#slavic
Being Slavic is a living weight,
Concrete blocks where pigeons wait.
Streets cracked open, puddles wide,
A stray dog follows at your side.
Celler jars bubble, sour and sweet,
Pickled cabbage, fruit compote to eat.
Mushrooms hang from beams in dust,
Leaves for tea, old wood and rust.
Living rooms hold glass and plates,
Old lace curtains, fading fates.
The tables flowers wilt and lean,
Cold sausage waits beside the screen.
Gardens bulge with stubborn spuds,
Hands in dirt, backs bent in mud.
Summer heat makes soil your friend,
Each seed a prayer you plant to end.
Night comes crawling, streets are rough,
Drunks will call you, bluff by bluff.
Laughter spills like broken glass,
You hope your step is quick to pass.
Schools are prisons, walls bare white,
Tables scarred from years of fight.
Carpets rare, blackboards cracked,
Lessons whisper, spirits lacked.
Living Slavic is quiet, hard,
Smile a luxury, life a guard.
Talk with old women on the bus,
Hope your country will last for us.
Jan 19
Jan 19, 2026 at 1:23 PM UTC
/Strophe/
O Vesna, breath returned from iron frost,
Breaker of ice and winter’s hoarded cost.
You rise where fields ley mute and bound,
Where dead grass bit the frozen ground.
From buried roots your summons runs,
Sap climbs the wood, the thaw begins.
You lift the river from its chain,
Unseal the hill, unbind the plain.
Lambs find their feet, birds test the air,
And lighth relearns to settle there.
/Antistrophe/
Not soft you come, nor gently crowned,
Your hands are wet with soil and wound.
You draw Morena from her reign,
Lay her down to sleep again.
The fire is lit, the old year burned,
Ash to the furrows duly turned.
We dress in bloom, in wreath and stem,
Bind our young hopes to you and them.
Blood warms the feast, the lamb is slaoin,
Life fed by life, by loss and gain.
/Epode/
You stand between the bone and shoot,
The seed split open, raw, uncute.
Not mercy, but continaunce sworn,
The law that rot must feed the corn.
O keeper of the narrow way
Where death gives ground to breathing day,
Remain until the grain stands tall,
Then leave us to the turning fall.
For we are yours, and briefly live
By what you take, by what you give.
Jan 6
Jan 6, 2026 at 1:46 PM UTC
O Mirek, Mirek, briar-brained wren,
why do you tumble again and again?
The dawn has sighed at your crooked stride,
she’s packed her bags for the other side.
You toast the dusk with nettle-tea,
and claim it tastes like “destiny.”
But nettles bite the tongue they kiss
and leave you humming into the abyss.
You court the maidens by sheer mishap,
you knock on one, but greet her pap.
You sought to serenade sweet Irena,
yet crooned instead to old Aunt Helena,
who tapped her cane in stern delight
and chased you howling through the night.
Last week you praised young fair Danica,
gifted her moss and a chipped harmonica,
but slipped and fell in the village well
and wooed your echo there as well.
The crows observe, the elders sneer,
yet still you skip with dubious cheer,
seeking a sweetheart in every puddle.
offering mud pies to prove you’re subtle.
They say the willows gossip your plight,
that even owls averzt at night
when you attempt a gallant pose,
your sleeves catch wind, your trousers rose.
But fret not, Mirek, luck’s a drake
that swims in every foolish lake,
and you, with lanterns half-extinguished,
still glow enough to keep them kindled.
O Mirek, Mirek, dusk-born sprout,
your heart a knot, your thoughts devout,
you braid misfortune into charms
and wear them proudly on your srms.
And if you trip near twilight’s seam,
pursuing some bewildered dream,
the moon will chuckle at your sway
and tuck your footprints far away.
And should you vanish one soft night,
slipping between the reed/(grass) from sight,
the village will shrug at break of day:
“He tripped on a star and wandered away.”
Dec 12, 2025
Dec 12, 2025 at 4:57 PM UTC