A Holiday Greeting

 

A Holiday Greeting

 

 

from time to time, I sneak 

close to your thoughts

thinking up the password

that would break them open

 

for, it is not that I believe

in miracles

in us

 

for, we may be good together

only at a distance

in your summer and my winter

in the brief, white-hot encounters

for which there is little opportunity

 

for that reason, I keep betraying you daily

as prevention

and assume no responsibility

but to me you happen anew

 

from time to time, I sneak into your sheets

like a cat

I am a little stray

achingly tense

seeking her place

and always departing in time

before you

you and her

you and them                       

all of you

 

okay, I might forget myself on occasion

while licking your fingers and wishing to feed myself to you

when telling you stories and get the centuries wrong

for, who falls in love with Scheherazades these days

 

do you fear I will have no restraints

and will banish you to the thick forests of the black continent?

I ask him if he is afraid and reply – I am

 

(because you would have a great time there without me)

 

I love your sweet black girls

and gaze in your eyes while lying

 

I wonder

if you sometimes walk the streets

where parts of me reside

 

and how many weeks

fit into one thousand and one nights?

more than nine and a half, I am sure

 

do you think

that the equals recognize themselves in each other

and that this might be it?

 

btw I discovered a blue city

along the silk roads

 

do you know

that with patience a lot can be attained

but I have no patience

 

from time to time, I smell your scent

 

you smell of romanticism and good intentions

 

from time to time, I swallow you

 

you taste mildly of infidelity

 

I often renounce you

When you do not say what I want

(and that, in fact happens always)

and when everything

linked to you

is clear

 

except maybe for the fact

that one could live on your reputation

an entire day, which is nighttime where you are

but not on that of others

 

the others leave me hungry

 

from time to time, I sneak 

close to your thoughts

thinking up the password

that would break them open

 

for, it is not that I believe

in miracles

in us

 

for, we may be good together

only at a distance

in your summer and my winter

in the brief, white-hot encounters

for which there is little opportunity

 

for that reason, I keep betraying you daily

as prevention

and assume no responsibility

but to me you happen anew

 

from time to time, I sneak into your sheets

like a cat

I am a little stray

achingly tense

seeking her place

and always departing in time

before you

you and her

you and them                       

all of you

 

okay, I might forget myself on occasion

while licking your fingers and wishing to feed myself to you

when telling you stories and get the centuries wrong

for, who falls in love with Scheherazades these days

 

do you fear I will have no restraints

and will banish you to the thick forests of the black continent?

because for sure

(because you would have a great time there without me)

 

I love your sweet black girls

and gaze in your eyes while lying

 

I wonder

if you sometimes walk the streets

where parts of me reside

 

and how many weeks

fit into one thousand and one nights?

more than nine and a half, I am sure

 

do you think

that the equals recognize themselves in each other

and that this might be it?

 

btw I discovered a blue city

along the silk roads

 

do you know

that with patience a lot can be attained

but I have no patience

 

from time to time, I smell your scent

 

you smell of romanticism and good intentions

 

from time to time, I swallow you

 

you taste mildly of infidelity

 

I often renounce you

When you do not say what I want

(and that, in fact happens always)

and when everything

linked to you

is clear

 

except maybe for the fact

that one could live on your reputation

an entire day, which is nighttime where you are

but not on that of others

 

the others leave me hungry

 

(Translated from Croatian by Jana Begovic)

 

 

Karmela Spoljaric

  

Karmela Špoljarić was born in Zagreb. She graduated from the School of Applied Arts and Design. In addition, she graduated from the School of Croatian Studies and South-Slavic Philology, and completed her graduate literary studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.

She is a fiction writer as well as a playwright. For her young adult play Zero Kunas per Minute, she won the MK Marin Držić award, and for the novel, This is Not Twin Peaks the DHK Slavić award. She published two collections of short stories, Be Careful What You Wish For and Carousel, as well as the novels Major Tom and Rashomon.

Besides writing, the author conducts and develops tailored creative writing workshops. She designed the first online workshop How to Start and a fairy tale workshop for adults, Fairy Tale-ing. She is the co-author of the textual-visual project The Story Exhibition, as well as the creative-therapy workshop 4priče.put. She also conducts a workshop of therapeutical writing, It Does Not Matter Where You Start From.

She lives and works in Zagreb and the island of Krk.