more poetry
Lucija Stupica
You Recognize the Eyes by the Tint
I move along an extraordinary landscape.
I talk about myself as if talking about a bird,
a sweetheart, abandoned mansion, rainbow
or dunghill. As if I talked
about thousand things. . .and about none.
The anatomies of melancholy and gaiety
are opening like a huge encyclopædia
and closing with a bulk of unknowns.
To steal the mysterious hat,
start fights and nights kept in secret,
mix a cocktail of passions and regret,
dance tango to the music of Piazzola.
I move along a sinusoid pressing
various organ stops to be able
to hear the music, the voice oozing out
of all the pores of the city and creating a simple song
that catches your ear. Nothing momentous, or complex.
I move along an extraordinary landscape
and there is no Ariadne’s clue
and all that’s given to me descends with a question mark.
You recognize a street by a certain scent. Like the skin
of your lover. You recognize the eyes
by a certain tint. And never turn away.
Translated by Janko Lozar
Scream. Again.
When abstract hours seep through,
you run faster, you seem motionless,
and yet you run in your circulatory system,
with outlets of thoughts, with a nonsensical logic of principles,
you run in your poverty and your happenstance.
To stop a fleeing person is like wanting to change
the course of a river, while relying on the wind, which
is fast asleep, to unfurl sail. It is not impossible,
but you need courage, a song from the earth
and a swollen silence of waiting.
And when you manage to stop him, to assemble the moment,
to cry, to scream or simply to kiss
a burning forehead and love him still more, talk to
the fleeing person, wash your hands of blood still young,
wash your mouth and eyes, be Munch’s and your own scream.
And then melt away into your shadow,
into your secret for which you live.
Translated by Ana Jelnikar
The River Is An Excuse
In an instant everything seems useless.
Words that flew across the street
and never returned. You are silent,
wrapped into a thick woollen scarf.
Waiting, but the time is too heavy
to be fragrant. It’s turning into an amalgam
of cursed dreams. Silence
digging for depth with its cry,
a river that is only an excuse
to let yourself go. Else you would remain
on the river bank like an idea
that can not come true.
An amorphous sponge that absorbs
every disagreement and wrath.
In an instant everything seems useless.
Admit it. Fear. Admit the fear.
It knows something about your future.
Translated by Martha Kosir-Widenbauer
