KAO GANG
Potrebno je malo dosade
Kako bi osetio stvari. Recimo:
Avgust, sediš na obodu kreveta
U kamenoj mediteranskoj kući,
U prijatnom frižideru. Memla se
Širi iz lepe uspomene. Zuji sve
Oko makija i grlića mastike. Ne
Znaš šta češ sa leđima pognutim,
Rukama na kolenima, sa bradom
-Divljinom koja niče, i ne staje.
Stala je jedino kiša, još u aprilu,
I zmije se lome poput krtih
Stena. To je izvan, a suvi vazduh
(pusti san bronhija) ne prodire bez
Pustinjskog peska. Radijske vesti
baritoni čitaju pogrebno da bi znao
šta je neizlaz, melanholija srasla
poput tumora. Kad zatvoriš oči,
ukloniš se odavde i vidiš teče
kredit, kao Gang. A kako?!, kad
nema više nikakvih snegova
da se otope.
LIKE THE GANGES
It takes a little boredom
to feel things. Let us say:
it is August, you sit on the edge of the bed
in the Mediterranean stone house
in the pleasant coolness. The mildew
spreads out from the beautiful reminiscence. Everything hums
around the bushes and the bottle-neck. You
don’t know where to go with the hunched back,
hands on knees, the beard,
the wilderness, which grows in profusion, without stopping.
Only the rain has stopped, in April already,
and the snakes break like crumbling
rocks. That is outside, and the dry air
(the dream of all bronchia) reaches inwards
not without desert sand. The radio news
is read by a baritone with macabre voice, so you know
what hopelessness is, melancholy, cleaving
like a tumour. When you close your eyes,
you detach yourself from here and see, the credit,
it flows like the Ganges. But how?! when there is
no snow at all any longer
that could melt.
*
This poem is the centrepiece of the main cycle (“Capitalism”) from the new poetry edition by Petar Matović (*1978, Užice) entitled Iz srećne republike (From the Happy Republic) and published by the Kulturni centar in Novi Sad. This poem in many respects represents a montage of all of Matovićs’s poetic and intellectual special themes from the other five cycles of this book. It could also be considered the culmination point of motif lines from an earlier edition Poetical Life (Koferi Džima Džarmuša [The Luggage of Jim Jarmusch] 2009; Odakle dolaze dabrovi [Where Beavers Come From], 2013), or as a turning point as well as delta from where river channels extend to something greater – a new theme from which this poetry is elaborated. We will deal later with this greater, unspoken element in this poem. First, we return to the lines of the poem “Like the Ganges” which suggest an interpretation in the form of a journey.
“Like the Ganges” comprises two verses that evoke a Mediterranean reminiscence. The context for this memory is the subject’s insensitive numbness as well as confrontation with the end of life. To ‘feel’ things again the subject escapes into memory games and especially to those moments which he believes emerged from ‘beautiful reminiscences’: August, a Mediterranean house, the heat outdoors and being in the pleasantly cool shade. Silence as the second language of poetry (a favourite topos for Matović) is transformed here into the buzzing sounds of summer and the insects. You might say that the only thing that calms him is the process of profusion surrounding him which happens beyond his control. The second verse is opened with the picture of drought that has begun in mid-springtime. The macabre baritone voice that reads the news (most likely Radio Belgrade 1) concludes the image of the memory and brings back the subject to the melancholy of that here and now. Afterwards, there follows meditative immersion in the world beyond the summer holiday, the Mediterranean, the silence in what brings forth the existential trembling and is identified by the subject as “like the Ganges”.
Having read this poem, its conclusion leaves a lasting impression on the reader because one is finally able to decipher its title. However, if we re-read the poem – and it invites us to do so – we realize that this title, exactly like the end of the poem, reveals a weak, almost phonological connection that leads us to examine an important side track: the Ganges is the holy river of Hindus; Matović’s poem is a literary memorandum about the loss of sacredness. In his poem the Ganges is a ‘river’ but not the Ganges; its mention is a reminder of the old Indian practice of naming all rivers and tributaries of this immense water course ‘like the Ganges’. Therefore, what flows through Matović’s poem also has a similar intent that it arrives at in view of the mythological image: its length (2,500 km), force, connection of unimaginable opposites (the Himalayas and the delta in Bangladesh), the unstoppable flow and ultimately the integration of all tributaries, settlements and neighbouring areas, the sky – the point of its source – and the earth that it flows through as far as its estuary where forgiveness of sins is said to be located. Similarly, there emerges the connection of the living and the dead just like along the riverbanks of the Ganges, where funeral pyres burn endlessly, and from where the ashes mingle with the waters of one of the most polluted rivers of our present time (thanks to the impact of ‘big business’). During the spring rituals, millions of the faithful bathe in these waters.
