Slobodan Škerović

Nostalgic Crayons

hairy desert
gray cascade
all boiling with
film aggregates,
prints from boils
reek of cataract…

and so I sit
hands are dead
sand skins me
itches me eye
a pictogram
from parinirvana
waving its feather-whisk
Laocoön like

from ochre crayon
comes kangaroo mouse
insulted
and misunderstood
walks away the rusty dune

oh damnation!
stellar charge!
oh my sooty rhymes!
my quick hands
and speed sustained
oh, naughty pulse!

I do, appreciate
genius
maestro the sad
but let him
stay
let him go
in shade
let his skull
indulge
in silicon tits!

for, now we go
to intolerant lands
of sterile oceans

all elements of East Coast
culture are here
but NSA has
all under control!
in vain we warred,
tons of martyrs
died
and still, castles of cards
flutter
and red coats are slaughtered

back to our desert
sweet!
the way it is
there slobbering ’s a
forgivable sin,
deserted it may be
and uncrowded,
but of hotheads
free!

capstans stand for brains
they squeak
as threads
smolder
all is in poems placed
even the dung
of scarabs…
lo, huge structure
spawns!

in this epic,
miraculously,
my old
rusty voice
hatches from lye
(though barely moving)
hoi! (hear it
shout)
hoi! hooey!
but quickly hides
in mohair
it knows what next will pass!

do you eat crap
indulging in curtailed
moon?
here some
nostalgias
and whole caravans
with distaffs
wreathing tiny lines
to cover their mouths

what comes from mouth… hey!
but they are like
poodles
dressed to
croak over
gorge
of bitches
hanging murdered from
billboards
but then I turn around and
see them
disappear

sad are their gags
as I disperse them
with mushroom flambé
and sulfonmethane stench…
who do they think they can quip?
science serving poetry – hey!
drop dead shall they
epigones of Warhol
and leave all the fish…
let them smuggle their
unused
spatial chemotherapy

let them stretch
those silicone knees
along the boulevard of stars

what one pelican can
catch
three seagulls can’t
crap!

x-ray had left
me an
unforgettable memento:
when I accidentally fell,
my spleen mixed with
slivovitz
I mutated into one
Kerempuh
for it never was
that somehow it wasn’t …
and all you can see
on the outtake
eh, isn’t that something…
even Buddha suffered
from swollen eye bags
since for months he gazed
into elephant cow’s enhanced
trunk

I got into trouble
while stewarding.
my remote control’s
ideology hairs
ran away
and quails flew to
Mesopotamia

not even the recent defeat of
the Alien
discouraged me;
they must have, I’m sure,
coughed obit after him,
eye witnessing scraping of
dead mujahedin,
and their dirty gowns;
from headlines
of, there… happenings

but nothing is like
rennet
of our struggling!

all I need is to
sing
and hoard winds
into the wild
hams

and so on…
from change to
change of
mood
until my emissaries are
back,
my hoarse singers
with news of
armistice
between horses and donkeys,
stag-beetles and scarabs

even daguerreotype
would not work
here
in vain is your dark
chamber
all is in doughnut’s
perspective:
dead children
and parents drunk
roll down the streets
potato like

and who will bring order?
the one who was disjointed?
the spreading one?
the one suckling vitriol
with rattlesnake in his
ear?
they’ll shit sheep dung
until choking
and shoeless feet
will step onto rice fields of
Machiavellians…
eh, my armless Cleo
even Kaváfis could not
versify you like I
and not to mention,
what did we in the nights…

blabber-stirring
there, sweating
baritone in chopped onions
(and from the front row
they suckle lemon before him)
lips tightened
he could hardly squeak
yet relentlessly puffing out
tailcoat…
no, no, I will not respond
to that appeal
even for the sake of all Biafra’s dead

all is somehow
lopped
from fluttering mirages
to locust in flight
and even this cultural
staleness
of crocodile jelly bone
don’t enter into my
nervous hand
without my joints
crackling
over there, behind
the praising ones

rarely the
Charlemagne’s
were shy
now everything is
lethargic
coatings are spoiled
fireplaces rowed off
de-canned gigglers,
someone’s test-tube
cracked
and romanticists
dressed in
micro-fiber gabardine

what bothers me most
is that juggler
juggles not
bullfrogs;
sadness crushed me

even the March hare
runs by
in hurry after
biometric paddock
and so much money thrown
on research
to moderate
marsupial
extinction

