Struga Poetry Festival 1979
Look! how the bright green water spills
like dye from the spring to stain the darker
blue of Ohrid Lake Muscular eels
weave in & out and the trout flicker
The magic Macedonian trout are under siege
their eggs devoured by California trout
larger but less tasty One thinks
Capitalist swine! General Motors! CIA!
But no: California trout
were dumped in the lake by the Albanians
who never apologize never explain They wear
white skullcaps or black fezzes weave
in & out of the mountains like a secret code
Grape brandy peach brandy
juniper and plum
white coffee Turkish coffee
laced with rum
In the first-class hotel schools
of force-fed poets flicker and eddy
Ah the big poets eat the little poets
they nibble each other with tentative teeth
the little ones lurk in the shadow
of a large drink: na zdrowie! Skol!
In the lobby poems pile up like peppers
dried out but dangerous get your red hots here!
I bite a fat sestina terrific!
In my heart the blood weaves in & out
half-alcohol by now whispering drunkenly
in the pool of my ear: Trout it hisses
remember the trout!
In the blue ring of mountains
as the sun climbs
the road weaves in & out
like hidden rhyme
Our driver is clearly insane and happy
doesn't speak English but likes to try
Fuck Stalin he says smiling passing
a horse and wagon on a blind curve
I keep my eyes on the road I'd like
to be an old poet some day Maybe tomorrow
By the road fields of faded sunflowers
nod like unread poets in the naked light
Behind them muezzins mount their holy missiles
pointed at Allah's eye: they too
on the hour chant and cry
Yaseen Marit Rafael Klaus
Albert Marianne Tomasz Staus
Why is it we always turn toward the small things?
The guide drones on about St. Sofie's Church:
The wide of the walls is seven meters . . .
Magnificent and yet you turn and say
See the bees in the rose tree see
that wreath of peppers on the wall! Best of all
turning a corner we saw the old poet
standing alone beneath the dark-beamed homes
blue cap tilted weathered jacket
lost or lost in thought His words weave in & out
of my mind starquakes in an inner galaxy
casting its cold and hopeless light
on an ocean of blood
The California trout will eat the Macedonian trout
We start things and they acquire
an energy of their own
until we're swept away at last and stand
like the old poet alone
in the alley of our bones
waiting for the end with fingers crossed
not exactly lost I think my life has been spent
underwater May God protect old poets
in their loneliness
Even here politics and passion
blossom like a sore
one is called a fascist
one is called a whore
Poetry knows no borders
its country is the soul
but where are the Russians?
the Bulgarians? the Poles?
The trellised arbors the old tiled rooftops:
the men are dancing in the street!
How does that house keep standing?
And the Turks did this and that
in the Seventeenth Century or was it the Eleventh?
Why can't I remember these centuries?
This mosaic floor was Third I'm almost sure
but just as the guide explained
the disco band below the fortress blared
I pick a thorn from the rose tree
you pick a rose from the thorn tree
I pick a pear from the plum tree
you pick a plum from the pear tree
Among the dancers with linked arms
the old poet weaves in & out Are you surprised?
he asks No I am not though his poems
have surprised me for years
Pop-eyed poets prance in a circular fashion
slivovitz and coffee battle for control
And when I held hands with Yaseen
I was alarmed
by the warmth of his hands
The long Indian and the little Indian
make formal gestures I bow you curtsy
I am seeing visions! Ghostly silhouettes
of poets follow them on stage like
electric auras the old poet's almost
detached from him a dancing partner
a pure white mirror image In our room
our arms weave in & out they
weave in & out
and suddenly I know that I am blessed!
We shall make love on the beach Macedonian style!
We shall drink cold white wine and swim to Albania!
We shall write a poem to the old poet and slip it
under his door Yes We won't wake him
We'll slip it under his door
God bless all poets small and great
God bless this fading tapestry
and bless the trout in Ohrid Lake
doomed in their darkness shining free