Matović’s river is not the Ganges but it is very similar to it. We reach it only after the poetic subject has gone back along the path of several ‘terraces of consciousness’ to survey the entire course of the river at the moment of deep meditation. The cipher that helps to overcome the paralyzed state of the poetic subject is ‘credit’ – the only thing with which nowadays one can afford the ‘power of a Ganges’. Now torn from the ‘beautiful reminiscences’ by the macabre voice on the radio, the subject is one of these tributaries that, along with millions of others, one day will flow into the vast bay with immense efforts. Of course, there are many reasons that prevent this goal ever being reached. A single glance back at the high mountains that provide the source of this mystical river shows that ‘there is no snow at all any longer that could melt’. The abyss begins after this verse, as the Unspoken happens: this river (the capital) is not renewed through the natural water cycle but by absorbing millions of tributary rivers (debtors) that flow to its powerful riverbed and fill it without stopping. Of course, the river source is not in the sky, but emerges from the enslavement to debt; it also withdraws from us what we do not have, pumping us out like the biggest river estuary in the world. Its course is unfathomably long: it deprives many debtors of countless months and years in their best years until their lives’ end – at least during their working life.
The Ganges was a river of Mother Nature, of repentance and cleansing, of the renewed return to life, while Matović’s “Like the Ganges” reflects the relentless process of the ‘insemination of capital on the part of the bankers’ that leads to the wide delta where the Unspoken begins: the realm of social inequality. It is here that the entire collection “From the Happy Republic” opens up – the image of a transitioning society (“Povratak sa tržnice” [“Return from the Market”]) observed from the province (“Kako nešto nestaje?”, “Ukus aluminijuma”, “Strepeći od celine” [“How Something Disappears”, “Taste of Aluminium”, “Fear of the Collective”]) and of journeys to Europe’s peripheral regions (“Na perimetru” [“In the Perimeter”] – Split, “Budeći se u oktobru” [“Awakening in October”] – Baltic, “Poljska” [“Poland”] – Remembering the Holocaust) through fragments of religious texts that have long since diagnosed the original sin of democracy or its relationship with capitalism (“Iz dnevnika oca A. Šmemana” [“From the Diary of the Priest A. Schmemann”]). These sources also show the intimate relationship to the Mediterranean, the place of the origin of democracy as well as the later immersion in its subterranean waters, or in other words, the river basin of creditors that represents its main artery. The cycle “New Markets” springs from here in which one suspects the outlines of a loveless world which these lack as much as America and China lack new markets. As the result of these tensions in the collection From the Happy Republic occasionally sporadic autopoietic sketches emerge exactly like the state of division in the last cycle with the same title. This entire world is contrasted with the fragile intimacy, the usurped warm zones, which still keep together the subject of Matović’s poetry, despite the inevitable onward flow of the rivers to one element that goes by no name – the senselessness of life.
Translation from Serbian by Elvira Veselinović
***
THE POET AT THE CONFLUENCE OF CAPITAL
KAO GANG
Potrebno je malo dosade
Kako bi osetio stvari. Recimo:
Avgust, sediš na obodu kreveta
U kamenoj mediteranskoj kući,
U prijatnom frižideru. Memla se
Širi iz lepe uspomene. Zuji sve
Oko makija i grlića mastike. Ne
Znaš šta češ sa leđima pognutim,
Rukama na kolenima, sa bradom
-Divljinom koja niče, i ne staje.
Stala je jedino kiša, još u aprilu,
I zmije se lome poput krtih
Stena. To je izvan, a suvi vazduh
(pusti san bronhija) ne prodire bez
Pustinjskog peska. Radijske vesti
baritoni čitaju pogrebno da bi znao
šta je neizlaz, melanholija srasla
poput tumora. Kad zatvoriš oči,
ukloniš se odavde i vidiš teče
kredit, kao Gang. A kako?!, kad
nema više nikakvih snegova
da se otope.
