Would Not Be Right




Would Not Be Right



I don’t know if it was just a dream
or if someone had told me the story about him
perhaps, I had known him personally
but I won’t talk about it, I must not, it would not be right!



He would walk into my dreams on whim
without knocking, suddenly, the door to my heart would tremble
I would think of monsters, and he was a mere illusion,
someone carried away by the day, just like this tale,
which is not a fairy-tale, as it has no happy ending.



He would come on the days tumbled out of calendars,
without any special sign, he would tread upon my thoughts
quietly at times, and sometimes, he would wake up the stars themselves
he smelled of forbidden fruit and sin
perhaps, I had known him personally
but I won’t talk about it, I must not, it would not be right!



I would get angry with him, would chase him away
'-What are you doing in my thoughts when you are not mine,
and why are you moving into my dreams illicitly?!’
And at dawn I would not know if he had really been there
or if it had only been my nightmares
I would feel confused, for by daylight my dream would vanish, too

without a trace or sound, leaving me only with  

the smell of his cigarette smoke in my nostrils ...

Were the dreams real or was the reality real
I knew not, but I knew with ease
how to replace the mask of fear with the mask of courage
and wait for the days and moments stolen from time,
collect illusions in the box of colourful lies

fearing the storm in his heart

would carry him to someone else’s dreams

And then he suddenly vanished for a long time
my heart told me he retreated into oblivion
common sense celebrated an asinine victory
and for days on end he lay heavy on my chest
and I hated the nights when I would miss him.



Today, I remember him with a melancholy, and sometimes
I catch myself still waiting for him
and I don’t know through whose dreams he’s strolling nowadays
I just know it had tasted as sweet as forbidden fruit
And that I was hiding him in the verses of my poems
where he still resides,
but that poem I would never publish.



I don’t know if it was just a dream
or if someone had told me the story about him
perhaps, I had known him personally
but I won’t talk about it, I must not, it would not be right!



Mariana Qunbar Selma




(Translated from Serbian by Jana Begovic)




Mariana Qunbar Selma writes under the pen name SELMA. She was born in southern Serbia, the village of Medja, Leskovac on March 22, 1969, and since 1992 she has been living and working in Israel. She writes poetry, fiction and essays. In the magazine ONA [She], she has her own column under the title, “Our Voice from Jerusalem.” She has published five books, out of which four were poetry collections, and one a novel.


1. Awakening 2016, a collection of poems, Galaksija, Niš

2. Poems as Traces and Dances, 2016 a collection a poems, Galaksija Niš

3. TEMPEST (and a Breeze) 2017, a collection of poems, Nova Poetika

4. A Fistful of Darkness 2018, a collection of poems, Banatski Kulturni Centar

5. The Woman with a Chameleon Soul 2018, a novel Banatski Kulturni Centar










 




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