Matija Beckovic
Any city anytime anywhere
Whenever you get there…
Any city anytime anywhere
And there one usually arrives very late
So when you get there so very late
To that unknown city
And that city happens to be Valjevo
A city I had stumbled upon
You will venture along the lonely, only road there is
As there is no other
And that road – your road – as you will see
Never ever existed before
As it was born of your wanderings
On the same day as you …
And that road – your road – you must follow
To meet the woman you must meet
On the road you must stride
That very woman…
Who became your very own life
Was indeed your very own life
Long, long before you had found her
And you always knew
Since time immemorial
That she was there – forever
There for you – forever
Just like this alien city you had just discovered
So when you stumble upon a city
Any city anytime anywhere
Wherever from
From Velje Duboko perhaps, or Kolasin
Or from any other place
Or [even] from nowhere in fact – regardless
So when you leave your home
And head to anywhere, towards any place
Hasten to go – now – waste no precious time
And when you get there
Once you arrive to that city
Anytime anywhere
To Valjevo for example
Whenever you stumble upon that place – remember:
It will be late – very late
Because your journey is arduous and long
But she will surely meander into your life
And stay there – always – forever and beyond
Yes she will
The woman who had set out upon her own trail
Towards you, in search of you
Since who knows when
From who knows where
From a remote and desolate place
From Russian Jerusalem
From Caucasus, from Pjatigorsk
A place she had never seen
And her name…
Was her given name and more
Vera Pavladoljska perhaps
And she looked the way she appeared
Unique – like no one else, ever
On the glorious face of this our Mother Earth !
So when you get there
To that strange place, that remote town, alien city
Anytime, from anywhere…
And such venues are found and stumbled upon
In the dark, very, very late
In a deep nocturno – somewhere
Because such cities are always far, far away, very far
And we trek to find them from afar
From a great distance
Some remote, desolate, far away place
And our journey seems to last forever
As we all ponder one thing only
Our return !
But this road is the road of no return.
And he who dares endeavor
Must depart soon
Very soon, whenever that may be…
And whenever that may be
It will be that time of night or day
When one departs
And bids his hearth farewell
Usually on a Sunday
The blessed day
The day on which you had hit the road yourself
Never to return
And whenever you may journey on a Sunday
You are likely to stumble upon
Another alien town
And whichever town it may be
Or a city perhaps
Valjevo for example
It will become the city in which you had lived
Since ever – forever.
And the very instant you heard her name
Long before you set your eyes upon her
You knew that you were always with her
Since time immemorial
And that you had loved her for centuries
So, when you arrive
When you get to that alien city, your city,
Anytime anywhere
And such cities are stumbled upon
Very late at night
So when you get there
To that fateful elusive city
And if that city happens to be Valjevo
You will march into it
Amid the harmonious echoes
Of the footsteps of the Gemini
Your own footsteps and the footsteps of another
Echoes in sync
Footsteps in harmony
Your own footsteps and the echoes of the one who
Journeys with you
A fellow traveler
The one whose voice you can hear in the wild and the wind
Such a day – most unusual day for that time of year
Will catch you by surprise
And it will dazzle you at once
Make you uncertain, uneasy, unsure
And you will know not what city it is
And you will not recognize
The echoes of your own muffled footsteps and footprints
Vladimir J. Konecni
Port-au-Prince
Deep plunge then long glide
chest almost scraping the bottom.
Emerge without sound.
A lazy backstroke
belly in the air
watching a corpulent
blue-black hotel maid
soft-step in and out
of the Creole mural
encircling the pool.
The saddest of the still
almost human places
on this sad earth
beyond the barbed wire
on top of the wall:
Port-au-Prince.
And in this December 1982
Bébé Doc is ordering torture.
Mon cher Tonton Macoute Numéro Un,
did you give him the works?
Did he spit them out?
Did he cry out in pain? No?
Tonton Macoute No. 2 give No. 1 the works.
(Beckett and Pinter ponder, incognito.)
Afternoon on the empty verandah
of the hotel bar. A stuck-forever tropical fan.
The pool attendant’s thin black face
reflected in the mirror above the bottles,
a pair of eyes as still and watchful
as the unfocused ones of girls and parrots
in the mural by the mirror. Turn and look
beyond the wall at Port-au-Prince.
Not far the gleaming white palace of the Duvaliers.
Not far the ochre army barracks. Nearby
the dark shades of the Tonton Macoutes.
Some twenty kilometers up the coast,
the hard young white naked breasts
of Parisiennes sunning themselves
by the Club Med pool. Turned-on nipples
centimeters away from the lips and eyes
of black paupers scrubbing the tiles,
in rags, on their knees.
Not far, Mr. Brown, the proprietor,
and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the vegetarians,
read and are in Graham Greene’s
The Comedians at hotel “Trianon”.
Nearby, a human beast of burden pulls
an overloaded cart, another pushes.
The weight exceeds theirs by ten to one.
The wheel was invented, but when
it breaks, as it must, dread and resigned
sorrow will deepen their furrows.
Hotel “Trianon” is full of Manhattan men
in their fifties. Years later, one sees these faces,
those still alive, on balconies above Fifth Avenue
where the annual gay parade makes a right tum
at Washington Square. Later one understands
why Haitian boys ring the “Trianon” – so docile
and persistently friendly. Later one realizes
that for two dollars they received and gave AIDS.
Later one observes in Bangkok and Manila
hotelfuls of Japanese Shibumitsu managers,
penises erect at company expense, standing
in room doorways in their faux-silk pyjamas,
waiting for the whores to be brought by bus.
Ah, the Japanese waiting cocksure for an offing.
Thank God that in the “Trianon” in 1982,
in Bangkok and Manila, I was one of the
unwelcome guests. Still alive and healthy.