Explore Log in Sign up

Explore

@janpsolivagant.bsky.social Sep 11, 2026, 6:20 AM

Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #FaultLines

#poetry: ©Jan Peters, 2025

#poetrycommunity #PoetsOfBluesky #GenX #penfriends #80s #90s #ColdWar #Yugoslavia #Croatia #Zagreb #Bosnia

Zagreb Elegy

We bond over
Letters:
Shared passion for
Language, literature - the
Life of the Mind;
Shared cache of quotes from
Python, Blackadder, ‘Allo ‘Allo.

The Girl from Zagreb -
Polyglot, worldly beyond her
Eighteen years, working-class -
Eclipsing with ease the churchy,
Would-be Oxbridge crop of a
Suffolk sixth form.

Her neat, feminine hand,
My barely legible scrawl:
Aghast at Tiananmen Square,
Elated at the Fall of the
Berlin Wall.

Maiden Voyage, December 1989:
Sleeper via Milan to stay with her
In Hrvatska*, Yugoslavia.
Melee of Laibach, Gastarbeiter**,
Hyperinflation,
Hand-milled coffee and MTV.

Goli Otok, Adriatic Alcatraz,
Abandoned that very year.
Bratstvo, jedinstvo i suživot~ -
Dried husks crumbling into tinder.

My friend’s university ID:
Latin and Croatian arrayed in
Solemn columns -
Zagreb folding back into the
Bulwark of Christendom.

One morning, dark-clad,
Sombre, she absents herself.

High-school comrade,
Bosnian Muslim girl, has
Taken her own life. Later,
My friend, dejected, recalls the
Mother’s blank-eyed, flint-faced
Parting words:
Možda će joj Bog oprostiti -
Maybe
God will forgive her.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

*Croatia
** Foreign or migrant workers (German)
~ Brotherhood, Unity, and Coexistence

Terms of Use Privacy Policy Community Standards Help Get the app

Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-10 01:38:52 EDT