due cremating
all airports are
closed.
my throat is full
with kerosene.
I don’t understand this
mileage of theirs
sky gnats
sagging in
containers
and yet they say
George blessed it all

but let them be,
at least the panties
will stay dry
eh! I’m not in peace from
care after
corpulence
I’ll take it apart like a doll
all the way to its
elastics
and coffer can still
wait

he’s singing like
Vogon admiral,
saws death
everywhere
his beard melding with
chest
his ears ashy from
yodeling
can be heard all the way through here
in Hormuz strait

springs fell out from
the mattress
and my bottle’s empty

heavy is depression
overwhelming me

I had no time to turn about
when toothless greyhound
wobbled by the
grinding site
sat right into spittle
chewing corn cob;
news spread fast:
Burgundy is nearing
collapse
and Scandinavia
is just about

who will yet adore
that dog-pound
massage
when even bone-glue
doesn’t stink as before?
in-an’-out, in-an’-out
they killed all chocolate
addicts
smoke comes out their
assholes like etchers
for Durer’s copper-plate,
constipation in their gut –
they smell of caramel!
and all is a consequence of
ka-ka-phrenia

steadily walks
(and secretly takes Prozac);
the knickers
drag chained strikebreakers
and high resolution
spreads ‘im all over
the world
but all that is garbage
upon which will stumble the
unlucky Taliban:
they squat in gutters and wait
while the boss is showing off
cutting deals

until he flew into air in
Baghdad
where they shucked him,
the same ones who used to
bribe him with plain
bracelets made from
pumpkin seed
ha! ha! ha!
was I glad
when concrete beam
fell
upon the overpass

by the way, the description
of system looks like
this: all is yellow
there’s no people
and carcasses tumble,
battle poisons
here and there
among the starved inhabitants
of northern marshes.
geography awaits
mapping
and the mouflon
spend money
on Indian pornography,
mass of people push
around flooded docks
heads like beans
they’re very restless

it wasn’t happy like this
ever since the sinking of
Titanic
and if Hiroshima happened
by any chance
at the beginning of war
it would be the end of war
eh, if only Yukio became the Emperor…

but now, hurricanes devastate
and dromedaries scratch on
birches
even the surfers didn’t
profit
since their
big whites
stayed unpacked
and coffers full of
pharmacologist’s spam

he blackens his moustache with soot
and poses for
a magazine
and his space ships
parked in the
ninth circle;
there they fry,
captains and cormorants
and maids fixing coffee for
Eichmann

to none shall I
woo.
took off my socks
loused
and now I’m tickling
fan like muscles
on biffed
Barbie’s fat
tummy

even bunnies
didn’t freeze
when the
strike battalion
of Las Vegas barons
arrived
their bears clinched
lynxes and brent-geese
so now head cheese is frizzing
wrapped in condoms

we, of course,
pork don’t eat

but then I’ve had my bottle
filled
with spanks

I’m weltered in
utter lawlessness.
I took a French leave
under their very
funnel
while they were raining
artillery correctives
and their missiles
sagging to the
lobster’s ankles

and I stuck them on
rotten egg.

until tornado
hit Hamburg
no one believed in
Singularity
and then
eye mucous realized
that Doberman
took away the joke
and that from desert arises
a new world’s power –
the necrophiliac!

then all those
whirligigs
rushed to
Wal-Mart’s’
as hoses and
bracelets
rolled
everywhere,
rajas and red mullets
caught upon
aspirators,
trombones
choked toilets:
their noise was heard
in Iraq and Ur

even the Siberians
didn’t fare better
their rubber boot-tops
languished
and the rein-deer heehawed
from Amur to Chara
mountains grew from
flatlands
due Viagra overdose,
they got hooked on
electronic mail

he traveled like Sinbad
but his charter got
stranded in Gstaad –
nosey,
his paprika
burnt
and his tick got
sour
scurf fell on
white elephant’s
armchair
and then he was awed
and led into impeachment

after him I liked the
best to
sniff.

hey, what somnambulists
were they!

