beaten track,
a little oasis of orchards in the dirt cul de sac.
Where no one can find that man anymore,
stone walls full of herbs in bloom adore.
Walk through overgrown Granadilla,
Canna...

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The Angel

Heart of Peace

In the hills and glens of the Bosnian homelands
Roamed the Serbian chetniks, with swords of the devil
In the name of nationalism
Raping and killing, burning and pillaging
Their aggressions they called it defending

Carkic the...

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I met a pessimist walker in Optimist Park,
She walked with a walker and a co-walker
Swaying on either side, not in her mark.
Crippled, stressed, depressed, a fatuous talker.
Troubled by blood sucking winged insects.
‘mosi-ki-toss’ many, many, ‘mosi-ki-toss’
Shouted...

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Lawn Tennis at Wimbledon 



I watched tennis this afternoon
was a great event held every year,
semi final at Wimbledon, an important game 
in the heat, perspiration fell like tears

Was a Serbian and an Argentinian
both a credit...

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ENGLAND

England is a changing country
Not the place I left  thirty five years ago.
Oh yes, they still have Ann Hathaway’s Cottage,  
And  Buckingham Palace, and even fish-and-chips.
But it’s all dressed up in theme-park...

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The Devil				

Genocide Srebrenica and Žepa

The monkey of chetnik
Blessing guns
Killing nuns
Calls himself a priest
While performing massacres discreet

A Serbian ape
Dressed in holy cloth
No one is fooled
The old man is a sloth
Crimes against humanity

Vojislav Carkic is the devils...

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Kosovo means a ‘field of blackbirds’
From a Serbian place-name
The centre of a medieval Serbian empire
Assembly of Kosovo declared independence
17 February 2008 they win
It doesn't violate the law and not a sin
They are Albanians and Serbs

Sulu...

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My family spoke two languages
I’m not the same
Results came in still thankless
Feels weird to be diagnosed anxious
Results so plain
I’m still hiding under several blankets
I ain’t sleeping
Then several days went
The same waste stays
Can’t clean when I’m...

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A Serbian Poet. 

He was a poet; perhaps he still is, 
scribbling words
on the wall of a cell in Haag. 
A mass of hair, an unfinished 
symphony gloomily greying 
 in artificial light 
and will...

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