Poetry – Bogomil Gjuzel

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Poetry – Bogomil Gjuzel

Troy
Flood at the International Writers’ Workshop
Professional Poet
Homage to Stone
The Apocalyptic Spring
Vision
The Second Coming
Heretic
A Stranger at Home, at Home Elsewhere
Breaking Up the Wall
Prometheus’ Eagle
An Island on Land
After the Flood, Them Again
The End of the Century


After the Flood, Them Again

 

 

Not only did the Ark have a rough landing, but it also ran aground

on this hard rock of Ararat, here and then (as if it were now),

because its gopher wood (of acacia or cypress tree) is rotten

and has already decomposed from the scars it earned during the Flood

(just like this Old Testament scroll

which tells us about the event, and is now crumbling at our touch)

 

the shipwreck survivors have long been scattered

in pairs, or single (widows or widowers) –

those who had survived the storm and the Flood

and those who had barely saved their lives

in the stampede that occurred while disembarking the Ark

in fear, chaos and panic, and, of course,

 

what matters is that the lives of the people and the animals

of those who were chosen by Jehovah (and, perhaps, Noah),

have since continued and have multiplied

(though some species, very likely, have been decimated)

together with the seeds sprouting wildly in the thriving peat

(like the punctuation marks that are missing in this scroll)

 

the old bacteria and insects, the new mutants

the people of all races and their mixture, the descendants

of Noah’s sons, or of the Ark’s stowaways…

truly – Noah disappeared without trace (like a captain

who last leaves the sinking wreckage)

but the rainbow remained as a sign of a new Covenant

 

but what shall we do with these new Noahs who are building

their own arks for the oncoming flood that they prepare

so that only they and their chosen few survive –

worrying like ostriches who stick their heads in the sand

made dizzy by their own insatiable desires,

and we, who are to fulfill them, divide by cloning, AIDS…

 

 

translated by Zoran Ančevski (The End of the Century, Macedonian Poets in the last Decade of the 20th Century, Selection by Danilo Kocevski, Struga Poetry Evenings 1999.)

AuthorBogomil Gjuzel
2021-06-02T20:03:01+00:00 May 31st, 2021|Categories: Poetry, Literature, Blesok no. 137|0 Comments