Some selected excerpts from my translations of the works of Janko Polić Kamov, the early 20th century, Croatian, pavement writer and poet.
“I toured the universe and this is where I had to stay forever and I was not in the slightest bit tormented by the thought of when all of this would come to an end, will I find anyone or would I expect any change. So I remained like this for centuries… When I woke up, it was still not midnight.”
Catastrophe
“Her smiling eyes, darting wanton looks. She rested them on her lover’s profile like a bird landing on a branch, chirping and then flying away.”
Behold the Man! (Ecce Homo!)
“I became ever more cold and derisive. I would stand in the street and watch the crowds, how they bow, curtsey, dandily, and I was repulsed most by the neat, beautiful and elegant people.”
The Beard
“Sweet, good, humble and warm like a small loaf of bread, she warmed my teeth and my heart and her breasts sizzled under my fingers like apples frying in wine…”
The Earthquake
“But, oh my! Do I crave female company. It seems to me that it does not make one stupider, as is rightfully claimed, but that it clarifies and invigorates like cognac when you drink it from a small glass.”
The Suit
“A million incandescent rays, sharp, incisive and thin, pushed themselves into my pores, and there the sky was covered with gold dust and the sea, soft and azure…”
The Village
“Your apparition is thus stolen by the twilight and it seems to me that your shadow still trembles on the walls of my little room. And I love that shadow, I look at that shadow, I reach for that shadow.”
Woman
“The sun is in the west. Its last flames melt through the drawn curtains. Glowing fragments of something invisible are falling on my head. Visions of molten metals, feelings and images dance in front of me. My eyes are hot, my throat is dry, my back on fire.”
Freedom
“But one thing I know: I could not cry or kiss my sister now. Everything seems tight, disgusting and unbearable. A forced kiss on the icy face of a corpse – that’s what we all are and that’s what she is. That is our sorrow and that is our love!”
Sorrow
“Occasional wisps of smoke wavered in the air, like fragments of sentences uttered in delirium. The forest and the plain and the Sava and the hills had something feeble and faint about them, like a sick person who has just risen from their of bed.”
Bitanga
“And so – spring tapped along on young, breezy, little legs wrapped in shiny stockings. And the forest sprouted leaves like the noses of young girls peeping through a tiny window.”
The Dried Out Mire
Original Croatian language texts can be found at: http://www.kamov.hr/
Illustrations by Milenko Bosanac from ‘Janko Polić Kamov – Vladimir Čerina’ (1968, Zagreb) A collection of short stories, essays, columns, poems and dramas by Kamov and Čerina.