LIKE THE GANGES
It takes a little boredom
to feel things. Let us say:
it is August, you sit on the edge of the bed
in the Mediterranean stone house
in the pleasant coolness. The mildew
spreads out from the beautiful reminiscence. Everything hums
around the bushes and the bottle-neck. You
don’t know where to go with the hunched back,
hands on knees, the beard,
the wilderness, which grows in profusion, without stopping.
Only the rain has stopped, in April already,
and the snakes break like crumbling
rocks. That is outside, and the dry air
(the dream of all bronchia) reaches inwards
not without desert sand. The radio news
is read by a baritone with macabre voice, so you know
what hopelessness is, melancholy, cleaving
like a tumour. When you close your eyes,
you detach yourself from here and see, the credit,
it flows like the Ganges. But how?! when there is
no snow at all any longer
that could melt.
*
This poem is the centrepiece of the main cycle (“Capitalism”) from the new poetry edition by Petar Matović (*1978, Užice) entitled Iz srećne republike (From the Happy Republic) and published by the Kulturni centar in Novi Sad. This poem in many respects represents a montage of all of Matovićs’s poetic and intellectual special themes from the other five cycles of this book. It could also be considered the culmination point of motif lines from an earlier edition Poetical Life (Koferi Džima Džarmuša [The Luggage of Jim Jarmusch] 2009; Odakle dolaze dabrovi [Where Beavers Come From], 2013), or as a turning point as well as delta from where river channels extend to something greater – a new theme from which this poetry is elaborated. We will deal later with this greater, unspoken element in this poem. First, we return to the lines of the poem “Like the Ganges” which suggest an interpretation in the form of a journey.
“Like the Ganges” comprises two verses that evoke a Mediterranean reminiscence. The context for this memory is the subject’s insensitive numbness as well as confrontation with the end of life. To ‘feel’ things again the subject escapes into memory games and especially to those moments which he believes emerged from ‘beautiful reminiscences’: August, a Mediterranean house, the heat outdoors and being in the pleasantly cool shade. Silence as the second language of poetry (a favourite topos for Matović) is transformed here into the buzzing sounds of summer and the insects. You might say that the only thing that calms him is the process of profusion surrounding him which happens beyond his control. The second verse is opened with the picture of drought that has begun in mid-springtime. The macabre baritone voice that reads the news (most likely Radio Belgrade 1) concludes the image of the memory and brings back the subject to the melancholy of that here and now. Afterwards, there follows meditative immersion in the world beyond the summer holiday, the Mediterranean, the silence in what brings forth the existential trembling and is identified by the subject as “like the Ganges”.
Having read this poem, its conclusion leaves a lasting impression on the reader because one is finally able to decipher its title. However, if we re-read the poem – and it invites us to do so – we realize that this title, exactly like the end of the poem, reveals a weak, almost phonological connection that leads us to examine an important side track: the Ganges is the holy river of Hindus; Matović’s poem is a literary memorandum about the loss of sacredness. In his poem the Ganges is a ‘river’ but not the Ganges; its mention is a reminder of the old Indian practice of naming all rivers and tributaries of this immense water course ‘like the Ganges’. Therefore, what flows through Matović’s poem also has a similar intent that it arrives at in view of the mythological image: its length (2,500 km), force, connection of unimaginable opposites (the Himalayas and the delta in Bangladesh), the unstoppable flow and ultimately the integration of all tributaries, settlements and neighbouring areas, the sky – the point of its source – and the earth that it flows through as far as its estuary where forgiveness of sins is said to be located. Similarly, there emerges the connection of the living and the dead just like along the riverbanks of the Ganges, where funeral pyres burn endlessly, and from where the ashes mingle with the waters of one of the most polluted rivers of our present time (thanks to the impact of ‘big business’). During the spring rituals, millions of the faithful bathe in these waters.
