Belgrade, July 2005
After business meetings, suited and tied, I wander streets:
Bookshops line Knez Mihailova Street, cats curl in windows,
English language sections dwarf most Dublin stores,
O’Connor’s Star of the Sea in Serbian, the latest
bestseller, fills a multitude of windows.
I fall in love with the buildings, language, the people:
Fountains, ornate and pristine, with clear
splash of water, sparkle in summer sunlight,
dot the two-mile stretch of pedestrianized culture,
ice-cream parlours, cafes, bars, divide its length.
Vendors on corners sell cobs of corn,
scorched over heat haze-obscured braziers
and at the gates, across tramlines, to Fortress Kalemegdan,
with its museum to past wars, its visitors shop, its restaurant:
I feel soaked in an awful, blighted history.
On through the fort to sprawling park,
to railings that overlook the confluence
of the Sava and Danube rivers,
distant banks lined with floating bars and nightclubs:
I will eat alone, drink alone, and think of you.
