Once upon a time I used to be a madman...

Ivan Slamnig

Croatia

Once upon a time I used to be a madman
with a house at the end of the street.
I used to have a little shop.
I used to sell yellow books
to pink-cheeked girls.
But then on one of those blue days
my shop disappeared,
it burned to the ground, melted away.

I think about it, I ask other people:
does it really have to be that way?

Clever, those other people are,
they don’t care for things like that.