IC XC NI KA – Nikola J Milosavljevic

March 27, 2026

CALIGULA’S DREAMING

What will be left of us but
A garden of bones rooted in shit and sap;
Devil’s priests drunk on communion wine
fucking young women in the vestry basement,
and impaled lovers holding hands
at the temple gates, spelling M for mortis.
As we feather down into the Wolands’ hands,
I wonder how a lie can become the truth,
How could a man arise from the dust,
And will the dead stand again
after the final trumpet concludes
the tragedy in three acts.

What will be left of us but
naked trees pushing like antlers
through the horizon’s belly;
Big Ravens dressed in black croaking
for the late Ministry from hell.
Naked boys and hookers on the run,
in screaming torment, pushing
Purple organs out of their gullets.
Wars are not holy. We name them that way.
And when white willows drip red leaves
Into the stream of the blood creeks, death
will come unnoticed. What will be left of us
after the total eclipse of the sun?
Rome will fall again.

IC XC
NI KA

SEMANTRON

I sat in a red chair in the empty “Matushka” theater. The rusty limelight freehandedly drew borders in the upholstered darkness. A tall, bearded man in a black robe faded onto the stage. “Silence,” he demanded, “Watch your jargon, it is not up to you to teach!” The grand hall reverberated. Two mallets jutted from under the wide sleeves like bell licks. At his lip level, an amber stave, waxed and shiny, hung on thick ropes, an instrument of a shipwreck.
His nostrils widened, wheezing, breathing out the world’s burden. Then he began drumming on the wood. Lazy lento at first, one stroke at a time. The shrill sound shook the shadow tank. I took what my ears could handle. Then the tempo picked up, and the sound spring moved behind the backdrop– morphing, crystallizing. Brisk vivace became a message, like Morse code.
Save our souls.
Our souls.
Save our souls.
Our souls
The man changed the course and began drumming a syncopated rhythm. How can anyone do this with only two hands? I had never seen darkness dance with such grace. The man tamed his mallets. The echo moved on its oiled belly between chairs. In the forceful disruption of chaos, residual cognition framed nothingness into a revelation that rang in my ears
Kyrie Eleison
Kyrie Eleison
Kyrie Eleison

IC XC
NI KA

DAMAGED NOTION

My mother once told me
Strive for perfection
Because God exists
in symmetry. But know that
The wisdom of the heart is like
a white rabbit on the snake
road, half dead and half alive.

When we are logically
arguing things
that we put our faith in
That is just
another level of madness.

So her story went on as
The big game of waiting
Turned into a big game
of longing.
Full of vague faces.

The hole doesn’t get deeper, son,
It is we who become smaller.
We are not timekeepers or
clockmakers, we stir dreams
into reality.
Masticating on words,
Stretching them like fish skin,
Scaling the truth down.

Mispurposed and
clasped in a bone-plated
chest. The year of the rabbit
came before the year
of the snake. Once the circle
is closed, between the head
and the tip of the tail
We will prevail.

IC XC
NI KA

THE WORLD TO COME

The soil thawed, and the green spearheads
Cut to the surface.
The dew drops glide down the blades
As if Earth’s blood is colorless.
Mornings are violently silent.
Buds are ripping through softened barks
asserting the solemn vestures.
Myrtle pettled out of the branch slits.
Painfully birthing beauty.

Winter refugees came back home.
Home that has changed in its reincarnation.
Can they even call it that after
What has become of it?
Few of them will endure till the end,
knowing that winter will set in again.
Some will perish, and some will become light.
But the ones that stay are the ones who
Never knew how to fly.

IC XC
NI KA