Matović’s river is not the Ganges but it is very similar to it. We reach it only after the poetic subject has gone back along the path of several ‘terraces of consciousness’ to survey the entire course of the river at the moment of deep meditation. The cipher that helps to overcome the paralyzed state of the poetic subject is ‘credit’ – the only thing with which nowadays one can afford the ‘power of a Ganges’. Now torn from the ‘beautiful reminiscences’ by the macabre voice on the radio, the subject is one of these tributaries that, along with millions of others, one day will flow into the vast bay with immense efforts. Of course, there are many reasons that prevent this goal ever being reached. A single glance back at the high mountains that provide the source of this mystical river shows that ‘there is no snow at all any longer that could melt’. The abyss begins after this verse, as the Unspoken happens: this river (the capital) is not renewed through the natural water cycle but by absorbing millions of tributary rivers (debtors) that flow to its powerful riverbed and fill it without stopping. Of course, the river source is not in the sky, but emerges from the enslavement to debt; it also withdraws from us what we do not have, pumping us out like the biggest river estuary in the world. Its course is unfathomably long: it deprives many debtors of countless months and years in their best years until their lives’ end – at least during their working life.
The Ganges was a river of Mother Nature, of repentance and cleansing, of the renewed return to life, while Matović’s “Like the Ganges” reflects the relentless process of the ‘insemination of capital on the part of the bankers’ that leads to the wide delta where the Unspoken begins: the realm of social inequality. It is here that the entire collection “From the Happy Republic” opens up – the image of a transitioning society (“Povratak sa tržnice” [“Return from the Market”]) observed from the province (“Kako nešto nestaje?”, “Ukus aluminijuma”, “Strepeći od celine” [“How Something Disappears”, “Taste of Aluminium”, “Fear of the Collective”]) and of journeys to Europe’s peripheral regions (“Na perimetru” [“In the Perimeter”] – Split, “Budeći se u oktobru” [“Awakening in October”] – Baltic, “Poljska” [“Poland”] – Remembering the Holocaust) through fragments of religious texts that have long since diagnosed the original sin of democracy or its relationship with capitalism (“Iz dnevnika oca A. Šmemana” [“From the Diary of the Priest A. Schmemann”]). These sources also show the intimate relationship to the Mediterranean, the place of the origin of democracy as well as the later immersion in its subterranean waters, or in other words, the river basin of creditors that represents its main artery. The cycle “New Markets” springs from here in which one suspects the outlines of a loveless world which these lack as much as America and China lack new markets. As the result of these tensions in the collection From the Happy Republic occasionally sporadic autopoietic sketches emerge exactly like the state of division in the last cycle with the same title. This entire world is contrasted with the fragile intimacy, the usurped warm zones, which still keep together the subject of Matović’s poetry, despite the inevitable onward flow of the rivers to one element that goes by no name – the senselessness of life.
Original translation from Serbian into German by Elvira Veselinović/ translates into English by Susanne Kirkbright
***
DER DICHTER IM ZUSAMMENFLUSS DES KAPITALS
von Saša Ilić • Juni 2018
KAO GANG
Potrebno je malo dosade
Kako bi osetio stvari. Recimo:
Avgust, sediš na obodu kreveta
U kamenoj mediteranskoj kući,
U prijatnom frižideru. Memla se
Širi iz lepe uspomene. Zuji sve
Oko makija i grlića mastike. Ne
Znaš šta češ sa leđima pognutim,
Rukama na kolenima, sa bradom
-Divljinom koja niče, i ne staje.
Stala je jedino kiša, još u aprilu,
I zmije se lome poput krtih
Stena. To je izvan, a suvi vazduh
(pusti san bronhija) ne prodire bez
Pustinjskog peska. Radijske vesti
baritoni čitaju pogrebno da bi znao
šta je neizlaz, melanholija srasla
poput tumora. Kad zatvoriš oči,
ukloniš se odavde i vidiš teče
kredit, kao Gang. A kako?!, kad
nema više nikakvih snegova
da se otope.
WIE DER GANGES
Es braucht ein wenig Langeweile
um die Dinge zu spüren. Sagen wir mal:
Es ist August, du sitzt auf der Bettkante
im mediterranen Steinhaus
Im angenehmen Kühlschrank. Der Schimmel
breitet sich von der schönen Erinnerung aus. Alles summt
um die Büsche und den Flaschenhals herum. Du
weißt nicht, wohin mit dem gebeugten Rücken,
den Händen auf den Knien, dem Bart,
der Wildnis, die wuchert, ohne aufzuhören.
Aufgehört hat nur der Regen, schon im April,
und die Schlangen brechen wie mürbe
Felsen. Das ist außen, und die trockene Luft
(der Traum aller Bronchien) gelangt nicht ohne
Wüstensand nach innen. Die Radionachrichten
liest ein Bariton mit Grabesstimme, damit du weißt
was Ausweglosigkeit ist, Melancholie, festgewachsen
wie ein Tumor. Wenn du die Augen schließt,
entfernst du dich von hier und siehst, der Kredit,
er läuft wie der Ganges. Aber wie?! wenn es
doch gar keinen Schnee mehr gibt
der schmelzen könnte.
