we melted the smell of snow away
Snow turns into rain as it covers the layers of mud
And the sods of grass grown prematurely
Slipping underneath my fingers and losing balance
Like flour
From a cake I cannot knead
Snuck into the pillow case to hide away
Droplets of dried ichor
The nostrils rolling a sensation in the making
Symbiotically infused with sweet herbs
I am holding my breath and tickling the white fur
Lulled by the upper side
That is breathing
beating
Thriving
Spilling into the grooves of my palm
Thinning a line with the tip of the index finger
Drawing your shape
Feet worn from climbing, joints well-oiled
We melted the smell of snow away
That is avoidable in surrender
With rapid squeaky inhalations
I’m shaking off the mud
The belly tightening to the left
As I pull on and scratch the adjustment
To the lack of four-legged company
—————————————-
Dragging traces
I tear off the scab
From the thigh
Upside-down snow
Floats on a black tile
dragging traces
Unearthing the waiting
Of dry skin
Numb in the grooves
With streams of brought days
I sob with awareness
Of the disease growing weaker (I will taste it some day)
The overwhelming cramp
Yours, now mine
In the flashes of a film on repeat
Rushes of blood flow
Or foundations once used for take-off
Washed-up the forces
Removed the uprooted weeds
Through inklings
Of cold whiffs
Through the hallway,
Your shape is flickering
And eyelashes,
like a hedgehog, are crawling through
An opaque emptiness
Of particles accidentally afloat
The insides of the horizon
I didn’t shift my trajectory
For heads to touch tickling
A lake in the aorta
Circling backwards
Throwing me
Into that
The next first sniffing
Stained Whiteness
with a fresh scar
The insides of the horizon
Dragging traces
You accepted and endured
Another black presence
Attitudes
Of jealously while holding guard
Bypassing those bigger than you
While pushing us in new directions
Now
Using my thumb and index finger
I determine the dryness of the fern
My pupils are swirling
The measurements of black woodpeckers
Input knocking signals
The audibility of playful blackbirds
Singing songs on branches
Body language through movement
Learnt from you
An inhalation kept in the throat
Sharpened by bitterness
Bouncing through
Imprinted memories
In symbiosis with lonely rotations
I am catching invisible vines
to find
Balance
that is missing
Monochrome (c)anine autism
There was undergrowth across the road
Darkness was wheezing under shaky branches
You were standing on the wall
Teleporting into branches
The neighbour told me;
“We will be parents
Both of them escaped
And she was in heat”
The monochrome path of white fur
Laid down by tiny brown dots
She scraped the steps left behind
With cyclic dog stunts
Through layers of runaway seconds
On a leash provided moments later
In a small semi-circle of ignoring
Or quick casual sniffs
The tail upright like a radar
Receiving scent puzzles
Briskly avoiding all else
Disinterested muteness
Devotion to greenness
tree skins
a landscape in shrubbery
discovered stops
sieved autism (towards his own kind)
While December and November were too warm
The lifted paw was adjusting
Other smells
Remaining airborne too long
And when you would lap water at nighttime
Or get sick
The hairless areas radiated coldness
After the first long emptying of the bladder
You turned around, dragging in the direction of home where the pillow resides
In close proximity to the radiator
This proximity interrupts the flow of my body
The unfilled places
The ringing ears materialising
The offspring
That you never made
Februaries
An open green bean
Slightly skewed seed
Removed from the forest
into the jacket front pocket
Februaries
Awakened caterpillars
One of which started nibbling the sesame seed I dropped
I reconstructed the movement
Of stepping over the forest water
And the one beside me on my way to work
The stream is not too muddy today
And one duck
Swung his body against the current
The white colour of fur drawing me magnetically
I stop
Mutter at 15 and at last week’s −5
I used to stop your body from shivering with a blow-dryer
And pulled on your vest
Now the smaller one is touching yours on the inside
Of a wardrobe with broken edges
A conversation was accidentally struck up today
That it’s been a year and a half since his has also been gone
Walkingaroundhimandsniffinghim
like newly grown trees
the joints spell out impressions
in jolts
of the lake’s curves
i am subtly avoiding going back to the embankment
i will find the sniffing of shrews and mice
the sounds bouncing off
the reconstruction
of slugs
lifted by a plantain leaf
that made room for runners
thoughts spinning
about your passage through the underpass
the two roads
where you shook me upside down
Drowned me in worry
In lying down
adventures gone cold
while waiting (for me)
on trampled grass
in front of the building
zones of trajectories
Through the efforts of the eye muscle’s tickling
The mountain ahead is silhouetted
My eyes are locked on the white spot in motion
The drawn up strength
A tangle of forest shadows
The chased down smell of rabbit hops
Labyrinth zones of trajectories
Are connected with movements
Of lungworts and yarrows
In waiting
The point of progress
is approaching
from an unbelievable source
Anachronistically brown
observations of the wetness
the traces of soil disappear
a metamorphosis of vibrations
contagion
pulsations of joy
Eyes brimming with the pleasure of digging
rolling around in mud and carcasses
(now) scattering while being extracted from the collage of memories
the water doesn’t go above your elbows
The flow of turns in
The lurking of powers
Of movement on the peninsula
Of sniffing
Sand particles sticking
The wrinkling of torn water lilies
On tiny half-soaked lumps
Deep green is racing
Caught up by the addition of blue
Through the elation
Of orange skins
The nostrils are detecting
The smell of sludge
Carried through the wind’s draught
Changes of space in
The speed of bodily control
Programmed urges
Their enforcement
The water doesn’t go above your elbows
It hardly touches the lower belly
While they swim into the deep
Crying out from the lake
In duplicated rotations
You are shaking,
Smoothing the sedge
Manifesting a change in landscape
The undergrowth thinning
The echo pulsating
air gone warmer
The waves of green shadows stretch the soil
The expanse pouring over the scattered flower heads
Sods of grass warming the air
With trees resonating from a distance
Sweetly stretched out through invisible trajectories
Filled with particles of birdsong
The topography of smells carrying the thought:
“Maybe now you’re the awakened bumblebee,
gently decoding the newly opened stamens?”
