The Judges Of The Little Box
to Karl Max Ostojic
Why do you stare at the little box
That in her emptiness
Holds the whole world
If the little box holds
The world in her emptiness
Then the antiworld
Holds the little box in its antihand
Who'll bite off the antiworld's antihand
And on that hand
Five hundred antifingers
Do you believe
You'll bite it off
With your thirty-two teeth
Or are you waiting
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poem by Vasko Popa
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The Enemies Of The Little Box
Don't box down to the little box
Which supposedly contains everything
Your star and all other stars
Empty yourself
In her emptiness
Take two nails out of her
And give them to the owners
To eat
Make a hold in her middle
And stick on your clapper
Fill her with blueprints
And the skin of her craftsmen
And trample on her with both feet
Tie her to a cat's tail
And chase the cat
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In The Village Of My Ancestors
Someone embraces me
Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf
Someone takes off his hat
So I can see him better
Everyone asks me
Do you know how I'm related to you
Unknown old men and women
Appropriate the names
Of young men and women from my memory
I ask one of them
Tell me for God's sake
Is George the Wolf still living
That's me he answers
With a voice from the next world
I touch his cheek with my hand
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A Conceited Mistake
Once upon a time there was a mistake
So silly so small
That no one would even have noticed it
It couldn't bear
To see itself to hear of itself
It invented all manner of things
Just to prove
that it didn't really exist
It invented space
To put its proofs in
And time to keep its proofs
And the world to see its proofs
All it invented
Was not so silly
Nor so small
But was of course mistaken
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The Benefactors Of The Little Box
We'll return the little box
Into the arms
Of her inconspicuously honest properties
We won't do anything
Against her will
We'll simply take her apart
We'll crucify her
On her own cross
Piece her bloated emptiness
And let ooze
All the blue cosmic blood she gathered
We'll sweet her clean of stars
And anti-stars
And everything else that rots inside her
We won't make her suffer
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Far Within Us #2
Look here's that uninvited
Alien presence look it's here
A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup
Rust taking hold
On the edges of our laughter
A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror
Will I be able to hide you
From your face in mine
Look it's the third shadow
On our imagined walk
Unexpected abyss
Between our words
Hoofs clattering
Below the vaults of our palates
Will I be able
On this unrest-field
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Give Me Back My Rags #12
Enough chattering violets enough sweet trash
I won't hear anything know anything
Enough enough of all
I'll say the last enough
Fill my mouth with earth
Grit my teeth
To break off you skull guzzler
To break off once for all
I'll just be what I am
Without root without branch without crown
I'll lean on myself
On my own bumps and bruises
I'll be the hawthorn stake through you
That's all I can be in you
In you spoilsport in you muddlehead
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The Victims Of The Little Box
Not even in a dream
Should you have anything to do
With the little box
If you saw her full of stars once
You'd wake up
Without heart or soul in your chest
If you slid your tongue
Into her keyhole once
You'd wake up with a hole in your forehead
If you ground her to bits once
Between your teeth
You'd get up with a square head
If you ever saw her empty
You'd wake up
With a belly full of mice and nails
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The Owners Of The Little Box
Line the inside of the little box
With your precious skin
And make yourself cozy
Just as you would in your own home
Make space voyages inside her
Gather stars make time squirt its milk
And sleep in the clouds
Just don't go around pretending
You're more important than her length
And wiser than her width
If you do we'll sell her for a song
Your box and everything inside her
To the first fleecer to the wind
We don't care about profit
And we don't keep spoiled goods
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The Little Box
The little box gets her first teeth
And her little length
Little width little emptiness
And all the rest she has
The little box continues growing
The cupboard that she was inside
Is now inside her
And she grows bigger bigger bigger
Now the room is inside her
And the house and the city and the earth
And the world she was in before
The little box remembers her childhood
And by a great longing
She becomes a little box again
Now in the little box
You have the whole world in miniature
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