LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES  
ISSN 0024-5089
Copyright © 2014 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

Volume 60, No.1 - Spring 2014
Editor of this issue: Rimas Uzgiris

Auðra Kaziliûnaitë

signal lights

lying in the heads of dream people
in all the forgetting-remembering entrails
thoroughly digested and digesting
you suddenly turn over to the other side
so that you would wake up
in the dreamt dreams of the dream people
when the town executioner cuts off the head of dawn
you arm yourself with the sharpened blades of unease

you skip like a summer breeze
like freedom that knows no will
like a desert jackal scenting the reek of victory
separating you from the executioner’s neck

another split-second
AND

it’s cold,
a red light
blinks in the distance –
an alarm sounds
in the neighboring house’s lot

lifting your eyes
you see the entire sky
is full of similar lights and unease –
stars that don’t blink, but burn

that
is the alarm
sounding above
from a long time ago

a longer time than we have been
a longer time than the word
proclaiming that someone
is stealing –
that someone stole the sky

                Translation of “ðviesos signalai”

the moon is a pill

the moon is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

anger is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

mindaugas bridge is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

summer is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

draught in africa
that wipes away
the lives of 500 thousand children
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

a loving woman is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

a cop striking the protestors’ dog
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

to give up one’s seat on the bus
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

to sing from joy
having buried one’s self
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

silence is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

drunken time lies
in the groove
and babbles

never ask
who cut this groove
who dug this day for us
who nailed a twitching bird
to its teeth
BREAK IT

swallow one half
and the other –
opening the bird’s lid with both hands
insert it and close

then you will finally
see –

drops of blood
rolling
over the day’s teeth

                Translation of “mënulis yra tabletë”

minotaur vacations

in the landscape, calmly
a woman drowns

from the lifeguard
stand echoes

attention!
a woman drowns in the landscape

suddenly
you fall and cut yourself
on god

and slivers of clouds
calmly swim in the sky
as if nothing
had happened

as if
giant beavers
did not gnaw
at the tree of the world,
or minotaurs wander
or
the fish of sadness
did not intend to drink
everything,
small worthless fish

whose river
reflects
slivers of clouds
drowning above us

whose landscape
reflects a naked woman –

you could scoop out
with a teaspoon
or by the handful
her eye
nose
chest
or shoulder

and the woman would feel
nothing

                                Translation of “minotauro atostogos”