Davor Ivankovac

- Croatia -

(1984) was born and raised in Vinkovci, Croatia. The young, award-winning author writes poetry, prose and literary criticism. He has published three poetry books: Rezanje magle (Cutting through the fog, 2012), Freud na Facebooku (Freud on Facebook, 2013) and Doba bršljana (Season of the ivy, 2018). His work was included in several Croatian and foreign anthologies and his poems appeared in English, German, Italian, French, Romanian and Slovenian translation. More prestigious awards include „Goran for young poets“ (Freud na Facebooku) and „Lapis Histriae“ for short story Ponedjeljak (Monday). He lives in the east of Croatia, splitting his time between Nuštar and Vukovar, where he works as a librarian.

Ivankovac started to write and publish rather late; only after completing his studies in language and literature. But then he debuted with two poetry books basically at the same time, winning two manuscript prizes in the same year: “Goran for young poets” for Freud na Facebooku (Freud on Facebook) and “Drenovci competition” for Rezanje magle(Cutting through the fog). The books appeared in 2012 and 2013, and the first one was awarded again, this time with the “Kvirin” annual, for the best book of a young author. In the meantime Ivankovac focused himself to the short fiction, winning “Lapis Histriae” prize, and criticism, that he regularly publishes in Croatian and regional press.

Fraud on Facebook tightens between lyrical tone and penetrating, sheer irony, possibly even cynicism. It situates the week subject within the whirlwind of the alienated, digital communication, media simulacrum and the virtual world, and brings it in the juxtaposition with everyday reality of the rural, continental small town Croatia buried in snow, mud and fog.

“Davor’s auto-references are not boring and pretentious. The reason is simple: all other functions of the poem language are compressed inside. The appellative, the pragmatic one, etc... But, what is most important for the realization of the poetic scripture of a kind: it keeps and affirms that very ultimate and key one for writing poetry – the poetic function”, the critic Nikola Petković writes. Furthermore, the local landmarks and customs in these poems slowly merge, breeding the mud of body and territory, within which, for the protagonist, the individual freedom outside poetry becomes hard to imagine. Ivankovac decides to fight for the “freedom from” – or, the emancipation.

Critic Slađan Lipovec will sum poet’s strategies as follows: “Ivankovac’s poetry text is the space of immersion in different dimensions of reality, from personal to virtual and literary one, and then inevitably to the social and historical one, which is addressed with uncompromising fierceness, but also with the necessary suggestiveness of the poetic language."

After five year’s break, Ivankovac has recently come up with the new, his third poetry book, entitled Doba bršljana(Season of the ivy, 2018). The media universe, “fake news” and digital civilization are still present, but they don’t dominate: as if the protagonist sees them as cold facts now, developing strategies to put them in brackets and to dedicate himself to the phenomenological reduction that thrills him more. The predominant tone is far more lyrical, less referential, but even more gloomy, vibrant and precise in its clarity when painting the scenes from the everyday of the eastern, agricultural regions.

Ivankovac doesn’t just observe the world around him; he declares its diagnose, he wants to change it: “Always, especially in the new poems, I’m trying to be politically engaged”, he noted in a recent interview. The fight for freedom, in poetry and in everyday life, is a continuous process, sort of a permanent revolution. Within that process, often we need to outgrow ourselves. That’s why: “It seems to me that identity always restricts and narrows the horizons, because it is constructed through the denial of the Other and the Other's share in oneself, which I do not like as a reader, nor as a writer. Everything that pressures me within certain fixed borders is not close to me, I don’t find it pleasant”, the poet says.

Ivankovac’s poems appeared in English, German, Italian, French, Romanian and Slovenian translation, in various printed and online magazines, as well as in the anthologies of the young Croatian poetry.

More about the poet

Poetry

A NON-SENTIMENTAL STORY OF RAIN / NESENTIMENTALNA PRIPOVIJEST O KIŠI

I don’t know about other places, but this is how it is here:
houses have gutters. Ok,
I know about other places, just a figure of speech.
What matters is, rainwater flows from the roofs into the gutters
and on into the four downpipes at each corner of the house
then straight down, out the spout and into the drainage.
Or it just pools into a puddle in the yard, as the case may be.

