Jurgis Janavicius
The Promised Poems

© 1997 by Jurgis Janavicius and gangan books australia

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TOWN OF FATE

Conscious of the trouser leg
smearing the blood
all over my shin and sock
I watched the sunset:
walls of yellow and gold
changing /O town of my fate! /
into red and grey

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RETURN AT DUSK

In summer when the bats fanned out at dusk
across the waters from the island
the voyager returned. By then
old Roy had set his traps, the midgets dozed
in their calash, there was no forcing nothing,
no blaze, only a murmur, a gentle
wash and sucking of the tide.
        But as the evening darkened the outlines of
the trees assumed stark, heroic proportions, utzonian
fangs pointed moonwards and faraway lights blinked
at the punt. And yet there was nothing bared, nothing
easily woundable, odd words may be, words like zhuvis,
sidabras, vakaras ... words which had here no defence.
        As a weapon, he mused, all memories are pathetic,
all memories are blunted, all memories are soft.
        Tek! Tek!
A trap snapped shut. Along
thin plumes of mist, treading
on crofts of soldier crabs he
walked towards the lights
on moonlit sands.

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E-mail janatel@tpgi.com.au