we gave them all the
best
but they got rusty
spreading milk skim on trunks
and stacking butts
in butt-lines
and sipping vermouth
and bull

they needed strength for
coli-flowering

but their Chevy run-stabbed
into their
plexus
so they puked
hogwash on
Rolexes

shortcutting them
when it was nicest

TV-jingles squeaked

I twisted my neck
while surveying
the situation

forward into anthologies!
you stoned dogs
provincial quadraphonic
give your pickled salads
a ride
shove your collars into
centrifuge
bend heels

racks loaded with
kibble

your gadgets went wrong

hey pyramids!
dredgers are on their way,
green waters of Venice
swallowed barbiturates,
on barbecue are frizzing
Christo’s packages: was it up to me
I’d pack up half the
world!
not just
Manhattan

you’ve killed the whales
but not the
viruses
amoebas spawning
in subways
and in sinks
green skeletons

and we weaved
our pantries
from nights,
hid our treasuries
from west-deserts’
reptiles
and our love we exchanged
for passion

and then I split.

history became
bastard
everything oppressed by
black oil
muddy pond
and my bones became
rachitic
ovaries bristling
veins exploded
blood coagulated
and scattered in
perplexities

no, there are no dark
tunnels
nor candy-stick
bordellos,
on ball-bearings
dash
survivalists’
rapes,
stretchy socks
sow mucous

power converges
compromises.
cardboard misery
and burning tires
they smuggle clover-eaters
kiss cannibals,
pharaoh ships
sail over herd-lovers
– I understand it all

everything just overreacting.
I put myself to sleep into
ashes
into the breakdown of ivory
into fountain of broken
malice,
tiger-horns
thirst for
the slippery

my stirrups swagger
while I flourish gongs

they wouldn’t be so
dusting themselves
were they not
insane!
papal trotters
trot on their
Kevlar
flower petals stuck
in noses
they blow gas from
Mars valleys

they’re happy to see
rusty-red bushes.

they didn’t prove the theorem,
axioms over-bred
triangle-legs drunken
tangents missing
touching points of
azimuths
circles turned to squares
pi became concave
lambda spread
redundancy spits ostrich
feathers
abacuses fed-up with
infinitesimals

rubber-frogs drowned in
bath-tubs

their Gotterdammerung
exploded
racial hatred
mixed with
trilobite’s birth-trees
genomes shitted on their
china
floating islands got sore
fetuses playing cards
with electric
sheep

and then the monsoon started to
bore…

continents shook

they pecked on
wood-shacks
steels got pretzel like
itineraries fell out
credentials crushed down
mitochondria got plasmid
speedways piled up
the breath of the upper-Sahara
shone upon them

laments roared

silica will not be crowned with
glaciers
black whites will not
neigh under
Vietnamese-women’s papayas
pregnant gates will
groan under graffiti:
retrievers sniff
confused times
of amphioxus

perfects got obese

crows glimpsed
glitter

white powder

the spirit interlaced
rutted walls

I found the truth in
comics
it bent under
ink
and watercolor
with dead painter’s
pupils

how bolts of youth
fall
from Stratocaster’s clouds!

rhythm animates
rapiers

in heaven rhinos
rest
they sniff red mud
saints take out their eyes
cardiograms shimmer
all are dead

kaolin peels

again, down my rain-pipes flows
scryer’s
neuromancy
scarecrow is in rags
marmalade on soles
hacienda frowning
they forgot about
distribution
they drag them with brooms
over letters

and primers are white

demons wiped clean
brazen jugs…
ah, how easy it is
to follow their
samples

bamboozled are starlets
fallen off the wing
entangled are tracks
emblems from garters
crossed trajectories
of voyeurs
with eagles’ ones

but the wind had forged
plan B

split the city
from cesspool and sink

plastics redistributed
under chiffon
car laquer sang
Marseillaise
squeaked dying cellular

at the spaceport angered
Charon
groaned carmine
his interplanetary
exidos keel
fell off,
instead of hydrogen peroxide
he drunk
Louisianan bouillon

Mars channels will stay
dry
non-castrated narwhals
won’t zigzag through them again
Valles Marineris!
you will still be
fatamorgana
of bubbled
sweaters

their white skin won’t
mock sun spots
nor will liquid crystals
die out on
hydrogen mountains

cells scream in comas

stink armpits
bulge brittle veins
bodies print onto
rain storms’ disbelief
slaves long for
blazing boilers
of locomotives.
all is rattle
and thrush flies into the
mist

so be it, let them mourn
jokers

they got drunk
nodding heads to
pimpled Krypteia
as they butchered them
with axes and cudgels
shiver of jew’s-harp
squeezed out of them
and smoke of chilly shag,
dry farting of
soul

and Baudelaire would
acrimony them
as maggots
and darks
of vivid slums –
and dog curtailed it’s tail…

those who at least sailed
courageously
measured themselves
with mastics and thyme
and ploughed on
Apollo’s license:
the kings
feared them