I don’t know about other people’s, but our gutters for a long time stood
riddled with shrapnel, here and there severed by direct hits.
Rainwater leaked, gushed, spurted and dripped,
always in a regular manner, depending on the intensity of precipitation
and the size and position of the holes. That is how it was.
With time I memorised the workings of the whole system
always looking for regularities.
They mattered, irregularities did, as they lent meaning to all things
and every time it rained and I saw them I was reassured that
everything was fine, all things in their proper place.

Leaking left and right, like life, Nan was wont to say.
On endless quiet twilit afternoons we sat about doing
whatever, shelling beans, chopping green beans, listening to the leaking.
To the patter of drops dripping into the bowls scattered round rooms from ceilings
patched up with planks and poly.
Waiting for better days without rain or bombardment.

I don’t know about other people’s houses, but ours was hit
by over twenty.
By the tail and by the size of the shellhole one could
determine the calibre. Father filled the craters in with a shovel
or simply scraped soil in with his boots.
Which one is this in a row, I asked one day flipping the fins in my hand.
He shrugged, I stopped counting at fifteen.
Pity, I thought, now we’ll never know the exact number.
Because I, too, had lost count and I was afraid
that wasn’t the end of losing.

And it wasn’t. They’re both dead now,
I am alone.
Years later, we mended the roof and the ceilings, the refurbishment
included new gutters. Now the rainwater flows nicely down
into the metal troughs girdling the roof,
on through the downpipes at the house corners straight
through the spout and into the ditches…
All is dull and dreary again,
and we gave the shrapnel-riddled gutters to the Gipsies.

But, no, wait, I must confess something.
The gutters with the holes are still there, leaking left and right.
I don’t know about other places, but this is how it is here.
You may think I’m embellishing and raving, but really,
when it drizzles or pours I stand and I look and I see.
Leaking left and right, like in the old times.
This makes me happy.
For I am alone now.
And that’s the way it’s going to be until
the end.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Ne znam kako je drugdje, ali ovdje kod nas je ovako:
kuće uokolo imaju rine. Dobro,
znam kako je drugdje, tako se samo kaže.
Ono bitno je da se kiša s krovova slijeva u njih i
otječe dalje, sve do okomitih zatvorenih cijevi na svakome
ćošku kuće i spušta se ravno dolje, kroz otvor u kanaliće.
Ili ostaje ležati u dvorištu, kako kome.

Ne znam za druge, no naše su rine dugo vremena stajale
izbušene gelerima, gdjegdje i potpuno prekinute izravnim pogocima.
Kiša je iz njih curila, šikljala, poskakivala, kapala,
uvijek pravilno, a ovisno o intenzitetu padalina i
veličini i položaju rupe. Tako je to bilo.
S vremenom sam cijeli sustav naučio napamet i
uvijek pratio otkrivajući pravilnosti.
One su bile bitne, te pravilnosti, jer svemu su davale smisao
i kada bih ih pri svakoj kiši opet iznova zapazio bio sam siguran
da je sve u redu i na svome mjestu.

Puštaju na sve strane, kao život, znala je govoriti baka.
Za beskrajnih polutamnih i tihih popodneva sjedili smo
radeći štogod, čisteći grah, narezujući mahune, i slušajući curenje.
Kapanje u zdjele raširene po sobama, s navrat nanos
najlonima i daskama pokrpanih stropova.
Čekajući bolje dane, bez kiše i granata.

Ne znam za druge, na našu kuću i okućnicu tresnulo ih je
više od dvadeset.
Prema repiću projektila i veličini oštećenja mogao se precizno
odrediti kalibar, a rupe u zemlji otac je zatrpavao lopatom
ili naprosto zagrtao čizmama.
Koja je ova, pitao sam jednom prevrćući repić po rukama.
Slegnuo je ramenima, od petnaest više ne brojim.
Šteta, pomislio sam, sad nikad nećemo znati točan broj.
Jer i ja sam se izgubio u brojanju i uhvatila me bojazan
da bismo se i drugdje mogli pogubiti.

Tako je to bilo, doista. A sada su oboje mrtvi,
ostao sam samo ja.
Godinama kasnije, osim stropova i krova, s obnovom smo
dobili i nove rine. Kiša se opet uredno slijeva
u metalne žljebove duž krova,
odatle kroz okomite cijevi na ćoškovima i ravno dolje
kroz otvor u kanaliće…
Sve je opet jednolično i monotono,
a izbušene rine odavno smo razdijelili Ciganima.

