“The rhythm is changing with years and with rhythm is changing the titles of the books. When a poet is still young tries to be as tragic as possible and that tragic element is reflected on the titles as well, thus my first collection was called The Wings of Death and it took me twenty years to reach The Scar, the mood is still dramatic but artificial fatality of  my first collection is converted to a real scar - therefore to real fatality” - writes the author in an interview about his new collection. “First there was a scar” - that are the opening words of the verse The Scar, which became the title of the whole collection of Shota Iatashvili. Creation of the universe is reflected as scars on the face of God and the deepest and the most painful among them is the scar of a human being, who is constantly seeking to understand his own essence. This is the main leitmotif of the whole collection which can be regarded as one of the most significant poetic collection of Shota Iatashvili.   

EXTRACT
Translated into English by Donald Rayfield

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

There was a time
when he was thinking:
God – is unclear
Cube – is clear
Parallelepiped – is precise
House – is difficult
There’s God in Cube
There’s Clear in – God etc. 
Then there was a time,
when he composed such verses:
I went out
The Sun was rising
They opened beer pubs for me
Asphalt was laid for roads. 
Then he started writing like this:
I love you, 
like no one else on the earth...
I love you
and every morning I’m waiting
for the Sun to rise, when the heavy door
of my house opens, when it does
and God, when
will I head to your heart...
This time has passed too,
and he scribbled:
Damn it,
Fuck, damn it!..
There was a moment when he thought:
what it is like to feel well or bad...
And then:
Sometimes the wind blows or doesn’t
and leaved are always carried by the wind. 
And finally,
lying in his bed, he
looked at his green walls and remembered:
Parallelepiped,
Cube
House, 
Life
God... – is simple, difficult, precise...

ODE TO CLOTHES

God didn’t make humans naked,
God created them with clothes.
With underwear, a dress, trousers, socks…
A human being is human because of clothes…
When he’s dressed, he thinks and expresses himself differently,
Smiles differently, loves his neighbour differently,
Believes in himself, feels himself.
Only a clothed human being shakes hands,
Only a clothed human being paints a naked one,
Only a clothed human being sings “C’inc’q’aro” or dances “Khorumi”. 
God made human beings with hats and shoes,
Although he also made them with Pioneers’ cravats, scarves and neckties.
A man gets infatuated with a clothed woman,
He is clothed giving her flowers as a present and kissing her for the first time…
And a woman too falls in love with a clothed man…
And, in general, if love does exist,
It is because, when he was creating humans,
God had a wardrobe ready for them.
In the wardrobe was a headscarf for the woman,
There was a veil,
There was a corset.
For the man — a surplice, a pea jacket and a tunic, 
For one chosen man a shroud…
God loves man both clothed and naked,
But he prefers him clothed.
God is our first true designer…
Once upon a time a learned man got naked into the bath
And discovered a law of the universe,
But that was just once.
Afterwards clothed scientists have attained new and deeper secrets of the universe…
Electricity, television, aviation, or the internet
Were invented by someone clothed.
Clothes are genius!
Clothes write masterpieces — with a goose quill or a computer.
Clothes write holy books.
Clothes are saints,
Clothes are aesthetes,
Clothes are wiser than the wise…
Every single one has his particular talent 
For example, a toga is an orator, a philosopher;
A wig is a scholar or musician,
A tee-shirt is a footballer, handball player or basketball player.
A man gets dressed in a suit and puts on a helmet 
Over his head and ascends into heaven
(God had, apparently,
Not just sombreros, hats and capes in the wardrobe, but helmets too)… 
Were this not so, man could never
Have placed the soles of his bare feet on the moon…
Peoples, first put on the right clothes and headwear, and then rush for the cosmos…
First put on the right clothes and headwear, and then let the devil take you —
Go down the mine shafts, too…
In the beginning… 
I think in the beginning there were clothes, 
Which He made, 
Since his creation, a man-clothes crosses himself,
Prayers and does namaz.
A man-clothes drinks wine
With his men-clothes friends
And converses with them about all kinds of men-clothes things…
A man-clothes ploughs the earth and reaps the harvest…
Look kindly on the dressed and behatted man, God on high!
With his shorts, his jeans, his dinner jacket, bless him!
Bless him with his slippers,
When he quietly potters about the house
Seeing to the family comforts!
Bless his braces, his shoulder pads and long-johns.
Bless his swimming costume, too,
Because on the very same second day
By Your own great wish
You created the sea as well as the land…
And if this is so, bless all second-hand clothes shops, 
All own-brand outlets with their sales!
Bless every tailor, cobbler, modeller.
Bless the hand of the woman who devotedly 
Stitched Jesus’s shroud.
Bless, o God, clothes factories!
Bless them, for humans are human by their clothes…
Man lives, suffers, labours and loves by clothes,
And when he departs for a better world,
Clothes preserve him for a little longer…
until like heroes, they are sacrificed to the frenzied attacks of the worms…
..............
God almighty, it is good, too, 
That you didn’t create man naked,
Good that you made him clothed and behatted.

In case of using the information, please, indicate the source.