DANIJEL DRAGOJEVIĆ has published more than 20 books of essays, poems and prose. The Blindman’s Mirror If I forgot – although not completely – where, in which story or poem (Denise Levertov?), I read about a moment when a blind man steps out of the subway and finds himself in the open air, the sun, out in the open, then lifts his head toward the sky, and begins to breathe more freely, as if he is about to break into a song – it is probably because I, while reading, said I know this, I’m the one, and quickly shut and abandoned the book. Chirping Several times a day in treetops by my window gather tens, maybe hundreds of sparrows, who create an indescribable uproar. It’s the worst in afternoon hours when day’s at its end. The chirping, some sort of sound tapestry, is so dense it seems no thought, desire, project can get through it. Before this joy, vivacity one grows weary – the sounds cover him, draw him into a certain environment, perhaps a center, green, sonorous and airy. And here, at the beginning, in the middle, at the end of the day, everywhere it catches me, and I surmise and think: Here’s the attack, the invasion, I’m screwed. From hundreds of beaks (connections of throats and beaks) comes the raid, joyous, winged, unclear, from some world so close and so far that the border perhaps does not exist. In the Book of Knots In the book of knots I’m reading about a knot which is made when two or three tails of rats (no one knows when, how or why) grow together. The words, and the pictures along with them, immediately turn into a dream, from a dream into days, becoming everything I’ve ever seen, heard or touched, as if nothing else ever existed. Tail, tail, tail, tails. O, the great oneness of the world – houses, nests, words I’m about to say, basic algebraic operations, natural riches. I look once more at the picture and can’t guess which tail – before it became one big tail – belongs to me, which head is mine. I move the third head, third tail, I move the fifth head, fifth tail, I move all the heads and tails, I pull on anything, set off in any direction. I’m smart, wise – I’ve read many books, I know about the top idea and the sphere, I can count, count, count, I can fool angels and wind around a cathedral. But now I want out of the book (am closing it), I want back into a scientific sentence, an empty page, into a ton of coal, chaos. I’d fall asleep, die, wake up, fall asleep, make myself up. It ends here.