It’s the shadow not the mask that, in the end, does the evil deed.

It’s always good to remember that Dostoevsky wrote The Gambler about his own addiction to gambling to pay off his gambling debts.

Art is an attempt to translate the Universe to oneself, and oneself to others.

In the selected hour of day
when ghosts echo
the moods of premonitions,
when tide reaches its peak,
I reach for my sharpest pen
and write
in invisible ink
a pretty poem on my skin.

If I hesitate to capture
the intention
with my blood,
if the touch is light,
and sentiment meek,
the fears which gather like crows
over Vincent’s fields of wheat
are there
to remind me,
without mercy,
that I have no courage
for this World.
No courage at all.

If I press forcefully, foolishly,
and blood flows
promising a scar
to be cherished as a warning
and memory
of each breath inhaled
on Earth,
the pain is
too sublime for tears.
Too sublime.

Thus to conjure immunity
from pain,
I inflict it, delicately,
with precision,
and beautiful intention,
with tenderness,
upon my skin.
Upon your skin.

As freedom from pain,
as immersion in pain,
laughter overheard
in the midst of battle,
as piano tunes penetrating
prison walls –
the blood flows
onwards,
like a geyser,
like paradise,
in salutation,
and I feel that clarity
is within my reach,
once again.

© Milana Vujkov, Dramatis Pesonae, 2010

Whatever they can do, I can do better. I just need to read their book.

He waits for your mistake.

All the things we threw away come back to us as birds on wires.

Nature sending telegrams.