MACEDONIA

palma@unet.com.mk ; samvak@briefcase.com

More poems by the same author are available here:

http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/contents.html 

Narcissism 

The Toxic 
waste of bottled anger 
venomized. 
Life belly up. 
The reeds. 
The wind is hissing 
death 
downstream, 
a river holds 
its vapour breath 
and leaves black lips 
of tar and fish 
a bloated shore. 


Tableaux (on Van Gogh)

Listening to a scarlet sink, detached

an ear, still glistening wax,

in bloody conch.

The gaping flesh.

Wild scattered eyes

fiercing the mirror.

Light ricochets from trembling blade

(it's gaslight evening and the breeze ...)

Behind his stooping shoulders,

a painted room ablaze

the dripping composition of his blood.

The winding crowd

inflates the curtains inwards,

sails of a flying Dutchman.

Prowling

The little things we do together

to give up life.

The percolating coffee,

your aromatic breath,

the dream that glues

your eyelids to my cheek.

We both relent relentlessly.

Your hair flows to its end,

a natural cascade,

a velvet avalanche

buries my hands.

In motion paralyzed,

we prowl each other's

hunting grounds.

Day breaks, our backs

turned to the light

in dark refusal.

A Peace Accord

I wrote, Sally Ann, I wrote:


Shot from the cannon of abuse
as unwise missiles do.


Course set.


Explosive clouds that mark
your video destination.


Experts interpret,
pricking with laser markers,
inflated dialects
of doom.


Hitting the target, you
splinter, a spectacle
of fire and of smoke.

The molten ashes,
the cold metallic remnants,
the core...

A peace accord
between you and your self.

I Need to Know You

I need to know you

even as I never know my self

that phantom ache

of amputated innocence

You,

the stirrings of a curtain, dust

settling on sepia cukoo clocks

covers obscuring

Perhaps one day you will become

a benign sentence

an agency

through which to be.

© All Copyright, 2000, Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.