NO ONE WILL WRITE POETRY.
by Matija Bećković
(translated by Charles Simic)


No one will write poetry anymore,
The immortal themes will abandon the poems
Unhappy with the way they were understood and versified.
Everything that was once the subject of poetry
Will rebel against it and its cowardice.
Objects themselves will express what the poets had no courage to say.
The sea--that ancient topic of poets--will leave poetry forever
And return to its grave where it grew up.
The sun--turned ridiculous,
The starry sky--turned into a cliche,
Will forsake poetry.
The roses will insist on their color
And will not agree to the fickleness of poets.
Word freedom will escape and return to its meaning.
Poets will have no language in which to sing.
Nothing will stand between the poet and poetry,
And so the poems will attack poets
Demanding that they fulfill their promises.
The poets will back away from what they've said,
But everything they imagined and prophesied will catch up with them.
Poetry will demand their lives
So that its metaphors may be true and irrefutable.
In generations to come
No one for any price will want to be a poet.
Future poets will have better ways of spending their time.
The free men will not consent to write poems in order to be a poet--
And yet there's no one other way to be a poet.
A tree--yesterday's poetic symbol--
Will wail from the square of its dark past
And no one will be able to equal its lament
Since it knows itself better than anyone else.
True poets will be against poetry
And all over the world they'll have the same idea:
For the sake of its esteem in the eyes of true poets,
No one will write poetry anymore.