Ales Debeljak

The Living and the Dead | Arrest Warrant
July 20, 2012 Debeljak Ales

The Living and the Dead

 

Ljubljana, New Žale Cemetery

for Boštjan Seliškar (1962-1983)

 

I already came here several times this year, aside from the pilgrimage

with an obligatory candle for All Saints’ Day, of course. I came

to caress the grass jutting out in all directions, as if it wasn’t

yours, as if it only shared the tombstone’s weight with you.

 

It is stubborn and sharp, as you never were. Not even

when you were right. You collected taxes, instead of

goons you carried mail and learned darkness in a closet.

You rebelled only once, you wanted to pull the crumpled handkerchief

 

from your mouth and be free. The grass pushes upward,

out and away from the yoke of the granite. Where to? Anywhere,

as long as we don’t stay at home, under the lid of the city,

where our ancestors sowed weak seed. It is possible that nothing

 

is horrible. It is important that desire holds and holds stubbornly.

You don’t have to worry about the truth, but still I knelt,

then returned to the skyline of antennas and chaos:

I knelt and caressed the grass, almost until blood ran.

 

 

 

Živi in mrtvi

 

Pokopališče Ljubljana-Žale, novi del.

za Boštjana Seliškarja (1962-1983)

 

Prišel sem že nekajkrat  letos, če romanje odmislim

z obvezno svečo za vse svete, jasno. Prišel sem, da

pogladim trave, ki štrlijo v vse smeri, kot da niso

tvoje, kot da s tabo si delijo le nagrobnikovo težo.

 

Trmoglave so in ostre, kot ti nikoli nisi bil. Niti ne

takrat, ko imel si prav. Davke si pobiral, namesto

pretepačev si nosil pošto in se naučil mraka v omari.

Enkrat si se le uprl, iz ust si hotel zmečkani robec

 

potegniti in se osvoboditi. Trave rinejo navzgor,

ven in stran od jarma iz granita. Kam? Kamorkoli,

samo da ne ostanemo doma, pod pokrovom mesta,

kjer so predniki sejali šibko seme. Možno, da nič

 

ni strašno. Važno je, da želja traja in traja trmoglavo.

Ni treba, da resnica te skrbi, a pokleknil sem vseeno,

potem pa sem se vrnil pod obzorje iz anten in zmede:

pokleknil sem in nežno trave gladil, skoraj do krvi.

 

 

Arrest Warrant

 

Above the city the clouds dim, thin as gauze

and the frame of the arrest warrant: they are looking for me,

I have fed and put up fugitives for the night. When I last

saw them, closed bars, retired echoes, painfully

 

outdated trademark, they were sailing frayed at the edges,

just like a hand that enters a wrist without clear

boundaries. Heat increases if shared and you place

yourself in another’s arms, briefly, before the seam splits.

 

Surgeons chat by the East River and serve

potica, the reign of tender shame is still far off,

I should have chosen a different profession. It’s a crime

to cut a kidney from a sleeping man, everywhere, here,

 

under the flags which flutter indifferently, the same

above a remote nest and the capital of the century.

I don’t know if time offers smoldering hope, elsewhere maybe,

but they are looking for me in my home town: I’m telling the truth.

 

 

Tiralica

 

Nad mestom ugašajo oblaki, tenki kot gaza

in okvir tiralice: iščejo me, ubežnike sem

nahranila in prenočila. Ko sem jih zadnjikrat

videla, zaprti bari, upokojeni odmevi, boleče

 

nesolidna znamka, so pluli scefrani ob robovih,

prav tako kot dlan, ki preide v zapestje brez

jasne meje. Toplota raste, če se deli in položiš

se drugemu v naročje, na kratko, preden poči šiv.

 

Kirurgi razpravljajo ob vzhodni reki in s potico

strežejo, vladavina nežnega sramu je še daleč,

drugačen poklic bi morala izbrati. Zločin je iz

spečega človeka izrezati ledvico, povsod, tukaj,

 

pod zastavami, ki enako ravnodušno plapolajo

nad zakotnim gnezdom in prestolnico stoletja.

Čas ne vem, če nudi tleče upanje, drugje mogoče,

a iščejo me v domačem mestu: govorim resnico.

 

 

 

 

Translator: Brian Henry’s newest book is Lessness. Criticism has appeared in New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, The Kenyon Review, the Georgia Review, and the Yale Review. Henry has translated Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008) by Tomaž Šalamun, and The Book of Things (BOA Editions, 2010) by the Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger, which won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award.

Aleš Debeljak is the author of thirteen books of essays and eight volumes of poetry, including most recently Without Anesthesia: New and Selected Poems. He has won numerous awards, including the Prešeren Foundation Prize (the Slovenian National Book Award) and the Miriam Lindberg Israel Poetry for Peace Prize (Tel Aviv), and teaches at universities throughout Europe and the United States. He lives in Slovenia, where he is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Ljubljana.