HADRIAN, TO A LIKENESS, HIDDEN

To Thrace I have come,
not on account of Rome.
To Thrace I have come,
not on account of Latin festivals.
To Thrace I have come,
not on account of pompous expanses.
To Thrace I have come
for something quivering, inviting,
that has never existed in the senses and in reason before.
To Thrace I have come
On account of one wild spring.
I thought perhaps the one I seek
is still here,
the one similar to me,
the one I have postponed for too long
as just before death when the rings are removed in a manner
slow and solemn
or when with royal deliberation earthly vestments
are set aside.

And thus searching for another nature
from a form far off, from a form with height, from a form with
warmth
to merge with me,
I have found the wilderness and its heart -
tribes, fire, rites unknown to the eye, ancient sacrifices.

I am Roman. I, too, know sacrifice - visible.
But this other, the one I seek
is waiting for me beyond the spheres, the universe and the gods known to me,
is waiting for this Thracian spring to burn my last carnal desire,
is waiting until the last garment of my old reason is scattered as ashes,
is waiting for me to be pure enough,
to receive an infinite, invisible nature through His eyes
and the cells of a system exhausted in visibility
to pass on to millions of butterflies
and then to flow into a sea younger than time.

CLEOPATRA, THE LAST SPEECH

The islands are pure.
Movements and the grotesque begin further away,
on continents.
What splendour! What masks!
Later on there are pearls.
Here are figs, slave girls, baskets, the seven snakes.
Over there are my mother's deserts.
I have never bowed down before
the shows of form and custom.
No matter how often I am multiplied by empires, snails, chasms
I still remain alone and purple
- an illusion between the sea and the mirror.
Lilies are my content.
This is how far I have come to know the gods.
This is my final mortal domain.
The light is high and austere.
I grow towards silver
barefoot.
I submerge in the dreams of algae.
Is that death travelling across the deep lands?
I just hope it won't pass me by. There are forty veils on me.
Not a single one inside me.
My skin is dark.

IN MY HEART I HAVE THE SPIRIT
OR HOW I DIDN'T BECOME CONCRETE

I remember the day
when I became
SAND

The beginning
was
childish
almost innocent
in a game of
sandcastles
- a shell
had a shadow
larger than a planet.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF NEAR HOPE

Something has happened
in the structure of silver.
While descending from the spirit,
The Universe shifted slightly.
And this morning Hyperborea
oozed from glass into the world.

Really without my beloved homeland
and her Mind of iciness and damp?
Not even madness
has come in with the cold,
not even honour itself has dared,
nor any kind of passion.
I had power there
over my own ending.
Once I get everything in proportion
I need an end.
Perhaps because of coral, deep glass
and crystal.

How dear was to me
that fog,
dearer even than God
- I saw him
in a previous death,
it was snowing,
yes, even through God.
It seems that I am
stranded on him,
on the heartless side of glass,
on him entirely, without end.
If this is so, I can do without Heaven.

How mild Hyperborea was.
This is how I imagined
hope,
very near -
pure,
on a distant snowy Disk.

biografia:

Ivana Milankov, born in1952, in Belgrade, Serbia.
Finished studies of English language and literature at Belgrade University.
Author of seven books of poetry and one book of poetical prose - dreams diary.
Translator of English and American poetry [ E.Dickinson,S.Plath, W.B.Yeats,W.Blake, A.Ginzberg etc].
Took part at creative workshops ata Naropa Institute with A.Ginzberg and Ann Waldman in Bolder,Colorado.
In mid eighties very active in alternative theaters and street performances.

ivanamilankov@ptt.rs