Ali ne, čekajte, priznat ću vam nešto.
Te su izbušene rine još uvijek tu, na kući, i puštaju na sve strane.
Ne znam kako je drugdje, ali kod mene je tako.
Mislite da pretjerujem i bulaznim, ali doista,
kad rominja ili pljušti ja stanem i gledam, i sve jasno vidim.
Puštaju na sve strane, kao nekad.
To me veseli.
Jer sada sam ostao sam.
I tako će biti do
kraja.
FIVE MINUTES TO WINTER / PET MINUTA PRIJE ZIME

I go out for a walk and I find him at the cemetery.
What am I doing here, I surprise myself with the question.
What are you doing here, I surprised me.
What by-roads of the subconscious had brought me here?
What guilt led me through streets and junctions,
by prickly bushes and feral dogs?
It’s easier to realise that flashing is – lightning.
Hesitant as if in the hallway of a stranger’s house
I wait for the other to speak up, point out the obvious.
Across the plain, dark rolls like an avalanche.
If one could only go home like that, without thinking
of the roots of the weeds on the grave.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Izađem u šetnju i zateknem se na groblju.
Otkud ja ovdje, iznenadim se pitanjem.
Otkud ti ovdje, iznenadi ja mene.
Kakvi su me to podsvjesni puteljci doveli čak ovamo?
Kakva krivnja me vodila kroz ulice i raskrižja,
kraj bodljikavog grmlja i podivljalih pasa?
Lakše je spoznati da je sijevanje – munja.
Neodlučan kao u predsoblju strane kuće
čekam da drugi progovori, gestom ukaže na očito.
Preko ravnice, poput lavine, kotrlja se mrak.
Kad bi se tako moglo nazad, da se ne pomisli na
korijenje grobnog korova.
CONSUMER SOCIETY / POTROŠAČKO DRUŠTVO

Darkness zooms in on the smell of mown grass,
the smell of hay, and the crickets beyond. Background noise:
traffic from this side of midnight.

A bare bolt of lightning caught in the
frenzy of walnut branches: so I entered a shark’s nightmare.

Cogs grumble and indent the bark like
the Scandinavian coastline parting it from the moss,
the squeak of wooden joints and springs which
we will burn, hew into a chair, a sculpture of a
celebrated murderer.

Roof tiles come crashing down the stepped anxiety
to the blue bottom of sleep. I fall through amniotic fluid,
through orange murk, the night,
and the night is dough, becomes bread, crumbs for extinct birds.

There I stand till the peeling of the ceiling ceases,
the hissing of the unpowered speaker in a thin landscape
between the keepers of the screen and song, who hang, unprotected.

At the end of the wind a quiet calm, a wriggling, a snake in the bellies
of awesome cumuli beyond the horizon of tree crowns, and a
final turning on of the television set, careful and brief,
just a moment before the switch-off.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
U prvom planu tame miris pokošene trave,
miris sijena, iza sijena zrikavci. Pozadinski šum:
buka prometa s ove strane ponoći.

Ogranak ogoljele munje u naglom mahnitanju
orahovih grana: tako sam ušao u noćnu moru psa.

Stenju zupčanici i kora se razvodi
kao skandinavska obala od mahovine,
škripanje drvenih zglobova i opruga
koje ćemo ložiti, istesati stolicu, skulpturu
glorificiranom ubojici.

Crijep s krova stropošta se niz stepenasti nemir
do purpurnog dna sna. Padam kroz plodnu vodu,
kroz narančastu tamu, noć,
a noć je tijesto, iz njega kruh, mrvice za izumrle ptice.

Ondje stojim dok ne prestane ljuštenje sa stropa,
šumova iz ugašenog zvučnika, u tankom pejzažu
između čuvara zaslona i pjesme, nezaštićenih, visećih.