I look back at the well-known meadow,
That one time when it was full of red clover
Strewn with thick bee bodies
Cleaned in a children’s neighbourhood clean-up
Somewhere below the lung bones
You are with me
I’m looking back in thoughts
To construct your body rubbing
Against the bitter dandelion sprouts,
And the emerging molehill cake
Hearkened by the energy of thriving
IN A NAMELESS DREAM
In a nameless dream, the paws and body flinched rhythmically.
Sensing a deer
Mud beneath the grooves of the nails, the thistles playfully stuck to the coat
Decomposing forest corpses buried beneath the humus, anticipating your rolling
Duplication and camouflage
In order to soar through the scents even faster
To mark the paths known to no one but you
To compete with fungi and moss
The guttural release of your hushed bark
Flows through my lungs and I laugh
Imagining you coming back unrecognisable
Today I awoke from dreaming of you dreaming
And catching the dust
Latching onto my salty face
to accept the new means to enter the struggle
Truth is an emotion, it flows through our body. Veins, chest, heart. And the question is how much do we hear her rustling, her warmth melting in our chests. We bathe in a storm of warm and cold that murmurs and shakes under the flash of the thunder that revives and changes us.
To accept the new means to enter the struggle. Determinedly shaped and strengthened while looking at the same things differently. To accept the new means to save ourselves from the pond of our own ego, needs and images of the world as a big market, from which we were taught to grab, choke, cry, vomit. If we cannot have an emotional and sincere relationship with ourselves, we cannot dig up the truth in a dark mine to shed light on the crisis of this crumbling world. These waters and the rivers, which are becoming more and more polluting day by day. We pile up plastic products, fill baskets and watch the garbage fall as the crows scatter it. But no, it is not our responsibility, let others take care of it. Work or responsibility, or a bad habit, or turning our head to a problem? The king has been naked; whispering while crying, holding fireflies, and bird feathers.
Behind the hard sound, dismembered, notched, the thought of a shadow remained. She fell to the ground and was soaked by the grass. Like a sponge, she sucked up the memory. On veins running in all directions. The crust of a waterfall that descends to the roots. Echoes of stories and whispers from the benches. The wings remained on the ground, sadly building a memory. The red-hot heads will turn red. An untold story will whine. Two missing and one clawed, no branches. The grass twisted under the relentless heat. The ant disappeared into the ground.
The body changes its daily gesture. The iris of the eye makes a bottom-up movement. But something is missing in the view, in the breath of the landscape harmony. The giant is gone. His chest went numb with grief, and hand went wild. The skin between the fingers screams and wants to leave a mark, in this cruelty that has remained. Hug the phantom tree with your body. React with rebellion, turn it into letters, string it like a cloud’s dance, let out a rain of words, correcting this fallen future.
Dives of Her Courage
On the dives of her courage,
They exhale silences, & frozen conformism,
Fallen feathers of good-intention,
Her rights are crumbs in the wind,
Tucked under the hellebore veins,
Through the rotten foundations,
She’s attuning her reality,
With dancing clouds in her lungs poles.
Come!
She’ll pull out Lines on your palm,
Offering the sipping of Unsatisfied freedoms.
Come!
By caressing she’s giving you support,
While pouring mud on the patriarchy.
Stopping the circulations of imposed realities,
We’ll shake off the spasms,
Entwine out roots with pulses of struggle,
In solidarity for each other.
nikolina butorac- climate & socially engaged artist 