Miroslav Kirin

MIROSLAV KIRIN (born 1965) is a writer from Croatia. He has published

two volumes of poetry. He also writes short fiction and the collection

of his short fiction will be published in the spring of 2 000. A current

address is dodo@marvin.cc.fer.hr.

God is thinking about me and eating me.

Tomaz Salamun

WE CRUMBLE EVEN without you,

looking at us, overwhelmed with envy.

You*re not sweating, and your blood isn*t

dripping. You*re as transparent as

our smile, granted from you

to replace hope, so that we could

imagine joy every time we are

trembling from some misfortune. And you

would rather suffer, wouldn*t you? Your

hands are too clean, aren*t they? It

would be very nice to get acquainted with

the mushiness of mud, with the heat of blood pouring

all over the palms, spouting from the hole

in the forehead. Or, suppose, if you

started arguing with my wife? Would

you stand a chance? I know, you*re wordy,

but what*s the use of your words

when anyone uses them in

a different way? Please, do admit, you would

lose the battle with her. She would make no answer,

and you wouldn*t know which of the words you

could use to drive her out of that unbearable silence.

After all, you haven*t managed to drive us out of our pain,

we*re still there, stuck, having trust in you.

As usual, we*re probably wrong. Has it

ever worked? No. Actually, during all this time

you*ve been eating this world, and you*re not

surfeited with it. You*re particularly fond of

the fresh ones, whose eyes never close and who

stick out their tongues toward you, whose noses

are jutted out, up to the sky, where they

tickle your soles. I know, you would like

best to trample down on them, squash them

just like. Well, you*re too lazy for that, too.

You can live with it. And say: I*ve tolerated

iot, suffered pain, here*s the truth I*m going to

bestow upon you. And then you stop speaking,

for silence is a dogma that can be easily

argued about. When, in the course of an argument,

someone*s belly is slashed, they say: "They lost

their mind." And the argument about the role of mind resumes

till a half of its participants are bored to death.

Then they are buried outside the cemetery, just like.

No eulogies.Just the mourning parties dressed

in the habits of opaque silence. With cynical flowers

in the lapels. With elastic plasters on

the mouth and legs. With uneven earth under them.

They stumble all the time and disappear

as in Argentine. Whoever comes back, becomes

awfully cynical because he has eaten all the flowers

from the lapels of his friends. Who are, you se, not

friends any more because they hold their tongues,

although they have disappeared long ago. Pardon me, but

the*re not deadthey are able to talk! Well, they are called upon

to tell the truth. There can*t be any excuse for that,

apart from the excuse you*ve bestowed upon them.

You*re so generous when you grant us with silence.

It*s at your disposal, you say, do whatever you can do.

Anyway, words are not for you, I*m their creator

and the only owner. I*ve been written down in your letters

and I*m everything you yearn for. Your love begins and ends in me. So

does your speech. No one else will ever

be able to say anything because they*re not me.

I am you, a heap of crumbles without my share in it.

I am a lamp swinging inside the ice cube.

I illuminate the love of fish.

Miroslav Kirin