Na kraju vjetra mir, migoljenje zmija u trbusima
strašnih kumulusa iza horizonta krošanja i tiho
završno paljenje televizije, oprezno i kratko,
tik prije gašenja.
TICK-TOCK / KUCANJE ZIDNOG SATA

Maybe it’s the sound of non-occurrence,
the syntax of time running through a mechanical amplifier
hanging on the wall. Maybe, as we sit in silence,
listen to the drops dripping between two twitches onto
the window-sill from the drowse, from the awakening,
or is it the beeps of hospital machines making
their way to the murk of our deep unconsciousness
like the drip of a drip.
Maybe, as we lie by the window, joints of time
crackle with strain.
Why is the time of sickness so slick and sharp?
A nick on the pad, a letter driven under the fingernail.
Morning rays on the wall, the calendar reflects
black days and red Sundays, all things are ossified,
scentless,
white,
only a half of the heart still beats.
And it’s hard to cope
with those sixty small silences
in each minute.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Možda je to zvuk nedogađanja,
sintaksa vremena kroz mehaničko pojačalo
okačeno na zid. Možda, dok sjedimo u tišini,
osluškujemo ravnomjerno kapanje na prozorsku dasku,
iz polusna, iz buđenja, između dvaju trzaja,
ili nam se u tamu duboke nesvjestice probija
kao kapanje infuzije
odbrojavanje bolničke aparature.
Možda, dok ležimo kraj prozora, uslijed naprezanja
pucketaju zglobovi vremena.
Zašto je vrijeme bolesti tako glatko i oštro?
Mali rez na jagodici, slovo zariveno pod nokat.
Jutarnje zrake na površini zida, kalendar reflektira
crne dane i crvene nedjelje, sve je okoštalo,
bezmirisno,
bijelo,
samo otkucava još polovica srca.
I dok traje, teško se nositi s tih
šezdeset malih tišina
u svakoj minuti.
POEM OF IRON / ŽELJEZNA

It had its cities-foes, it had the siege, and
for months, for years, metal drizzled
on the roof, flesh and bones.
Today when I look at it, it’s a city fallen rather than ruined,
it just caved into itself, into me,
into its own cellars and wood sheds,
crashed down amongst the bikes, stoves and rat poison.
Nude models amongst rolls of brown adhesive tape
in dirty shop windows, eye sockets of buildings.
Their sponsor is dead in a Dublin warehouse,
he thinks of them seldom. The wind, cold and pure,
overturns mice like moribund thoughts.
And the raped women have lost their suits, iron
curtain twirls, frothing dogs stretch warm
innards in passages.
The lungs contract and expand downhill, like calm before
a mortar attack I break into memory:
a feral dog, driven mad by bombs, shot
in the wardrobe in a blown-up Serb house:
there I found its bones, the bullet stuck in the floor
I returned to the hand that put it into
the brain of a deranged dog,
rubbed our hands with soap and alcohol,
kept silent, talked, kept silent.
On the closed factory gates
spiders weave their abodes.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Imao je gradove neprijatelje, opsadu, i rominjao
je metal po krovovima, kostima i mesu,
mjesecima, godinama.
Danas ga gledam, znatno više pao negoli je razoren,
samo se stropoštao u sebe, u mene,
u vlastite podrume i drvarnice,
među bicikle, štednjake i otrove.
Goli modeli među smeđim ljepljivim trakama
na prljavim izlozima, oborenim dupljama zgrada.
Njihov sponzor je mrtav, u dublinskom skladištu
sve rjeđe ih se sjeti. Vjetar, hladan i čist,
miševe kao mrtve misli prevrće na bok.
I silovane žene izgubile su parnice, kovitla se
željezna zavjesa, zapjenjeni psi po haustorima
razvlače tople iznutrice.
Pluća se šire i stežu nizbrdo, kao zatišje pred
minobacački napad upadam u sjećanje:
podivljali pas, izbezumljen bombama, ustrijeljen
u ormaru minirane srpske kuće:
ondje sam mu našao kosti, metak zariven u pod
vratio sam ruci koja ga je umetnula
u pomućeni pseći mozak,
sapunom i alkoholom istrljali smo ruke,
dugo šutjeli, pričali, šutjeli.
Na zatvorenim kapijama tvornice
pauci pletu nastambe.
POEM OF NETTLE / PJESMA KOPRIVA