*
Dies ist das zentrale Gedicht des Hauptzyklus (“Kapitalismus”) im neuesten Gedichtband von Petar Matović (*1978, Užice), der unter dem Titel Iz srećne republike (Aus der glücklichen Republik) vom Kulturni centar in Novi Sad veröffentlicht wurde. Dieses Gedicht stellt in vielerlei Hinsicht einen Zusammenschnitt aller dichterischen und intellektuellen Schwerpunkte Matovićs aus den übrigen fünf Zyklen dieses Buches dar. Man könnte es auch als Mündungspunkt der Motivlinien der vorhergehenden Dichterleben (Koferi Džima Džarmuša [Die Koffer des Jim Jarmusch] 2009; Odakle dolaze dabrovi [Woher die Biber kommen], 2013) betrachten; als einen Wendepunkt sowie als das Delta, aus dem sich die Flussarme zu etwas Größerem ausbreiten, dem neuem Thema, aus dem diese Poesie gewebt wird. Dieses Größere und Unausgesprochene in diesem Gedicht heben wir uns für später auf. Kehren wir zunächst zu den Versen des Gedichts “Wie der Ganges” zurück, die zu einer Deutung in Form einer Reise einladen.
“Wie der Ganges” besteht aus zwei Strophen, in denen eine mediterrane Erinnerung heraufbeschworen wird. Der Rahmen für diese Rückkehr bildet eine gefühllose Taubheit des Subjekts sowie dessen Konfrontation mit dem eigenen Leben an dessen Ende. Um die Dinge wieder “fühlen” zu können, flüchtet sich das Subjekt in Erinnerungsspielchen, und zwar in die Momente, von denen es glaubt, dass sie aus “schönen Erinnerungen” entspringen: August, ein mediterranes Haus, draußen ist es heiß, es befindet sich im angenehm kühlen Schatten. Die Stille als zweite Sprache der Poesie (ein beliebter Topos bei Matović) verwandelt sich hier in das Surren des Sommers und der Insekten. Man könnte sagen: das Einzige, was ihn beunruhigt, ist der Prozess des Wildwuchses um ihn herum, der sich außerhalb seines Willens befindet. Die zweite Strophe wird vom Bild der Dürre eröffnet, die mitten im Frühling begonnen hat. Der Grabes-Bariton, der die Nachrichten verliest (mit Sicherheit Radio Beograd 1) schließt das Bild der Erinnerung ab und bringt das Subjekt zurück in die Melancholie jenes Hier und Jetzt. Danach folgt das meditative Abtauchen in die Welt jenseits des Sommerurlaubs, des Mittelmeers, der Stille in das, was das existentielle Zittern hervorruft und vom Subjekt als “wie der Ganges” identifiziert wird.
Nach der Lektüre dieses Gedichts hinterlässt dessen Schluss einen bleibenden Eindruck beim Leser, da es diesem endlich gelingt, dessen Titel zu dechiffrieren. Wenn wir jedoch, denn das verlangt dieses Gedicht, zum erneuten Lesen zurückkehren, begreifen wir, dass dieser Titel, genau wie der Schluss des Gedichts, einen schwachen, gerade einmal phonologischen Zusammenhang aufweisen, der auf einen wichtigen Nebenpfad für dessen Verständnis führt: Der Ganges ist der heilige Fluss der Hindus, Matovićs Gedicht eine literarische Niederschrift über den Verlust der Heiligkeit. Der Ganges in seinem Gedicht ist in der Tat ein “Fluss”, aber es ist nicht der Ganges; dessen Erwähnung erinnert an die alte indische Praxis, alle Flüsse und Nebenflüsse dieses Wassergiganten als “wie der Ganges” zu bezeichnen. Daher hat auch das, was durch Matovićs Gedicht fließt, eine ähnliche Intention, zu der es infolge der mythologischen Abbildung gelangt: der Länge nach (2500 km), der Stärke, der Verbindung unvorstellbarer Gegensätze (Himalaja und das Delta in Bangladesch), der Unaufhaltbarkeit des Stromes und schließlich der Integration aller Nebenflüsse, Siedlungen und Anrainer, des Himmels – wo er entspringt – und der Erde, durch die er fließt bis zu seiner Mündung, in der die Sündenvergebung zu finden sein sollte. Ebenso kommt es zur Verbindung der Toten mit den Lebenden, wie an den tatsächlichen Ufern des Ganges, wo unentwegt Scheiterhaufen brennen, von wo aus die Asche sich mit den Wässern eines der verseuchtesten Flüsse der Gegenwart mischt (durch die Wirkung "des großen Business"), in dem Millionen von Gläubigen zur Zeit der Frühjahrsrituale baden.
