Veslanje u prazno / Paddling Over Nothing

I sat down at the break of dawn, hoping to write a p..m where there’s at least one ferris wheel…if not two: one that never spun and one that’s constantly spinning. Instead of that, I suddenly thought of two dates bearing the same number – the date that inevitably happened and the date that didn’t really have to happen the way it did. Both have something in common: no definite explanation. Ironically, the first is harder to explain, yet is explained better, through dozens of films, books, expert articles. The second could be explained with a couple of sentences from the right mouth. But that might happen in, like, ten years, when nothing will really matter again.

More made-up words. I’m not proud of this, but I clearly hope that they don’t give the impression of some modern pseudo-artistic hipster rubbish, rather than something common to romanticism. One of my favourite writers from 200 years ago was making up words. And what was his personal tragedy? He was in love with a rich family’s daughter who didn’t care much. But that did not stop him from being one of the greatest Serbian poets, ever.

So, where is this? It might be in the dairy, cloudy fields of Syrmia. It might be in the abandoned wetlands of Polesia. Sometimes, just sometimes…it is not clear what’s going on. And yes, this one’s grotesque. There are two dates bearing the same number, yet not the same month and definitely NOT the same year. But it was interesting to mash them up.

What else? Just like Mala Distordiae, this steals structure of another piece of what I like to consider literature and what I’d call a p..m, because it’s fun that way. What piece is that? If I knew its real name, I would write it down. Wait a minute. I wouldn’t, even then.

Veslanje u prazno

And they’re, sorry, not in your mind,
But real, elsewhere.
Floating down the river,
One day you’ll float by.