In the unpredictable yet familiar geometry of
pavements and paths
where walking is permitted
I find my own ageing plan every day.
Aging isn’t dying, it is the state
sloughing its skin,
slowly supplanting an excess of self, of all things,
robbing space to pay time.
Morning daze lacks accuracy,
I lack accurate thoughts for hard, dry words,
the daze is the bark of an old oak,
a damp hollow in a moor and a mouldy landscape.
The geometry leads me where the state permits,
the concrete has been spilt, the ground stomped,
a training range stretches
by the roads to the medicinal herb plantation,
everything is as I presage.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
U nepredvidljivoj a poznatoj geometriji
pločnika i puteva
po kojima je dozvoljeno kretanje
svakodnevno pronalazim vlastiti plan starenja.
Starenje to nije umiranje, to je polagano
mijenjanje kože države,
polagano popunjavanje prostora suviškom sebe, svega,
oduzimanje prostoru da bi se dalo vremenu.
U jutarnjoj omamljenosti nedostaje preciznosti,
nedostaju mi precizne misli za suhe tvrde riječi,
omamljenost je kora starog hrasta,
vlažna udolina u ravnici i pljesnivi krajolik.
Geometrija me vodi kamo država dozvoljava,
razliven je beton i ugažena zemlja,
rasprostire se tjedan poligon,
kraj putova plantaže ljekovitog bilja,
sve je kako predosjećam.
POEM – SEMAPHORE / PJESMA SEMAFOR

Does as a totem.
On weekends and holidays
fills heaven and earth with purple plumage.
Who or what? There is bureaucratic justice to his
actions, there is essence of fish-spine, fossils of the spirit.
In the graphite heart of a pencil I carry a thought, cutlery for
a dead cub, Croatian history in Styrofoam books
in ever longer rows on antique bookshelves.
Plastic bananas, wooden cucumbers, ceramic cherries.
I wish I could be born at a different time,
in some other space, some Roman Empire on the Moon,
or land into the thick of the Battle of the Sutjeska,
cross from this world into the same different one,
predict each noon, rain,
the eclipse of the Sun, the State, the Sun, the people.
I’d like to get away without limping, slipping, stuttering,
but the cunning shapes of the body of text switch on, switch off, switch on, never switch off,
never stop
their hallucinatory dance of logic:
like when fire dances around the enemy.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Radi ono što radi totem.
Vikendom i blagdanima
popunjava nebo i zemlju grimiznim perjem.
Koga ili čega? Ima birokratske pravde u njegovom
djelovanju, ima suštine riblje kralježnice, fosila duha.
U srcu grafitne olovke nosim misao, escajg za mrtvo
mladunče, hrvatska povijest u knjigama od stiropora
u sve dužim redovima, na policama antiknih regala.
Plastične banane, drveni krastavci, keramičke višnje.
Ja bih se zaista želio roditi u neko drugo vrijeme,
u neki treći prostor, Rimsko Carstvo sletjelo na Mjesec,
ili aterirati u bitku na Sutjesci,
iz ovoga svijeta isti drugi svijet,
predvidjeti svako podne, kišu,
pomrčinu Sunca, države, Sunca, naroda.
Ja bih zaista želio proći bez šepanja, klizanja, zamuckivanja,
ali lukavi oblici tijela teksta pale se, gase se, pale se, ne gase,
nikada ne prestaju
svoj halucinantni logički ples:
kao kad vatra pleše oko neprijatelja.
POEM – SHADOW / PJESMA SJENA

Bit by bit it’s getting darker in me: angles,
plane angles, a lemon tree in the corner of the cellar,
under a brooder lamp.
Warmth enters the pigment like the enemy enters
a minefield. That is how history enters these parts,
the lymph of a lightning, an open-chimneyed house,
in, out.
From the nightfern emerges a stooping shadow.
A sleep-walker dipped into the pigment,
a knife dipped into the scream of the pig, cow and rabbit.
An animal shadow
is equal to me,
a fatal dissolving and loss between steps,
never out of step,
a humdrum that stretches the pollen
and returns to itself, a silent gravity.
The leaves in the cellar soak up the dark, warmth drops,
I stand and watch,
fruits ripen.
Translated from the Croatian by Mirza Purić
Malo po malo u meni sve je mračnije: kutovi,
bridovi, stablo limuna u podrumskom ćošku,
pod pilećom žaruljom.
Toplina ulazi u pigment kao neprijatelj
u minsko polje. Tako povijest ulazi u ove krajeve,
limfa munje, kuću otvorenih dimnjaka,
u nju, iz nje.
Iz noćne paprati izlazi pogurena sjena.
Mjesečar uronjen u pigment,
nož uronjen u vrisak svinje, goveda i zeca.
Sjena životinje
jednaka je meni,
fatalno pretapanje i gubitak između koraka,
nikad u raskoraku,
mrtvilo koje razvlači pelud
i vraća se nazad u sebe, tihu gravitaciju.
Lišće u podrumu upija tamu, toplina opada,
stojim i gledam,
dozrijevaju plodovi.
STATEHOOD DAY / DAN DRŽAVNOSTI

The red button and green pill will successfully pre-empt
an attempt at new reinterpretation.