Matovićs Fluss ist nicht der Ganges, aber er ähnelt ihm sehr. Zu ihm gelangt man erst nachdem das Subjekt den Weg durch einige “Bewusstseinsterrassen” rückwärts gegangen ist, um im Moment tiefer Meditation den ganzen Flusslauf zu überschauen. Die Chiffre, mithilfe derer sich der gelähmte Zustand des dichterischen Subjekts knacken lässt, lautet “Kredit”, das Einzige, womit man sich heute “die Macht eines Ganges” leisten kann. Das Subjekt, von der Grabesstimme aus dem Radio aus den “schönen Erinnerungen” gerissen, ist eigentlich einer von dessen Nebenflüssen, die gemeinsam mit Millionen anderer eines Tages unter großen Anstrengungen in die große Bucht fließen werden. Natürlich gibt es viele Gründe, die es verhindern, dass dieses Ziel jemals erreicht wird. Denn mit nur einem Blick zurück auf die hohen Berge, unter denen dieser mystische Fluss entspringt, stellt man fest, dass es “keinen Schnee mehr gibt, der schmelzen könnte”. Hinter diesem Vers beginnt der Abgrund, da das Unausgesprochene geschieht: dieser Fluss (des Kapitals) erneuert sich nicht durch den natürlichen Wasserkreislauf, sondern durch das Aussaugen von Millionen von Nebenflüssen (Schuldnern), die zu ihrem mächtigen Flussbett strömen und es unaufhörlich füllen. Und natürlich entspringt er nicht im Himmel, sondern aus der Schuldensklaverei, er entzieht uns auch das, was wir selbst gar nicht haben, pumpt uns aus wie die größte Mündung der Welt. Sein Lauf ist tatsächlich unfassbar lang: vielen Schuldnern in den besten Jahren nimmt er sämtliche Monate und Jahre bis zum Lebensende, zumindest während des Berufslebens.
Der Ganges war ein Fluss der Mutter Natur, der Buße und der Reinigung, der erneuten Rückkehr zum Leben, während Matovićs “Wie der Ganges” der unaufhaltbare Prozess der “Befruchtung des Kapitals seitens der Bänker” darstellt, der zum breiten Delta führt, bei dem das Unausgesprochene beginnt: der Bereich der sozialen Ungleichheit. An dieser Stelle öffnet sich auch die ganze Sammlung Aus der glücklichen Republik, das Bild einer Transitionsgesellschaft („Povratak sa tržnice“ [“Rückkehr vom Markt”]) aus der Provinz betrachtet („Kako nešto nestaje?“, „Ukus aluminijuma“, „Strepeći od celine“ [“Wie verschwindet etwas”, “Geschmack des Aluminiums”, “Bangen vor der Gesamtheit”]) von Reisen zu den Randbereichen Europas („Na perimetru“ [“Im Perimeter”] – Split, „Budeći se u oktobru“ [“Aufwachen im Oktober”] – Baltikum, „Poljska“ [“Polen”] – Erinnerung an den Holocaust) durch Fragmente religiöser Texte, die die Ursprungssünde der Demokratie bzw. deren Beziehung zum Kapitalismus schon lange diagnostiziert haben („Iz dnevnika oca A. Šmemana“ [“Aus dem Tagebuch des Priesters A. Schmemann”]). Daher auch die innige Beziehung zum Mittelmeer, dem Herkunftsort der Demokratie sowie das spätere Abtauchen in dessen unterirdische Gewässer, also das Flussgebiet der Kreditoren, dass deren Schlagader darstellt. Von dort entspringt der Zyklus “Neue Märkte” in dem sich Umrisse einer Welt ohne Liebe erahnen lassen, dem diese ebenso fehlt wie Amerika und China die neuen Märkte. Als Resultat dieser Spannungen entstehen auch zeitweilige in der Sammlung Aus der glücklichen Republik verstreute autopoetische Aufzeichnungen, genau wie der Zustand der Zerteiltheit im letzten gleichnamigen Zyklus. Dieser ganzen Welt wird die fragile Intimität gegenübergestellt, die usurpierten Wärmezonen, die das Subjekt von Matovićs Poesie immer noch zusammenhalten, trotz dem unweigerlichen Weiterfließen der Flüsse zu dem unbenannten Einen – der Sinnlosigkeit des Lebens.
