MY ANCESTORS ARE SCATTERED INTO DRY LEAVES / MOJE PLEME JE RAZSUTO V ČASU
LOOKING FOR AN OBJECTIVE VARIETY
Content with my tranquillity
I let his gaze pass, feeling sure
amorous seasons had outpassed,
dispersed into drops
now existing only at the base of even surfaces,
now evaporating first thing in the morning, like dew;
My smile was careless –
meant for me, not to hurt another’s feelings.
But his mode of proceeding was other than usual,
a different technique
I could not intercept it in time.
Dreams were placed beneath the doorstep,
recognition followed
rather too late.
My will, powerful in my surroundings,
in domestications almost devoid of unknowns
is turning into tattered paper.
Isn’t it me, who keeps
and manages my world?
Bulwarks, fortified through trial,
have been shaken by a touch or two,
possibly three, no more enduring than first snowflakes
and all is coming about for the first time again.
FROM NOVEMBER TO NOVEMBER
River in November; off-season beginning.
I gather iron mica in fine sand, the profusion
won’t be available but in shades of darkest olive green.
Let’s see how many seeds we have in keeping
after a drought-stricken summer,
are they still sappy
is there room in you and me to fend off the frost?
Is this our current crop
to last us through snowdrifts
through illusory feast days when the year goes?
The seed coat still disguises
the quantity of nourishment at hand.
November strikes us dumb.
Chances for shelter are slim
when trees are stripped of leaves;
night spills into night and into oblivion
with no perceptible break.
Late November
a sword immensely sharp.
Autumn sacrifices.
How much substance persists inside a husk
when dawn delays beyond the hills,
how much fervent body
beneath the flesh?
US
1.
They are making pickles –
in summer! in these flats you can’t discern
the source of smells and sounds, shrill even more
than spotlights; nor bickering behind the shafts;
one bears with it.
Somebody begs for praise.
Behind a broken bathroom tile up on the left
extremes and chaos, pain.
Living in a six-floor building we are as one
but within laps of time. After a while
you cannot trace specifications.
Someone matures to something
somebody just outgrows it; on the lawn
near the parking lot, at dawn
when tenants water potted plants
when water drips down balconies
two dogs are touching noses.
At the doorway barking. Our neighbour’s Meri,
black-furred foundling from the marshes,
is madly chasing an itruding mongrel.
She gives me a conpiratorial glance
wagging her tail
in front of our very proper house.
2.
There is this presence in our cellar.
She came in winter
over black heaps of shovelled snow
and never goes anywhere;
at night she’s shoving icy stones,
the plaster is scribbled with her monologue.
We won’t accept the clatter from below,
the havoc caused, her fallen hair.
So for a while we have pretended she just isn’t there.
She seized the walls that once belonged to us.
Nobody wants her –
and that’s the basis of her strength,
confronting us with all our wrongs
although she speaks to no one,
performing
incessant punching at the cellar door,
rolling heavy objects cross the floor,
plundering softly
when we would sleep;
Established firmly, of her own accord
no longer going anywhere.
At her place the world comes to a halt.
3.
Somebody in one of our flats with shiny
door signs screams behind a wall.
The multi-storied house becomes a space
filling up with sound.
The voice increases and subsides.
The ceiling sags
the basement alternatively
bulges, bends.
Atoms are furrowed by shrieks.
Someone alive behind a wall is catching
breath. The voice is getting new
abrasions, the sound a saw
strung up from two corners;
a little saw
that stirs –
a one-blade saw, solitary
running even on a holiday,
goes off, teeth exposed
and slashes downward
from the top floor
smoothly
to the ground.
FROM THE SHADOWS
On a sunless side there lives a crocodile
in a subterranean pit.
For its windows, sometimes,
when a lid is raised, it appropriates our eyes.
Everyone is moving while it remains.
We came across each other when it crept
from the bottom up a lonely shaft,
a forgotten pet
its skin like epidermis of an olm,
a relict from the past
with no scales, raw.
Not that reptile any more,
small as a toy,
that used to rollick in the mud.
It grew up, now quite different
and utterly hungry.
FRAGMENTS
My ancestors are scattered into dry leaves.
When I close my eyes, I see them,
distinct yet linked as day and night.
I recognize them in my cells.
At twilight I take the form of one who is lame,
dragging her leg behind me.
Everyone in the alley hears me hobbling,
my voice strangled from words
stuck in her throat.
I press my face against barbed wire
where, like broken birds,
souls were left dangling.
Some unable to fly and some
who simply didn’t. I become one
who restrained himself
from taking revenge
against the killers.
Carrying another one’s steamer trunk,
wearing her straw hat, my blood
drains out
like rain in a gutter
with no blessing to heal. It’s ages
since my cup of strength has been refilled.
DISCLOSURES
You’ve inherited the skeleton
of your parents’ house, its windows
and dark corners.
The blanket of their story
is woven into yours.
You’re surprised to see
their cuts turn into scars on your skin.
Your body carries your ancestors
like Russian dolls. Its staircase
is marked with pots of plants
about to bloom.
Looking for an Objective Variety, From November to November, Us and From the Shadows were translated by the author, the translations were revised by Bruce Peterson. Fragments and Disclosures were translated by Natasha Sajé.
