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published by
Slovene Writers’ Association
Slovene P.E.N.
&
Association of the Slovene Literary Translators
from 1962 published under the title of Le livre Slovene
Odgovorni urednik Litterae Slovenicae v letu 2000/ Litterae Slovenicae as in the year 2000 edited by / Rédactrice responsable de Litterae Slovenicae en 2000
Aleš Berger
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© Slovene Writers’ Association, 1999
SLO ISSN 0459-6242
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phone +386 1 25 14 144
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CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji
Univerzitetna knjižnica Maribor
821.163.6-1(0.034.2)
ZAJC, Dane
Scorpions [Elektronski vir] : selected poems = poèmes choisis / Dane Zajc ; translated by Sonja Kravanja, traduits par Zdenka Štimac. - El. knjiga. - Ljubljana : Društvo slovenskih pisateljev = Slovene Writers’ Association = Association des écrivains slovènes, 2017. - (Litterae slovenicae : Slovenian literary magazine)
ISBN 978-961-6995-31-3 (ePub)
COBISS.SI-ID 92390913
Društvo slovenskih pisateljev je hotelo pred objavo poravnati vse obveznosti do vseh nosilcev materialnih avtorskih pravic. V nekaterih primerih nam to ni uspelo, zato jih prosimo, naj se nam oglasijo. / Prior to publication, the Slovene Writers’ Association was committed to settling all the obligations towards the respective owners of the literary copyrights. In some cases we were unable to reach the authorized holders, and we hereby kindly ask them to contact us.
Dane Zajc
Scorpions
selected poems
translated by Sonja Kravanja
poèmes choisis
traduits par Zdenka Štimac
Društvo slovenskih pisateljev
Slovene Writers’ Association
Association des écrivains slovènes
2017
Scorpions
selected poems
translated by Sonja Kravanja
Woman from a Desert
woman from a desert
has breasts of sand (red)
her navel is a hollow in the sand
as if drilled by a sandpiper
there is skin between her thighs
moist sand: out of it grow
ever changing desert flowers
opening their wet mouths
into the sand
when he touches the woman from the desert
she is red fire
her hair flames blue
it swirls red from her navel
the orchid between her legs doesn’t burn
but grows larger
envelopes him with flowery lips
with mouths mouths everywhere
as they cry out scorched
they disintegrate into red sand
the woman from the desert vanishes
he looks for her in the sand
finds no trace of her in the sandy sheets
Poetry Burns
Fire reads poems.
Fire assigns punctuation.
Fast fire with charred eyes
flips pages with flaming fingers.
Who will read verses,
etched in embers.
Burned out words. Decomposed syllables.
Distorted letters.
An impaled head
writes verses under closed eyelids.
Sings us a black poem
inaudibly from the slit throat.
Fair-haired poems burn with fire in their hair.
Nightingales burn above the nightingale city
with singed wings, with the burned out
warble in their beaks.
Roses burn in the walled gardens.
Brothels burn, the minaret rods break.
Churches burn.
In the fire a charred question,
what is a poem.
The faces of clocks burn,
set ablaze all at once.
The time past, the future time
dart from the flames of the present time.
On the question what is death,
blood drips
from the fatal wound of the just born.
To be a Drop
To be a drop on your breasts,
to be a clear bright drop
on thirsty skin,
to be a restless drop
on ardent breasts,
to be the absorbed drop on your body.
To be a kindling in your fire,
to be a blazing fire in your fire,
to be a giant fire
in the fire of your life,
to burn, burn, burn down
and be ashes diffused by
the breath of your passion,
to feel nothing any longer, desire nothing.
Only in destruction there is peace, there is love,
only in destruction is there an infinite loyalty,
dead objects love with the calm of eternity,
o to be a rock in the field
of your love.
Vipers
On some deserted shore,
where sand and wind converse
about eternity,
vipers slither out
from under rocks,
cold and odious
they lay on my heart.
I said to the vipers,
hungry for warmth:
Drink blood.
I’ve no use for blood.
I’ve no use for the rivers of passion.
They have nowhere to flow,
they are choking in the dams of reason.
Devour my heart also.
I’ve no use for it
as it dissolves in ice,
like weeping stars dissolve
in the river.
Devour my heart.
Then furl into an icy ball
in the cavern of my chest,
so I won’t need to watch
the stars weeping
in waterpools,
watch them longing for radiant footsteps
left behind
on the azure velvet of the sky.
Devour my heart,
swill hot blood,
cold, odious vipers.
All is permitted
on the desolate shore,
where sand and wind converse
about eternity,
one only needs to rip his heart out
and hurl it into the famished snakes’ mouths.