Aus dem Serbischen von Elvira Veselinović
PESNIK U SLIVU KAPITALA
by Saša Ilić • Juni, 2018.
KAO GANG
Potrebno je malo dosade
Kako bi osetio stvari. Recimo:
Avgust, sediš na obodu kreveta
U kamenoj mediteranskoj kući,
U prijatnom frižideru. Memla se
Širi iz lepe uspomene. Zuji sve
Oko makija i grlića mastike. Ne
Znaš šta češ sa leđima pognutim,
Rukama na kolenima, sa bradom
-Divljinom koja niče, i ne staje.
Stala je jedino kiša, još u aprilu,
I zmije se lome poput krtih
Stena. To je izvan, a suvi vazduh
(pusti san bronhija) ne prodire bez
Pustinjskog peska. Radijske vesti
baritoni čitaju pogrebno da bi znao
šta je neizlaz, melanholija srasla
poput tumora. Kad zatvoriš oči,
ukloniš se odavde i vidiš teče
kredit, kao Gang. A kako?!, kad
nema više nikakvih snegova
da se otope.
*
Ovo je centralna pesma stožernog ciklusa („Kapitalizam“) najnovije pesničke zbirke Petra Matovića (Užice, 1978) koja je pod naslovom Iz srećne republike objavljena u Kulturnom centru Novog Sada. Po mnogo čemu, ova pesma integriše sve Matovićeve pesničke i intelektualne preokupacije iz preostalih pet ciklusa („Ne hleb, već morfijum“, „Nova tržišta“, „Pre plamena“, „Osipanja“, „Podeljenost“) ove knjige. Moglo bi se reći da je ova pesma mesto uviranja motivskih linija prethodnih pesnikovih života (Koferi Džima Džarmuša, 2009; Odakle dolaze dabrovi, 2013), tačka preloma, kao i delta odakle se šire rukavci ka nečemu većem kao novoj temi koja intrigira ovu poeziju. To veće i neizgovoreno u ovoj pesmi ostavićemo za kasnije. Vratimo se sada stihovima pesme „Kao Gang“ koja poziva na tumačenje kao na putovanje.
„Kao Gang“ ima dve strofe u kojima se evocira jedna mediteranska uspomena. Okvir za ovaj povratak je bezosećajna utrnulost subjekta, kao i njegovo suočenje sa sopstvenim životom na kraju. Da bi ponovo počeo da „oseća“ stvari, subjekt pribegava igri sećanja i to na časove za koje veruje da izviru iz „lepe uspomene“: avgust, mediteranska kuća, napolju je vrućina, on se nalazi u prijatnoj hladovini. Tišina kao drugi jezik poezije (omiljeni Matovićev topos) ovde je pretvorena u zujanje insekata i leta. Reklo bi se da je jedino što ga uznemirava proces rasta divljine unaokolo, koja je izvan njegove volje. Drugu strofu otvara slika suše, koja je počela sredinom proleća. Pogrebni bariton koji čita vesti (svakako sa Radio Beograda 1) zatvara sliku sećanja i vraća subjekt u melanholiju onog ovde i sada. Nakon toga će uslediti meditativno poniranje u svet iza letovanja, Mediterana, tišine, u ono što izaziva egzistencijalno drhtanje a što subjekt detektuje „kao Gang“.
