The Shape

By Dejan Stojanović

Subjects: Poetry in translation, Eastern European poets, Serbian poets, poetry books, The Shape, Serbian poetry, Dejan Stojanovic

Description: Home of the Shape We will go far away To nowhere To conquer To fertilize Until we become tired Then we will stop And there will be our home   Anti-Shape The shape looks for its opposite But the opposite hides The shape feels it But doesn’t see it The opposite is its mother That’s why she hides her face   Almighty Shape One hand I extend into myself The other toward others Both are the extended Hands of the Almighty Shape My secret is simple All secrets are simple   The Shape and a Smile I recreate myself That is my only power In search of a smile— A smile is light I enjoy it when the world smiles The more smiles, the warmer I am I smile Because others are cold too   The Shape and Warmth Insufficient to himself only By himself he warms others up Searching for a smile He avoids the spent shapes   The Shape’s Speech Until the end of his journey Movement will be his story One of the stories is the light Passing from story to story He stops only When he gets tired of them all   Father and Son You ask how it is possible To be your own father and son You should seek answers Although it is better to anticipate some To be the light and dream   The Cloud and the Shape The cloud is the first shape He expands and compresses at the same time He retorts his desire into the multitude Smiling as he swallows himself up   HAPPINESS OF ATOMS   The Shape and Society You are so alone Large shapes endure in the distance The crowd destroys them And this that you call solitude Is in fact a big crowd   The Big and the Small Shape From the same place we come But you don’t remember that Still, you carry a part of my grandeur; Without you, I am nothing   Happiness of Atoms I am a shining shape A big Atom and the small Sun I love movement Uncatchable Sometimes you see me But don’t recognize from the inside I’m neither enigmatic Nor discontented You would say that I am happy   Shape’s Weakness You are made from me I’m saddened by your sadness Powerless to do anything Through your weakness, weaker I become   The Life of the Shape In some shapes I am alive In some—dead I am the shape who creates shapes Creating means living   Glow Sullen You don’t rejoice in my glow If you would just understand my glow You would start glowing too   Deafness I like to talk To your deafness I ask the silence: why? My clarity is obscure I remind you, spoil you In deafness I admonish you, punish you With this weak voice of mine   Imitation You anticipate my unmistakable laws But overlook them Instead of imitating me You simply loiter   Citizens of the City of Light I am the shore and the ocean Awaiting myself on both sides I travel Always arriving in the same place Imaginative I always find the best way Happy while traveling I watch the light Multitudes of homes-citizens Inhabit the city through which I swim   Return from the Dream What kind of a dream was it And what kind of return? The dream was not ugly That’s why I stay mute Words won’t describe what I saw Only through silence can I express it If I would really start talking You would become silent   Mathematics My mathematics is simple One plus one = one Your problem is in that You like to add With me: one minus one = one With you: it’s zero Here lies the only difference   I and I I don’t know if you are me Or I am neither I nor you I lose faith in mathematics Logical and rigid What with those That even zero doesn’t accept Mathematics doesn’t care About those beyond the numbers   Motion Through everything I have passed But nowhere I have been In the biggest and the smallest I sleep But at the same place I stay Wherever I go I run into myself