Invisible Eyes
Lions are rising.
Rested lions rise in tall grass.
They plant their heavy paws upon the ground:
the lions roar into the evening.
The moon, the night’s bright eye,
watches through treetops.
Soft bellies slither on the ground.
Looking for the eyes.
For the green eyes among trees.
For the yellow eyes in grass.
For the red eyes in reeds.
Watch your step.
Watch your legs.
The lions crawl among tree trunks.
The lions are ready to leap.
The arches of their backs shiver
with anticipation.
Watch your steps.
The invisible eyes are locating
the spot for hungry teeth on you.
The invisible teeth will snatch
at your calves.
The lions lunge at gazelles.
They leap like roaring balls of hunger.
They slaughter.
The moon, the night’s bright eye, sails across the sky.
The soft bodies crawl on the ground.
Watch your steps.
Watch your arms.
The morning will appear over the mountain, a white
sated animal.
The red sun will search,
search for a long time your bones,
scattered in the tall grass.
The lions roar into the night.
How we slaughtered the sheepish gazelles!
How we slaughtered the shuddering gazelles!
How we tore their flesh apart,
their soft flesh on the black table-cloth of the night.
Thirsty lions drink the moonlight.
Watch your arms.
The sun will find your bones,
scattered in the tall grass.
Nothing
She vanishes in the clouds
And is gone
In clear nights she swallows stars of the
Big Dipper
With a sharp edge
And I know that beyond the edge there is a
Fathomless space
Nothing
If You Don’t Meet It Half-way
If you don’t meet it half-way,
the thought that is looking for you will stray,
get itself beaten up,
the thought sent to you,
lost in lostness,
with a flickering light inside,
the light that is love,
will be black in blackness
in the swarming land of sad dogs
will whore in sinister corners,
miss the house of love,
will sell itself down the road with no signposts
submit to the dark sliding toward
pits that give nothing in return
the thought sent to you
if you don’t meet it half-way
if you, oblivious, miss the encounter.
Down Down
when I think about all your hopes
etched in your footsteps
I follow them
the footsteps that suddenly
sink into fog and mud
and damp cold
when I expect you and you come
and sit quietly by me
and I ask Is everything, everything gone
In a flash, you say, in an insane
instant it went down down
it vanished
I think of you coming with legs
corroded from a traitorous journey
and I see no reflection of your eyes
and I watch the heavy clouds falling
over the sharp-edged cliffs
and hear the spruce tips piercing
the bellies of a dark wind
Your Time
Time comes when there is no more time.
A footstep halts, cannot go ahead.
Eyes look at themselves,
with a gaze full of reproach.
Where have you brought me, they say.
Why are you stiff with fear.
Why locked in icy immobility.
Time comes when time is cruel.
Inexorable.
The lips frozen.
Unstirring.
And the tongue, dry from cognition,
plunges into the cavity of
the throat.
Time when you halt.
When you are the ice of your own self.
Your time.
Did you see anything when you undressed her
When you undressed her blind
Night butterflies broke into crystals
They were masked robbers
Did you see her stepping out of the split crystal
Did you see her in the blue lightning
Did you see her in the ozone cloud
Did you smell her in your brain
Did you smell her in your spine
Did all the stairways of your body surge
from her scent
Did you hear her
when with a highpitched
when with a hoarse
when with the all of the above sound
when she screamed
Did you hear her farewell when she stepped into the crystal
When she locked herself in the crystal
You lay on sheets
You lay on your stomach
You felt strong you felt lucent you felt you were blood you felt
You heard the night butterflies’ blood
the dark rustling in the dark
You saw sheet lightning in the rustling
the golden glitter of the burglarized crystals
the crystals’ soul in the blood of night butterflies
Unutterable Unwritten
unutterable unwritten
embedded in the mystery of the world
the vicinity of its eyes
it comes all of a sudden
it drinks you
it sips yours
and you its eyes
an elongated moment
erasing all that was
will be
what you’ve done what you’ve seen
a desert comes
staggering comes
then suddenly it lunges
it spreads itself out
the shroud of the irrevocable
you know you should not invoke it
nor whisper it
you know you’ll kill it
destroy it – word
I said wrote uttered it
it that is the reminiscence of finality
There is No
there is a place of shadow the sun
never shines upon. there is no sun
no east no west
grass never stirs in wind. there is no wind
no grass
and there is no thing to cast a shadow
and it’s never cool in the shade
and there is no cold to make hoar-frost
crunch under footsteps. there is no hoar-frost
no footsteps
night never falls a star
never begins to shine noon is shadowy.
there is no noon
no shadows melt at nightfall
there is no nightfall