I throw sand from my eyes
onto prophet’s
laces

their omens
stamp life
ends entangled
in generations’ change
trouble spots roll down
perplexing trajectories
dreams got stiff
dreams got dry in
rock ’n’ roll burrows
no one noticed that
road to stars
bends backs of
invertebrates

they’ll depart without the
ferryman

they’ll spread their breed
into vacuum
get stuck upon black bumps
of space pathways

cunning ones and
olive ones
won’t travel with them

educated apologists
and lacquered skin-apples
will go mute
when appointed
negotiators
hit abscess with needle

the joyful nameless one had
already seen
all

God simply
refused to
talk

eh, alas, they outlined him
by their likes

soaked their beards

now they clanged
the horizon,
limped to my
desert
I didn’t move my pinkie
to unstuck their
rovers

I scratched out scurf
over their maps

how would they know
that they have arrived
when they never set off
in the first place?

there’s your Babylon
I say
and I gaze into their dirty
windshields

hey, they shoved their noses
into squashes

like Bradbury’s midgets
they fell into heart
condition

for the sake of many
they gave up
a genie

then quibbles
cowered into leather
belts
goats flung out
milk spilled
my rattle stumbled upon
Adam’s apple

music roared
on grim parking lots
crankshafts turned
fireflies screamed
tins mashed
acorns belched
mixed ebbs and
tides

beheaded bolts
undesignated gas pipes,
lukewarm leak
of heroin
smudges in lavers,
thirsty kids,
mirror’s chip,

boot in toys
trampled on
circumvention

where will poet’s rage
meet
coquette’s love?
in an empty cave
or on a coconut patch?

behind the curtain
infanticide
dreads

all wailings
suddenly
sprayed into mucous
sponges screwed
someone joined them into
single thread

compressed them into the
cypress’ stick

hey Cadillac!
go
pick hairy
exhausts

your krauts will get cold
in armoires
run out from garages
into heedless tap-rooms
ride yourselves over
grills

everything falls apart
due to excessive voltage

I laughed into dusty
hubcap
fell out my golden
tooth
due to a hard gram

I obstructed devil:
grasshopper craved
for doughnut
and loon nicked
hope,
tree drove trough
saw

sextant lovers
sketching shareholders’
hats
morning being lost in
breakfast
worries roll in
bread crumbs
bug exterminators read papers

my leg concertinaed,
I waved to red beards:
go droop
go bellow with deer
go pluck swallows
go dive long boats
you frog eaters!

a new phase of the Pulse
opened

eventually, my dune
sagged

my former masters
in black pantaloons
play fiery
sword
their daughters’ menstruation
is late
stalked by supremacists
from formaldehyde
their snakes got
flagged
crushed by care

Nile was late

there was an accident
on the road to Ararat

God is pain
sushi is chilly
pebble in shoe
holds up caravan

poets-decorators
entitled them with
piety
overgrown in ivy
they’re married to
Kronos
lying on buds
and gaping on
frequencies

they’re warbling Sephirots

howler monkeys
squat in canopies
they feed Caucasus’ eagles
with tar,
sodomizing nut-cakes
creosoting volunteers
maddened flickers

rhyming sublimates

and those who painted
cows didn’t
gnaw on grass leaves

but after them
the desert crawled in

and those who fertilized
earth
with ochre
didn’t see beauty in
eunuchs
they skinned beasts with
spirits

they fashioned
jungles
in muffs
mixed with aurochs

they cut oaks
exterminated grouse
freed winds

revolutions thundered

here we are now in lull
of pandemics
sorting out quotations
on new sofas
rolling roadsters
cracking nuts
with Stonehenge gourds

my crayon broke
yellow smudge was left,
instead of blindness
quartz snow
kicked in syllable

but where are the furies,
forgotten by whom?

Abbadon online…?

does Azazel eavesdrop on
SETI?

and does all you never saw
through the Cyclops’ eye
have weight?
except silence…

I rock in parody,
rippled are chitins
laughs of jawed
sycophant

Lautréamont
pissed off

rip fluorites
use hoses to spray
palettes,
stir yourself in alkali

brotherly logs
of hairy giants
yodel under avalanche

quasar is hushed,
opened Trojan chick

disharmony dances
over the abyss

29. 05. 2006.