Patrik Weiss was born in Rijeka, Croatia. He holds a master’s degree in Cultural Studies. He publishes poetry in online portals and magazines across the region, mostly in his native Croatian, but he also writes in English. For a short period, he lived and worked in Ireland. His work has been included in several anthologies.
Most of his themes in poetry, as well as in photography, revolve around everyday life and its struggles, as well as themes of war, poverty, intimacy, family, and social relations. He would best describe himself as an expressionist poet who likes to place a strong emphasis on word-created images that tend to provoke readers and make them reflect on their own experiences and emotions.
He won the 2021 Musa Ćazim Ćatić Award for Best Poem. To date, he has self-published eight poetry collections.
to cremate
Before they cremated Grandma, she was laid out in a damp chapel
leaning against the wall
behind which stood the furnace.
She lay as gray as ash,
petrified by loneliness,
her jaw dropped,
yellow puddles around her nose
that had replaced
the bruises caused by intubation.
A short ceremony
with recorded music
and plastic flowers.
She was imperceptible,
as if she had imploded.
They told us that they had to remove
her artificial hips and her pacemaker.
They also took out her teeth as a precaution.
They washed the body quickly and thoroughly,
so that not even the brown traces of tobacco
remained on her fingers.
The coffin had to be made of cardboard,
ecologically acceptable and flammable.
As if they were burning
a carton of milk.
to explain
They didn’t offer condolences
when they rang the doorbell the first night
to tell us
he had succumbed to his injuries.
The second night, they rang
to take us in for questioning.
The third night,
when we were supposed to get answers,
they didn’t ring.
to imprison
When we were little, we played
cops and robbers.
I was always the robber.
The blonder, healthier, bigger ones
were the gendarmes.
That was when I learned that the best hiding place
was joining forces.
I would always expose myself,
joining the search for myself.
In the end, they would always find me,
but somehow they always felt bad
as they hauled me off to justice,
not even knowing themselves
why they were hauling me in.
Sometimes a tear
would even roll down someone’s cheek
as they took off my handcuffs
and tightened the noose around my neck.