Anja

Golob : 5 Poems
from Vesa v zgibi / Bent Hang (MK, Ljubljana, 2013, ISBN 978-961-01-2835-9)
Translated by: Tadeja Spruk
www. anjagolob.org, anja9olob@gmail.com

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It
All
Hangs
On

A
Thin
Hair
Of
Coincidence
|
It
Is
Necessity
That
Drives
Me
It
Is
Power
It
Is
Cowardice
|
Is
It
The
Concept

That
Forbids
Me
To
Desist
|
Pride
A
Sense
Of
Duty
A
Covenant
With
The
World
With
Myself
Is
It
Order
Dignity
The
Right
To
Be
|
To
Abide
To
Arise
Ceaselessly
To
Hearken
To
Persevere
With
The
Thing

In
Itself
Face
To
Face
|
It
All
Hangs
All
That
I
Know
That
I
Think
I
Have
What
I
Can
What
I
Give
It
All
Hangs
My
Tiny
Insignificant
World
Which
Is
Not
Even
Mine
In
Its
Entirety

Hangs
|
It
Sways
Not
Pulsates
Not
Nor
Twitches
It
Is
What
It
Is
What
It
Hangs
|
And
The
Concept
And
Affection
And
Attribute
And
Accident
Apperception
Apprehension
Antinomies
Assonance
|
More
More
Slightly
More
For
This
Array

To
At
Least
Grow
Into
Itself
Into
Meaning
More
|
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VEINS WIRES

I've had this dream: an animal has fingers.
It rests on its side, I observe it from the back,
Its head is bent forward as though it were
Timid, and it rocks back and forth in light rhythm.
With blank, mechanical motions
It rummages through the rupture, its fingers
Carefully sorting the tissue and looking for veins.
They pluck them one by one to make them easier to hold
the veins are thin, but sturdy, like the wires inside of an electrical network
and tear them strenuously, one after the other.
The animal works soundlessly, it's almost immobile, slowly
And thoroughly it cuts the intake of pulsation to the heart
That's closing whimperingly, like the veil of an animal's pupil parts.
The space around it is emptied, drenched in a pool
Of the slithering blood it cannot and wants no longer to control.
The coat of its skin is stretched on the skeleton like a tent
Flaccid in the springtide breeze, in its front like scattered luggage the stranded organs
lie.
The animal gasps for air (the body is a machine), it listens,
Contracts, shrivels, extends its inflamed fingers,
And it freezes triumphantly.

COWS AND TIME

How serenely they lie in the cold of grass,
The animals, waiting for death! They leisurely look for
A shadowy spot and graze silently on time.
Unceasingly, they are here, when they are not,
Rumpled shadows grow in the place where they
Usually lie, breathing into the soil. They look at
Trains zipping by, and don't understand
Why all the hurry. They don't know what "hurry" is,
What counts in their eternity is grazing,
Grazing and water, water and grazing,
The sunset, the going home, the milking, stand still.
There comes a year when a birthday doesn't
Arrive on time, and there's Christmas in mid-September,
or perhaps at the end of May, or there isn't one.
Cows stand, thinking of nothing, only the universe
Which resembles the foam in a bucket of milk,
They think of the man on the Moon, the droplets
Of clouds, hiding the belligerent ozone holes,
Which sometimes give them headaches,
And the trees have become important, and
Sometimes they err, in the most fleeting of fashions,
And come to celebrate your birthday
On the wrong day. You notice them, it's an ordinary day,
You feign oblivion, well it's not like you really
Have to be a year older again now, but then
They tell you that the shadows have tagged along,
That no one is there on the soil today,
That no one is breathing into it on the disrobed meadow,
that it's an exception. Now you know, and, meanwhile,
Above you, a cow is landing on the Moon, a man on Mars,
so get ready, leave the fridge, it's time to leave the candles,
Arrange the garment, grab a napkin,
Fold it into an aeroplane, quickly! Off we go,
The choir of animals counting down, 3 ..., 4 ..., now!
Happy birthday, take off, take into the summer,
Happy, happy birthday
To you.

YES, SPRINGS NEEDED YOU

Springs do not need you. Summers,
Winters and autumns do not need you.
People and animals do not need you,
Time and trees do not need you, you are
Of no need and of no use. Nothing needs you.
There's no money that will pay you.
To be beyond the world's reach gives you comfort,
It consoles you and condemns you to no one's company but your own.
Wherever you look, you see yourself, you alone hear
What you say, you pour tea into your cup for yourself,
You make love to yourself, you escape yourself.
You were someone who stopped time,
Now you're but a shadow replete with silence,
You trusted, you laughed, you spoke aloud,
Now you sit in your lair, so immersed in the study
Of walls, the counting of screws, the flights of planes that you scarcely ever stir.
In secret, all you want is for the springtide to shatter all windows, to kick you
In the balls, and howl into your ear to get up, slacker, there is need of you,
There is use of you, you are not worthless, and the universe cannot do without you,
But within yourself, inside that quiet, soggy cocoon, you know, beyond the shadow of a
doubt,
That this life, this death had long since
Balanced all that was ever written for you in books.
Yes, springs needed you, and you were of essence for the world to turn,
And for a pair of eyes to open every morning,
You were needed, valuable, indispensable
Once, before, in days of yore.

LIGHT STREAMS FROM UNDERNEATH

Light streams from underneath.
The body next to yours is asleep and does not see
It prowling outside, rattling against the windows,
Fumbling under the door,
Flowing from you.

Your body is cold and curved,

Like the frayed wire inside a light bulb,

Flickering unmovingly in fierce rhythm

(Imagine a very accurate lighthouse)

To the sleepy helmsmen of ocean liners.

Light streams from underneath.
She didn't know that I was a firefly, but that I also
Had long antennae and a nest made of wax
It is written on my fingers, but she did not notice.

Perhaps I carry in my arms whatever it is that she loves,

But it is more likely that I have but flint and splinters of wood,

And I don't know how to handle them to make them fire.

And yet she turns in her sleep, utters my name,
And takes me, even though
Light does not feed on light.

Then, for a long time,

we play together, pantingly,

On the skin of the air so that

Her body beams into the night with a murky gloss,

And slowly shines through, in the heavy gloom,
A light from the dark.

"Sleep now, go back to sleep," I whisper,

May she go blind, I plead mutely, may she never see
What I truly am, and may she not realize
That nothing I have is really mine,
For it all, all the beauty,
Like light,
Streams from underneath.