Narrative Bent: Within Reach

Goran Simić's poetry runs by narrative drive which is often pulled short by poem's end to provoke the reader into reflection. Take "Airport" from Immigrant Blues translated by Amela Simić where the regular repetition "we are flying … we are flying" gets grounded in the last lines

We are flying, I tell you,
though it looks to me
we haven't even left the runway.

Not unlike the ending to "When I Fall Asleep and When I Wake Up"

Then I think that there is no reason
to travel far and look for poetry
when there it is within reach.

And its reach can be brutal. "Bill's Uniform" (originally written in English) ends with the eponymous character walking a prison corridor and one set of eyes reminds him of his mother.

The pair of eyes reminds him of
his mother's sharp eyes,
when he was driven home by a police car
after he had beaten up a newcomer,
some ugly schoolmate
in a wheelchair.

Que dire?

And so for day 1540
02.03.2011