Kada se pročita ova pesma, čitalac ostaje pod utiskom njenog završetka koji napokon dešifruje njen naslov. No kada se vratimo ponovnom čitanju, jer ona to zahteva, shvatamo da taj naslov, kao i završetak pesme zapravo imaju slabu tek fonološku vezu koja navodi na važan sporedni put za njeno razumevanje: Gang je sveta reka hinduista, Matovićeva pesma je pesnički zapis o gubtiku svetosti. Gang u njegovoj pesmi jeste „reka“, ali nije Gang; njeno imenovanje podseća na staru indijsku praksu da se sve reke iz sliva ovog hidrološkog giganta nazovu rekom „kao što je Gang“. Stoga i to što protiče kroz Matovićevu pesmu ima sličnu intenciju do koje dolazi usled mitološkog preslikavanja: po dužini (2500 km), po snazi, po spajanju nezamislivih krajnosti (Himalaja i delte u Bangladešu), po nezaustavljivosti protoka, naposletku po integraciji svih pritoka, naselja i ljudi oko reke, neba – gde izvire – i zemlje kroz koju prolazi do ušća, koje bi trebalo da ponudi iskupljujenje. Isto tako, dolazi do povezivanja mrtvih i živih, kao na stvarnim obalama Ganga, gde neprestano gore lomače, odakle se pepeo meša sa vodama danas jedne od najzagađenijih reka (učinkom „velikog biznisa“), u kojoj se milioni vernika okupa u vreme prolećnih rituala.
Matovićeva reka nije Gang, ali mu sasvim nalikuje. Do nje se dopire tek pošto subjekt prođe kroz „terase svesti“, unazad, da bi u trenutku duboke meditacije sagledao čitav njen tok. Šifra koja dekodira stanje utrnulosti pesničkog subjekta je reč „ kredit“, koji danas jedini priskrbljuje „moć jednog Ganga“. Subjekt, kog pogrebni glas sa radija prene iz „lepe uspomene“, zapravo je jedna njegova pritoka koja će zajedno sa milionima drugih jednog dana, uz velike napore, stići do velikog zaliva. Naravno, postoji mnoštvo razloga da se do tog cilja nikada ne stigne. Naime, jedan pogled unatrag, na visoke planine pod kojima izvire ova mistična reka, utvrđuje da „nema više nikakvih snegova da se otope“. Iza ovog stiha nastupa ambis, jer sledi ono neizgovoreno: ova reka (kapitala) i ne obnavlja se prirodnim kruženjem vode, već isisavanjem novca iz miliona pritoka (dužnika) koji teku ka njenom moćnom koritu koje se neprestano puni. Ona dakako ne izvire na nebu, već iz našeg dužničkog ropstva, ona izvlači i ono što sami ne posedujemo, crpi iz nas kao iz najvećeg sliva na svetu. Njen tok je zaista nezamislivo dug; od mnogih dužnika u najboljim godinama – obično uzima sve mesece i godine do kraja života, bar onog radnog dela.
Gang je bio reka majke prirode, iskupljenja grehova i očišćenja, ponovnog povratka životu, dok je Matovićev „kao Gang“ nezaustavljivi proces „bankarske oplodnje kapitala“ koji vodi ka širokoj delti odakle počinje ono neizgovoreno: prostor društvene nejednakosti. Na ovom mestu se otvara i čitava zbirka Iz srećene republike, slika jedne tranzicione društvene zajednice („Povratak sa tržnice“), koja se sagledava iz provincije („Kako nešto nestaje?“, „Ukus aluminijuma“, „Strepeći od celine“) sa putovanja po rubnim predelima Evrope („Na perimetru“ – Split, „Budeći se u oktobru“ - Baltik, „Poljska“ – sećanje na Holokaust) kroz fragmente religioznih tekstova koji su davno dijagnostikovali prvobitni greh demokratije, tj. njenu vezu sa kapitalizmom („Iz dnevnika oca A. Šmemana“). Otuda i intimna veza sa Mediteranom, prostorom početaka demokratije kao i potonje poniranje u njene podzemne vode, tj. kreditorski sliv koji predstavlja njenu žilu kucavicu. Odatle izvire ciklus „Nova tržišta“ u kome se naziru obrisi sveta bez ljubavi, kome ona nedostaje kao što Americi i Kini nedostaju nove tržišne ekspanzije. Kao rezultat ovih tenzija nastaju i povremeni autopoteički zapisi rasuti po zbirci Iz srećne republike, baš kao i stanje podeljenosti iz poslednjeg istoimenog ciklusa. Čitavom ovom svetu suprotstavljen je fragilni svet intime, uzurpirane zone topline koje subjekt Matovićeve poezije još uvek drže na okupu, uprkos neumitnom proticanju reka ka neimenovanom jednom – besmislu života.
