Branko Miljkovic - First Canto

I found myself in a dark wood

DANTE

It was a wood which ate the sky

a wood which I left and then I saw

that I haven't left, that I've been eaten by beasts

and I knew it'll be bitter to talk

about what I have and haven't 

seen when I walked into its darkness and never walked out

from that wood which, with its green jaw

ate its roads and in it lost itself

there's a warm coast a hill of green and one Beatrice

but there are three jaws three scissors three knives

yes I'd love to return

I walked before myself on the cried-out

road and the sand was biting my feet

like glass and I saw dogs who were biting the ground

I saw sinners being whipped by an evil wind

a barking sky and a hard rain of curse

the infinite one

I saw the blind waters of Styx and mud of hatred

I saw a city in flames and women whose hands were snakes

I saw a wall without a sob without stars

and I heard the words of pain in the whirlpool 

of those who became a tree or a stone

and can't hope for death

of the poor ones who have never been born

I saw I saw I saw and I heard and I began to cry

fiddles made out of ground out of the wood

out of blood

called the other shore

on the deathly grief people stood and cried

oh woe is you, you cursed souls 

with embalmed hands and lips made out of blood

I saw I saw I saw I heard and I fell down dead

oh Acheron Acheron 

all sides of the world meet on your shores.