Some Croats have a feeling that Vukovar actually never fell, for if it remained living within us this entire time

it becomes even clearer what our within is like. Ouch!

Even Davor Ivankovac, the unknown poet

from Vinkovci, is not despite everything

a Neanderthal and a nationalist.

For a guy from Vinkovci this in itself is a miracle

weirder and greater than the hypothetical waking up

inside of a ping-pong ball.

Which can be reduced to:

a)orgasmic whiteness;

b)Arctic whiteness;

c)blindness from Jose Sarmago’s novel,

or more appropriately considering geography d) a Catholic notion of Paradise,

more stupid and boring than Sunday afternoons in neighbourhood inns.

In the calm of the evening, sitting in front of the TV-screen,

I ask myself:

do I really believe in any of the above?
Translated from the Croatian by Damir Šodan
Crvena tipka i zelena tableta uspješno preveniraju
pokušaj nove reinterpretacije.
Poneki Hrvat možda naslućuje: Vukovar zapravo nikad nije pao.
Jer ako je doista sve vrijeme bio u nama,
tada je jasnije kakvi smo svi iznutra. Jao!
Čak i Davor Ivankovac, nepoznati pjesnik
iz Vinkovaca, koji unatoč svemu nije
pračovjek i nacionalist.
Što je za jednog Vinkovčanina čudo
samo po sebi neobičnije i veće od
hipotetskog buđenja u središtu ping-pong loptice.
A to može biti:
a) orgazmička bjelina;
b) arktička bjelina;
c) sljepoća iz romana Josea Saramaga,
i što je najvjerojatnije u ovom podneblju
d) katolička predodžba o Raju –
dosadnija i gluplja od nedjeljnih popodneva
po kvartovskim birtijama.
Uvečer, u smiraj, pred tv-ekranom:
vjerujem li u išta od navedenog?
TOWARDS THE POETICS OF SELF-ESPIONAGE / PRILOG POETICI AUTOŠPIJUNAŽE

Silently approaching the door we prick our ears,
gluing our eyes to the peep-hole.

Between hope and fear in the dank smell of the stairway,
cracking one’s own password is the hardest thing to do.

The concave mirror at the end of the hallway
does not entirely reduce conjunctions and verbs.

Fixing up the unfixable before going into town
we remember all those lost mis-chances.

Warning: you are simply handsome – the rest is just syntax.

Give it up while you can, words will betray you.

Before you ring the bell they will fail you thrice.

There’s also systematic fattening happening in beds of people you might know.

In the eternal azure of cable connections

The masturbation of inflated libidos

dulls the angles of living space.

Filling up the metonymical craters on sofas.

Give it up while you can, clutch at the last straw.

The sharpened disdain of disrupted friendships is reminiscent of kitchen knives,

while senses have been honed by overlooked birthdays. The nightly prickling of Fate is more pregnant herethan the curious care of the balcony plants,

as the laundry washed at the night rate,

fragrant and soft,

hangs in suspense waiting for bleached shame.

Plus the regular clipping of fingernails and changing of underwear –

so we won’t be surprised by an unexpected lover, or a pathologist one cannot deny.
Translated from the Croatian by Damir Šodan
Tiho prilazeći vratima naćuljujemo uši,
špijunki priljubljujemo oko.
Između nade i straha, u podrumskom mirisu stepeništa,
najteže je probiti vlastiti password.

Konkavnost zrcala u dnu predsoblja
ne reducira u potpunosti glagole i veznike.

Namještajući nenamjestivo pred izlazak u grad
sjećamo se svih propuštenih neprilika.
Opomene: ti si samo lijep - sve ostalo je sintaksa.

Odustani dok možeš, riječi će te izdati,
prije nego pozvoniš zatajit će te triput.

