IBRAHIM HONJO

 

The Childhood

 

Waters are rising and long-gone springs

Leave aromatic traces

Wormwoods are luring in purple twilights

Spring is spreading its greenish fragrance

Moss is rising from stone and soil

Hazel trees are swinging, wrapped up in snake skin

In the soul of stones and underbrush

New power is rising

Underbrush is growing around the old house

My snakelike childhood – a door that fell apart

 

Diligent ladies of the house

Are peeling eels with fig leaves

The sun is overseeing stone hatcheries

Through the clumsy walk of a barefoot child

 

I am lying on a damp stone

Hawks are flying above me

The south wind keeps my imagination awake

Sage saluting me with its solitude

Through exhausted light

Sprouting grass and fish resting in sand

Collectors of memories are trading their own past

Eel hunters charge too much for lustful pleasure

All of them are rushing into some kind of tomorrow

Only my worry is, that even today,

I don’t sell my own snakelike childhood

 

My First Sneakers

 

They bought me new sneakers

so, I could run after the sheep

that day it was raining

as people say ’raining cats and dogs’ 

 

my sneakers were filled with water

that gurgled with every move

and sprayed the nearby bushes

on a narrow forest path

 

when I brought the sheep home

grandmother carefully cleaned my sneakers

and dried them under the stove

which now reminds me of Reno 4

 

my first sneakers

that I tore on the first soccer match

when I shot in the left corner

and surprised the goalie

 

we scored one to zero

mother nodded her head

she was quiet and sadly looked at me

 

father congratulated us on victory

 

the next day I went to school

wearing the old patched shoes

 

since then

I have not played in tournaments anymore

 

Son, Do You Want

To Get Wood With Father

 

Son…

Do you want to get some wood with your father?

That's how it is every Sunday morning, early,

woke me up, my father,

if we need to go into the forest.

 

He bent,

and I'm small.

Bluer than the night,

whiter than moonlight,

through the cold of the morning

and the smell of pine dewy

for wood in the forest,

we would go

me and my old father.

 

Above the mountain Cross

the sun turns red,

it turns blue,

it turns dark blue,

it turns bloody

.

We cut timbers in the forest,

we connect with ropes

and we pull –

he is big

I'm small.

 

When we get home,

tired we lie down by the warm stove

and before mother announces breakfast,

we dream.

 

IBRAHIM HONJO

 

IBRAHIM HONJO is a Canadian/Bosnian poet-writer, who writes in Bosnian, and English language. He has worked as an economist, journalist, editor, marketing director, and property manager. He is currently retired and resides in Vancouver, BC. Honjo is author 24 published books in Bosnian Language, (7 books in English, 3 books bilingually (in English and Bosnian language). In addition, 4 joints’ books of poems published with Serbian poets. His poems have been represented in more than 60 world anthologies. Some of Honjo’s poems have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Korean, Polish, Slovenian, Bahasa (Malaysia), Mongolian, Turkmen, Turkish, Russian, Bengali, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Tajik, Vietnamese, Chinese, and German. He received several prizes for his poetry.