Love and Lights

U2labcoat1Life moves in mysterious ways. What started out as an acquaintance over mutual love for one of the biggest bands in the world quickly grew into collaboration on a very cool project, and one email after another, I can now say that I’m positively amazed by the light that is my friend James!
The band in question is U2. Those who know me personally also know that this is one of the first bands I started listening to (back in 1989), and that my first concert ever was the one U2 held on their PopMart tour in Sarajevo in 1997. Now on to something you might not have known before: after my musings on U2.com, James responded to my writing and upon him introducing me to his awesome project of a “lab coat around the world”, I was interested to know more and participate. Yes, it was actually a real lab coat signed and decorated by U2 fans across the globe (along with many gifts, DVDs and many other thingies)! Plenty of white surface to cover, but, by the time it reached me, it was already pleasantly colourful! U2labcoat2So, I do the “obligatory” photo session in the lab coat after putting my own touch on it, end up on a blog site of like-minded people and James’ friends – and then we started talking more and more, often about personal things as well. James then confessed to being a poetry lover like me, and even sent me a lovely book of poems from 1927! U2poems1Good thing the book reached me, because it said on the package that the post actually missent it to TaiPei (I still don’t know how TaiPei might sound like B&H, but nevermind). But that’s not all – about two weeks ago, he finally shared his own poetry with me – and the inspiration was none other than moi! I’m still amazed and still blushing from this incredible gift. In turn, I wanted to share his wonderful verses with you, dear readers, wishing for you to remember that there are extraordinary people out there, and friendships that are worth gold. Thank you, James, for this poem and your friendship! We’ll meet on a U2 concert soon for sure!

Love and Lights
(for Ilhana)

Daylight hours host the mundane and cliché
Quiet humdrum beat of the quest for pay
Lines of masses arranged in single file
Driving with glazed looks , mile after mind-numbing mile
Conforming
Resigning to boring
Comfortable and unbothered they seek to remain
Choosing feeling nothing over feeling any pain
Dreams of youth thus traded
For lukewarm nothing and mediocrity
Capalist façade of consumerism, slowly molding the insane

I met a girl in the darkness, born of star-filled night
Poetry and art flowing through her veins
Emitting the majesty of a raven in flight
Believes not in umbrellas, wants to feel the sensational rain
Wishing upon others “love and lights”
Light only needed where light doesn’t exist
She’s seen the most horrible evils man has to offer
She kept love alive on the precipice of war torn abyss
“dreaming out loud“ becomes her
She sculpts words into masterful form
Not interested in what others see as “normal “
She has darkness, peace, goodwill and love and lights to keep her warm
She has a name others might find ”hard to spell“
But its an honor to be able to see
A wordsmith of inspirational magnitude
Yet as sweet as a person can be
When shall I meet her?
I often wonder up in my mind
This lovely, starlit, intense child of the darkest night
Perhaps one day, perhaps never
The future might not get it right
But she will always be a brilliantly luminous inspiration
This dark girl full of love and full of light

Six months ago…

… the promotion of my first book of poetry “Thanatonaut” took place in our Town Hall. It was a magnificent night for me and many poetry lovers and, quite frankly, I was blushing the whole time. My verses, raw and sincere, revealed for the first time to the world, were standing proud, carrying the unbearable lightness of being… into the light. Six months later, they are accompanied by many more, an army of words marching toward the horizons ahead – and this website that is, as of tonight, officially online.

Thanks to everyone present at the promotion, and to all those who supported my eccentric path. At the end (or, better say, the beginning) here is a link to the local news on the night (featuring some of my fave photos, though the text is only available in Bosnian):

“THANATONAUT” on Radio Velika Kladuša

Dark greetings from the Cursed Poet

Arthur Rimbaud – A Poet

It seems like I cannot go without mentioning Rimbaud in my posts so far. His writing reflects his young, playful nature and his remarkable thoughts on poets speak to my own, blurry visions.

A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men: the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed–and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!