Pumpkin on the Hot Roof of the World
Pumpkin on the Hot Roof of the World
Sand
I am not the subject.
I am God’s strongbox.
Like a cow I have to lie
on gold at the precise
altitude. It isn’t true
that I am here on the sand
because I would love it.
I am the pumpkin
on the hot roof of the world.
The Lord drips water on me.
I am not the subject.
I am God’s strongbox.
I made no decision to look
either down or up.
—Translated by the poet & Anselm Hollo
World Touch Venice
It’s relaxing to stroll with a beautiful wife in
Grand Hotels
shoving into the soft hands of Latins bunches of
money.
The pillars of civilization are at rest,
marginal touches are legitimate.
We ate honey, drank honey,
thick wines, gold blood.
We enjoyed watching ourselves
in mirrors making love, reveled at the thought
of all who would majestically
touch us.
These beams were hammered into sand,
into us,
for our glory, wife.
—Translated by Sonja Kravanja
Andraž
My brother strides naked
beautiful as a virgin spring through the hall,
kills the lamb with love.
We eat and meditate on the image.
Sleds rust between winters
the sky gets lower and grows damp
the earth bears strawberries
soldiers stand hungry among daffodils
yellow as night, a clear pure guard
shutters, closed and locked,
trail markers in the woods and mountains
O Mt Caven, air crowded with angels
army tracks, bread, bread,
O Sibyl, split hardened color
immovable, unalterable itch.
—Translated by Michael Biggins
A Visit, VI
Sometimes when I thus reflect upon myself,
I truly have no clue who I am. And what it is
I do no one really knows. they all
pretend to know, poor
bastards. if I shove a stick at them they don’t
say I shoved a stick at them
but say something
entirely different. Some shout that I’m some big
jefe the others that I’m nothing but
a barbarian who is chopping down the most magnificent Slovenian
spruce trees, but such statements make
none of us the wiser.
sometimes when I thus reflect upon myself I’m
horror-stricken. I suspect I’m a conspiracy, but
whose? I haven’t a clue. I studied myself.
I plucked all my
socialist hairs
religious
hairs metaphysical hairs, hairs with
fuck in them and hairs that make a person positively
grand and kind and hairs
I always keep about me just in case I am suddenly
run over by a car and need to argue
where to be taken. Many hairs go simultaneously
on different heaps of hairs and I’ve typed copy
after copy. I want a good view of
the sea. at first I thought everything will be
clear and dandy after my death but that won’t happen. everyone
will stuff their heads with whatever they please
and then run around with this whatever causing even
greater confusion. who I’ve been and what it was I was
really doing no one will ever know.
I feel sorry for you idiots! mercy!
—Translated by Sonja Kravanja
My Tribe
My tribe
does not hear
freedom anymore.
Does not recognize it,
does not see it
when it’s touched by it.
My tribe
thinks
the slow
killing
of their bodies
and souls
is natural.
Only at times
when for a moment
it is pierced
by something
resembling ozone,
resembling childhood
it wipes its sweaty
forehead
shakes
this nightmare
these chains
from itself
turns around
and falls asleep
—Translated by Sonja Kravanja
Eclipse 1
I got tired of the image of my tribe
and moved out.
From long nails
I weld my new body’s limbs.
Old rags will be my entrails.
Rotten coat of carcass,
the coat of my solitude.
From the depths of a swamp I pull out my eye.
From the devoured plates of nausea
I will build my cottage.
Mine will be a world of sharp edges.
Cruel and eternal.
—Translated by Joshua Beckman & the author
Let's Wait
What are you wearing
I’m wearing dark green pants of thin corduroy
black boots and a sweater
how do you feel about physics
I think physics is an extremely interesting science
and I could be a physicist if I felt like it
who’s your girlfriend
Maruša Krese
what do you do with her
first I say to her Maruška baby Mummy’s sweetie pie
and then I kick her out because I have to work
then you don’t know how to create harmony
between art and women
no
do you think that is the reason artists tend to be melancholic
that’s possible
how’s it all going to end
it will end in marriage
plenty of kids
why
because I’m a jew
what about homosexuality doesn’t it puzzle you
no it puzzled me at first
I buried and moved out two very nice women
then I went to bed with a black man
when did this happen
in Rome
what was his name
Kirk
is that how you spent your government scholarship
that’s it
a government scholarship well invested
—Translated by the poet & Anselm Hollo
Day
Maruška sleeps, innocence
the road slopes to the sea
the bird are migrating south because
of the snow.