I plansko tovljenje u krevetima
ljudi koje možda poznaješ.
U vječnom kablovskom plavetnilu
masturbacija ispuhanih libida
zaoblila je kutove životnoga prostora.
Popunila metonimijske kratere u kaučima.

Odustani dok stigneš, hvataj zadnju slamku.

Tu je izoštreni prezir prekinutih prijateljstava
poput noževa u kuhinji,
a čula istančana na previđenim rođendanima.
I cjelonoćna bockanja Usuda tu su znakovitija
od ljubopitljive skrbi nad biljkama s balkona,

a štrikovi isprani za noćnih tarifa,
mirisni i omekšani,
u napetom su iščekivanju izblijedjeloga srama.

I redovna rezanja noktiju, presvlačenja donjeg rublja –
da nas ne bi nespremne i u jadnom stanju
iznenadila kakva nepredviđena ljubavnica,
neproreknuti patolog.
WHY FREUD ON FACEBOOK? / ŠTO BI FREUD NA FACEBOOKU

We have two common enemies.

Indeed, why Freud on Facebook?

This is the right place for you:

well-trodden paths lead to the cave.

Knowing you, he would probably add:

Hey kid, the kindergarten is in my study!

He would have a profile with thousands of friends

and everyone would want him first. Like Bare or Lambaša.1

Freud is also a group with thousands of members:

it’s a matter of prestige to be on his list.

Knowing him: narrative notes, sharp and detailed, interpreting it all anew.

These symbols I don’t understand, but I comprehend them.

Eternity beyond literacy, this is

a Catholic heaven, by definition a place

of amorous coagulation.

Giving one too many of us that Big Itch.

Every heart is a virtual excess; it’s your

deficiency in the Real, my dear girl.

Your philosophical bent and linguistic perfection are the result of a trauma, a very clear symptom of consciously masked humiliation, narcissism,

the illusion of grandeur.

Initials are not the only thing you share with David Icke.2

If I would only dare add him to the list,

his reply in my inbox would say: Do we know each other from somewhere?

I mean, really, why Freud on Facebook?
Translated from the Croatian by Damir Šodan
Imamo dva zajednička neprijatelja.

Doista, što bi Freud na Facebooku?
Ovo je pravo mjesto za tebe:
dobro utabanim stazama u pećinu.

Poznavajući te, sigurno bi dodao: Dečko, vrtić je u ordinaciji.

Imao bi profil s tisućama prijatelja
i svi bi ga poželjeli prvi. Kao Lambašu i Bareta.

Freud je i grupa s tisućama članova:
prestiž je biti na njegovoj listi.

Poznavajući ga: narativne bilješke, pronicljive i opširne,
i sve bi tumačio snova.

Ove simbole ne razumijem, ali ih razumijem.
Vječnost onkraj pismenosti, ovo je
katolički raj, mjesto po definiciji
ljubavnog zgusnuća.
I premnoge zato svrbi ona Stvar.

Svako je srce virtualni višak, tvoj
manjak u realnom, djevojčice.

A tvoja su filozofičnost i jezična perfekcija
posljedica traume, sasvim jasan simptom
svjesno zakamufliranog poniženja,
narcisoidnost,
grandomanija.

S Davidom Ickeom ne dijeliš samo inicijale.

Kad bih ga se usudio dodati
on bi mi u inbox: Mi se znamo odnekud?

Doista, što bi Freud na Facebooku?

Davor Ivankovac

- Croatia -

Poetry

A NON-SENTIMENTAL STORY OF RAIN / NESENTIMENTALNA PRIPOVIJEST O KIŠI

FIVE MINUTES TO WINTER / PET MINUTA PRIJE ZIME

CONSUMER SOCIETY / POTROŠAČKO DRUŠTVO

TICK-TOCK / KUCANJE ZIDNOG SATA

POEM OF IRON / ŽELJEZNA

POEM OF NETTLE / PJESMA KOPRIVA

POEM – SEMAPHORE / PJESMA SEMAFOR

POEM – SHADOW / PJESMA SJENA

STATEHOOD DAY / DAN DRŽAVNOSTI

TOWARDS THE POETICS OF SELF-ESPIONAGE / PRILOG POETICI AUTOŠPIJUNAŽE

WHY FREUD ON FACEBOOK? / ŠTO BI FREUD NA FACEBOOKU