Georges de la Tour! Georges de la Tour!
I see how you climb!
How you eavesdrop the hammering blacksmith
and peek at his watch.
I don’t know if you break off your seal.
The beauty of the angel is in the cask
that bolted your heart.
Georges de la Tour! Georges de la Tour!
Tebe vidim, kako plezaš!
Kako prisluškuješ bitju kovača
in mu gledaš na uro.
Ne vem, če boš odlomil svoj pečat.
Lepota angela je v bremzi,
ki ti je zapahnila srce.
Metka
A piece of a living heart is not as flat
as a wafer, nor as white.
I’m watching limos through the glass.
O luck! No más! No más!
The most subtle springs live to see the day
when they’re blessed with the saltiness of the sea.
And fish who need
enormous waters to be able to swim:
only in the mountains the snow melts.
From there the Holy Spirit only starts
to assemble waiting for you,
the water who will guide him to the sea.
Metka
Kos živega srca ni tako ploščat kot
hostija, pa tudi bel ni.
Skozi steklo gledam limuzine.
O lak! No más! No más!
Najbolj nežni studenci dočakajo
dan, ko jih blagoslovi slanost morja.
In ribe, ki rabijo ogromno
vode, da bi mogle plavati:
samo v planinah se sneg topi.
Ker tam se sveti duh šele začenja
zbirati in čaka nate, ki si
voda, ki ga boš peljala v morje.
The Cross
O wound!
The earth that sets asunder and swallows the time.
The frog with teeth that stings hills.
Ether, the dropping off in scales.
The scepter: ostrich’s boulevard.
Bodies in waves of marimba, Atlas’s sips of milk
Bees with muscles, the light, the voice, the dawn.
The window obsessed with tenderness: one part of the opus.
Why do the most simple questions look like
flour, not like mortar, like bread,
not like traveling knights from whom pearls take off
the breath, the hands, the prayer.
O dark sack of sand!
Memories that the mirror pushes under
the mattress so sheets wouldn’t sing
and touch the waves of the pavement.
Do I really walk on the licked off stone?
Why is it no longer possible to kill
and to look into one’s eyes?
If death eases, love spreads and
tiny pieces of flags, already conformed
to the material by snaps of wind, are carried
away.
What carries away the succesiveness?
Why is original sin placed in baskets?
Why does saliva remind of sensousness and not of stone?
Why do questions pile up like bailiffs
They too have their sisters, children, people
and if a young doe pushes her snout under my armpit,
roses and strawberries ripen faster then
one round of mora: tre! tre!
Processes in nature are disposed like
our brain and our destiny.
The flour changes into the spinning wheel
and what is called arbitrariness
is the bridge of love: words extend the same way as
the penis, they grow like baby rabbits.
Mothers are afraid of storms,
still they don’t drop from their teeth
their young ones while crossing the rivers.
We can beat the mind like Don Quixote,
but with it the knight’s passion only increases.
O boats flung into my baskets
full of wolves.
Who in the Andes desires lobsters and from the field
demands a base made of blue buttons!
Who worships cathedrals only for the spires
and the fact that your belfries
are concealed from your being.
As if there were two towns: one on the earth
and one in the air, as if there exiata the left and the right eye.
Four hits from the only blacksmith
and yet changes the heat, the genesis, the order.
Still aesthetes will torment themselves
with the original decanting over flesh
still the palm trees will exhale fragrance.
Still there will be murdering of the insidous masses,
digged in the rear, into the dead sleeve of waters
demanding the explanation.
Why does the cow die if she drinks them?
Why does the bird die?
Why does the boat rot, even the cork on it
is not joyful, but black, greasy from the used
oil.
The sin piles up like a ziggurat,
and the ziggurat is designed also on the necklace
worn by the peacock.
Nobody can invent
the new atomic weight of love.
Križ
O rana!
Zemlja, ki se razpre in požre čas.
Žaba z zobmi, ki pika hribe.
Eter, ki v luskah odpada.
Žezlo: nojev drevored.
Telesa v valovih marimbe, požirek mleka Atlasa.
Čebele z mišicami: luč, glas, svit.
Okno, ki ga je obsedla mehkoba: del opusa.
Zakaj so najbolj preprosta vprašanja
podobna moki, ne malti.
Kruhu, ne popotnim vitezom, ki jim
biseri odtegujejo dih, roke, molitev.
O temna vreča peska!
Spomini, ki jih zrcalo poriva pod
madrac, da rjuhe ne bi pele in
se dotikale valov tlaka.
Res hodimo po zlizanem kamnu?
Zakaj ni več možno ubijanje iz oči v oči?
Če popusti smrt, se razpre ljubezen
in drobcene kose zastav, ki so jih veter in
njegovi poki že priličili materialu,
odnese.
Kaj odnaša zaporedje?
Zakaj je izvirni greh položen v košarice?
Zakaj slina spominja na čutnost in ne na kamen?
Zakaj se vprašanja zlagajo kot biriči?
Tudi oni imajo sestre, otroke, ljudi,
in če mi da mlada košuta svoj
gobček pod pazduho, vrtnice in jagode
dozorijo prej kot se vrže mora:
tre! tre!
Procesi v naravi so na razpolago kot
naši možgani in usoda.
Moka se spremeni v kolovrat,
in kar se imenuje poljubnost, je most
ljubezni: besede se ravno tako raztezajo kot
penis in rasejo kot majhni zajčki.
Matere se bojijo neviht,
ampak zato ne izpustijo iz zob svojih
mladičev, ko plavajo čez reke.
Um lahko pretepemo kot Don Kihota,
ampak s tem se vitezu strast samo okrepi.
O ladje, ki se zaganjate v moje košare
polne volkov!
Ki si v Andih želite jastogov
in zahtevate naj ima polje
temelj iz modrih gumbov!
Ki spoštujete katedrale samo zaradi špic
in vam je dejstvo, da ste zvonovi
zakrinkano vaši biti!
Kot da bi bili dve mesti: eno na zemlji
in eno v zraku, tako kot je levo in desno
oko.
Štirje udarci enega samega kovača
in že se spremeni toplota, geneza, vrstni red.
Še se bodo esteti mučili z originalnim
prelivom po mesu.
Še bodo dehtele palme.
Še bodo zavratno morile množice,
zarite zadaj v mrtvi rokav voda
in bodo zahtevale pojasnilo.
Zakaj umre krava, če jih pije?
Zakaj umre ptič? Zakaj segnije čoln in še
pluta na njih ni več vesela, ampak
črna, mastna od porabljene
nafte.
Greh se nalaga kot zigurat
in zigurat je narisan tudi na ogrlici,
ki jo nosi pav.
Nihče ne more izumiti
nove atomske teže ljubezni.
Translator: Michael Thomas Taren is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His poems appeared in Colorado Review, Poetikon, SUPERMACHINE, I.D.I.O.T and Fence. His chapbook 08 September 2009 was published by Factory Hollow Press, Amherst, MA. His translations of Šalamun were published by Public Space, Poetry Review (UK), Fence, Jubilat, LIT, Poetry London, and elsewhere. His book Puberty was 2009 finalist for The Fence Poetry Series. His book Motherhood was 2010 finalist for The Fence Poetry Series. He spent 9 months (2010 – 2011) in Slovenia on a Fulbright.
