Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I’ve never been a friend of gaudy rags, of History books, nor of the symbols that the wind of the centuries blows away.

In spite of this I admit it: in those days of December ‘91 I was pleased by the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia.

I thought they were the result of a civic nationalism in the image of Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.

But I was wrong. Pandora’s Box had been opened in the lands of blue Dalmatia.

Today, this autumn, maybe two years ago, the memory is faint, the maps have blurred lines, and there are so many press-cuttings that I stopped keeping them a long time ago.

Tonight, I pick up my pen and I’ll remember how Europe awoke from its dreaming to discover to its horror that conscience rusts when the human dimension of things is forgotten.

Rain

Inside the glass palace the dance proceeds calmly. Outside the storm hammers down on the squat building.

New guests arrive all the time. They’re well-dressed, with pearl necklaces, gold bracelets, silver and coral shoes. There’s no sadness. No pain. Just the ticking of the clock they dance.

Suddenly, in the middle of the ballroom, beneath the enormous glass chandeliers, a piercing scream is heard. The couples stop dancing and the musicians are silenced by what they see...

There, in the equator of the room, reflected in the obsidian mirrors which hang from the walls, one of the guests is lying.

She writhes, screams, tears at her dress, breaks her necklace and each one of the pearls rolls away -tick...tick...tick...- and are lost among the feet of the guests who are watching without daring to interfere.

Slowly the musicians find their music and at a signal from the hostess start to play again.

The music takes over the room. Each and every corner is filled with the powerful music.

At first the guests are doubtful. Some turn their backs and start to dance. Others try to approach the fallen guest and help her, but finally desist and shyly, start to dance, looking askance at the woman on the floor and then at themselves.

The woman is screaming. A blood-curdling scream which is drowned in the music. Her blood-stained hands snatch at her hair, her breasts, her knees, tearing, scratching and embracing all of her body. She starts to bite herself furiously and around her the floor becomes darker, redder, because of the pools of blood.

An usher appears from one of the hall’s twelve doors and announces that the banquet is served.

The guests leave the dance-hall.

The musicians, not without looking pityingly at the woman, pick up their shining instruments, put them back into the cases and file out of the room.

The woman is left alone with her agony and the lights have gone out. Only the sound of the sheaves of rain against the window panes is heard, and the far-off rumour of laughing and singing from the banquet.

Her whole being, a mess of flesh and blood, screams. It’s a dark, obscure scream, full of impotence and rage, but there’s no-one to hear her, no-one to collect her scream and make it theirs... No-one.

The ball-room is empty and outside the storm grows stronger.

At the beginning we thought it would be like the Baltic states, we were surprised by the events.

Meanwhile, the newspapers explained that the Balkans had always been a powder-barrel, but I believe that we never, ever thought that things would turn out the way they did.

There, in those lands where some had spent summers, sinking their feet into warm sands before plunging into the turquoise Adriatic...

...where we had met smiling, kind, loving men and women...

Yes, there, where all was tranquillity filled with almond trees, different cultures and history...

it seemed that its inhabitants had never dreamt cotton dreams at night, nor had they loved, body to body, sweaty and joyful.

On the contrary. The impression was that they had spent all their time sharpening their weapons and keeping the fires of ancestral hate burning.

Was it really like that? Were we that blind?
What was it that the cameras didn’t catch?

Memory, memory...

wake me and make me recall... Vasilija,

Azra, Hanka, Salina, Senad, Salhoudin, Sandra,

Emir...

Are you still alive?

I recall a poster...
“We won’t forget your tears...”.

But I’ve forgotten the name of the city.
Was it Vukovar, Dubrovnik, Dobrinja, Mostar, Zagreb or Sarajevo?

I don’t know

1991

1992

1993...

Nobody can remember all the names, the streets, the cities.

But one knows suffering, pain, without saying anything, without reading, without listening, without watching television.

Mute. Before the stars of the silent night, sitting in the terrace of my house with my cat sleeping between my knees...

I think...

And what if everything I love fell to pieces?

My mother dead, my friends murdered, my books burned, my neighbourhood razed to the ground...

And with no possibility of reasoning with the guilty ones who quietly and methodically tread on the flowers, throw salt in the gardens and piss on the bushes.

What would I do?

Would I go crazy?

Would it be like something breaking in my brain and everything going haywire?

Would I forget the happiness felt when biting into a juicy grape?

Would I lose count of the days and would I hate Aurora when she awoke me with her rosy fingers?

Would I turn into a wild animal?

Would I be unable to get away from the terror, the hate and the death however much I wanted to?