In a ritual as the bard spoke
The mirror of the sea in the eye of basalt
Luxurious beauty amongst the clouds
Takes off her clothes lit by the Sun
Gives back the cut with the eyes as sharp as obsidian
In the middle of the sea raised calmed
After all coastal sowings
After the harvests of love
After all challenges and enlightenments
The measure of the sea and the legends.

The Question of Guilt

The time came for ancient books to be paged with bloody stories
about the Achaeans who devastated Troy and smashed all the Tro-
jans
and were celebrated after that. But nobody talks about Troy any more.

Many Greek heroes were buried by ritual.
But what shall we do with the smashed Trojans?
What shall we do to make their souls rest in peace?
How shall we save our generations from the curse?

That was the question of a Greek hero while
washing his arms in blood to elbows
As if he boded and knew in advance
What was their doom on the open sea and back at home.

Nobody answered to this burial question
Being bewitched in plunder
No one but Casandra, nobody boded, nobody knew
That with this murderous sin his own punishment evoked.

Even today thirty centuries after
New murderers believe they credit have
And easily take off the chains of guilt –
By memoirs, statements, all these chatters of fall!

As if the thousands of those yesterday smashed
Are the same miserable shadows into oblivion pushed.

How Achilles Falls in Love
With Beautiful Penthesilea

Crossed swords rattling
And the battle took as a much time
As the invincible Achilles can see
How to apply all the skills
Just to be adored by the Greeks
To win one more time!

Omnipotence of an invulnerable warrior
Decides the victory over the virgin.
But at first, her warrior’s armour
All that haze and the skill
Makes Achilles a fool around
Who can’t see to whom death will bring.

When he fiercely assaults with sword
And all of a sudden the beauty slips in her hips,
So brim of her shield lower slips
And her uncovered neck became the target
For Achilles’ sword which cut down
This virginal life to the end!

Barely at that moment so amazed
With her brilliant face Achilles saw what he had done
And all of a sudden he is in love with her whom he killed
Now in front of his feet in death-rattle she falls down.
And Thersites watches Achilles from aside,
Curves his lips and to Achilles mocks.

Hector’s Dream

If there wasn’t such a bitter impelled fight
I’d walk jumping along floral Hisarlik
Instead with sword and bronze shield;
I’d walk the grass in a sandal light
Holding my little daughter by the hand,
Not to explain her the glory of the war,
Dazzling foam of prey, glance of plume helmet,
But to watch all colours of flower-bouquets instead,
Swallows and other birds to watch,
To open her through the green horizon
Wide enchantments by all the beauties of the world!

Mermaids’ Lure

Heroes’ thoughts breaking
By the strings of their voices
Everybody’s drunk, bewitched at once
Cut into the pieces by the sharp rocks.
Their throats spread trotting in heroes’ heads
They bubbled foam under the tongue
Their alluring song trembling voices made.

With screaming call-wave
They slink under the skin at once
With their whisper bones’ marrows boiled,
Their song dissolved the muscle tendons
Energy spent in never ending ecstasy
They stirred again unreachable foam
Lusts in whirlpool caught by a dream.

Translated by Ivana Milankov & M. Magarasevic