Good morning, how are you?
Still sleepy and turning over.
I had such an ugly dream that you were
captured and beaten. Spank
who is afraid of being domesticated.
The pink elephant.
Anselm Hollo brought the pink elephant
old, the Arabic, silent ring
In the morning we looked at the sky.
Shawl. Bob was a mailman.
Peace, shawl, peace
where are you going so puffed up, serious
day?
—Translated by the poet & Anselm Hollo
Folk Song
Every true poet is a monster.
His voice destroys people and their speech.
His singing elevates a technique that wipes out
the earth so that we are not eaten by worms.
The drunk sells his coat.
The thief sells his mother.
Only the poet sells his soul to separate it
from the body that he loves.
—Translated by Charles Simic
Lacquer
Destiny rolls over me. Sometimes like an egg. Sometimes
with its paws, slamming me into the slope. I shout. I take
my stand. I pledge all my juices. I shouldn’t
do this. Destiny can snuff me out. I feel it now.
If destiny doesn’t blow on our souls, we freeze
Instantly. I spent days and days afraid
the sun wouldn’t rise. That this was my last day.
I felt light sliding from my hands, and If I didn’t
have enough quarters in my pocket, and Metka’s voice
were not sweet enough and kind and solid and real,
my soul would escape from my body, as one day
it will. With death you have to be kind.
Home is where we’re from. Everything in a moist dumpling.
We live only for a flash. Until the lacquer dries.
—Translated by the poet & Christopher Merrill
Untitled
Dark dark dark
green green green
chinchilla, the elephant
dark dark dark
green green green
DuMonfalac
dark dark dark
green green green
your rowing is temperate
epidermal
dark dark dark
talking
green fire-maker
dark dark dark
green green green
goya, drying of prick
the otters go skating one after the other
one after the other the otters go skating by
dark dark dark
green green green
I stand on the threshold
at home
my sign is cancer
I lose the right
—Translated by the poet & Anselm Hollo
The Trap
Gold doesn’t evaporate,
gold isn’t water.
Gold is eternal manure
because capital is death that doesn’t disappear.
I don’t change,
only my value rises and falls.
I wait in vain for a man to crush my mask,
I’m only chasing rabbits
in the process called the courtesy of wizards.
Dwarfs step up from my shoulders
in the process called history,
and there are only two things
between us no one really knows:
I’m everyone’s lover, and
where is the crime?
—Translated by Christopher Merrill & Marko Jakše
Manhattan
I’m crucified.
Between continents.
Between loves.
My nests are in the air.
They burn with a gentle flame.
A white sail hides me from
photographers, East River.
The water is deeper here.
The sky a darker gray.
On the horizon
two blunt pencils.
Dug in.
I won’t be coming home.
—Translated by Michael Biggins
Untitled
Did you see the man who drank water?
I saw the man who drank water.
Did he hold a jug in his hands?
He held a jug in his hands.
Did he lie and look at the sun?
He lay and looked at the sun.
Did he stand and look at the ground?
He stood and looked at the ground.
Was he hunched over?
He was hunched over.
Was he straight and tall?
He was straight and tall.
Did you see the man who drank wine?
I saw the man who drank wine.
Did he hold a jug in his hands?
He held a jug in his hands.
Did he lie and look at the sun?
He lay and looked at the sun.
Did he stand and look at the ground?
He stood and looked at the ground.
Was he hunched over?
He was hunched over.
Was he straight and tall?
He was straight and tall.
—Translated by Jeffrey Young & Katarina Vladimirov Young
The Word
The Word is the one and only foundation of the world.
I am its servant and its master.
And though the spirit sends out atoms
to smell, touch and feel, we are
equal to gods in this field.
Language is not encountering anything
new. There is no final judgment,
no superior. The assumption
is in the concentric, in everything
we see. And we don’t see more than
a grain of sand. Things in their gazing seem closer,
but that is not the criterion. I repeat: things
are not the criterion. The criterion is
inside us, and we have to disperse it, ultimately.
Death was named mistakenly by those
to whom the light was hidden.
—Translated by Sonja Kravanja