LOOKING FOR AN OBJECTIVE VARIETY
Content with my tranquillity
I let his gaze pass, feeling sure
amorous seasons had outpassed,
dispersed into drops
now existing only at the base of even surfaces,
now evaporating first thing in the morning, like dew;
My smile was careless –
meant for me, not to hurt another’s feelings.
But his mode of proceeding was other than usual,
a different technique
I could not intercept it in time.
Dreams were placed beneath the doorstep,
recognition followed
rather too late.
My will, powerful in my surroundings,
in domestications almost devoid of unknowns
is turning into tattered paper.
Isn’t it me, who keeps
and manages my world?
Bulwarks, fortified through trial,
have been shaken by a touch or two,
possibly three, no more enduring than first snowflakes
and all is coming about for the first time again.
FROM NOVEMBER TO NOVEMBER
River in November; off-season beginning.
I gather iron mica in fine sand, the profusion
won’t be available but in shades of darkest olive green.
Let’s see how many seeds we have in keeping
after a drought-stricken summer,
are they still sappy
is there room in you and me to fend off the frost?
Is this our current crop
to last us through snowdrifts
through illusory feast days when the year goes?
The seed coat still disguises
the quantity of nourishment at hand.
November strikes us dumb.
Chances for shelter are slim
when trees are stripped of leaves;
night spills into night and into oblivion
with no perceptible break.
Late November
a sword immensely sharp.
Autumn sacrifices.
How much substance persists inside a husk
when dawn delays beyond the hills,
how much fervent body
beneath the flesh?
US
1.
They are making pickles –
in summer! in these flats you can’t discern
the source of smells and sounds, shrill even more
than spotlights; nor bickering behind the shafts;
one bears with it.
Somebody begs for praise.
Behind a broken bathroom tile up on the left
extremes and chaos, pain.
Living in a six-floor building we are as one
but within laps of time. After a while
you cannot trace specifications.
Someone matures to something
somebody just outgrows it; on the lawn
near the parking lot, at dawn
when tenants water potted plants
when water drips down balconies
two dogs are touching noses.
At the doorway barking. Our neighbour’s Meri,
black-furred foundling from the marshes,
is madly chasing an itruding mongrel.
She gives me a conpiratorial glance
wagging her tail
in front of our very proper house.
2.
There is this presence in our cellar.
She came in winter
over black heaps of shovelled snow
and never goes anywhere;
at night she’s shoving icy stones,
the plaster is scribbled with her monologue.
We won’t accept the clatter from below,
the havoc caused, her fallen hair.
So for a while we have pretended she just isn’t there.
She seized the walls that once belonged to us.
Nobody wants her –
and that’s the basis of her strength,
confronting us with all our wrongs
although she speaks to no one,
performing
incessant punching at the cellar door,
rolling heavy objects cross the floor,
plundering softly
when we would sleep;
Established firmly, of her own accord
no longer going anywhere.
At her place the world comes to a halt.
3.
Somebody in one of our flats with shiny
door signs screams behind a wall.
The multi-storied house becomes a space
filling up with sound.
The voice increases and subsides.
The ceiling sags
the basement alternatively
bulges, bends.
Atoms are furrowed by shrieks.
Someone alive behind a wall is catching
breath. The voice is getting new
abrasions, the sound a saw
strung up from two corners;
a little saw
that stirs –
a one-blade saw, solitary
running even on a holiday,
goes off, teeth exposed
and slashes downward
from the top floor
smoothly
to the ground.
FROM THE SHADOWS
On a sunless side there lives a crocodile
in a subterranean pit.
For its windows, sometimes,
when a lid is raised, it appropriates our eyes.
Everyone is moving while it remains.
We came across each other when it crept
from the bottom up a lonely shaft,
a forgotten pet
its skin like epidermis of an olm,
a relict from the past
with no scales, raw.
Not that reptile any more,
small as a toy,
that used to rollick in the mud.
It grew up, now quite different
and utterly hungry.
FRAGMENTS
My ancestors are scattered into dry leaves.
When I close my eyes, I see them,
distinct yet linked as day and night.
I recognize them in my cells.
At twilight I take the form of one who is lame,
dragging her leg behind me.
Everyone in the alley hears me hobbling,
my voice strangled from words
stuck in her throat.
I press my face against barbed wire
where, like broken birds,
souls were left dangling.
Some unable to fly and some
who simply didn’t. I become one
who restrained himself
from taking revenge
against the killers.
Carrying another one’s steamer trunk,
wearing her straw hat, my blood
drains out
like rain in a gutter
with no blessing to heal. It’s ages
since my cup of strength has been refilled.
DISCLOSURES
You’ve inherited the skeleton
of your parents’ house, its windows
and dark corners.
The blanket of their story
is woven into yours.
You’re surprised to see
their cuts turn into scars on your skin.
Your body carries your ancestors
like Russian dolls. Its staircase
is marked with pots of plants
about to bloom.
Looking for an Objective Variety, From November to November, Us and From the Shadows were translated by the author, the translations were revised by Bruce Peterson. Fragments and Disclosures were translated by Natasha Sajé.
