Peter Semolič

so oaze tihote, oaze miru,
ko noc na vzhodu bledi.

Fužinski trgi so bledi cvetovi
pod prvim jutranjim svitom.

Fužinski trgi so samotne poti
zgodnjih delavcev in poznih ljubimcev.

Fužinski trgi so naglica odhoda
in pocasni, morda skriven prihod.

Prek fužinskih trgov veje
blag veter z oddaljenih Alp

in prebira odpadle liste casopisov.
...

are oases of silence, oases of peace,
as the night on the East grows pale.

Squares of Fužine are pale flowers
under the first break of dawn.

Squares of Fužine are solitary routes
of early workers and late-night lovers.

Squares of Fužine are the haste of going
and the slow, perhaps secret arrival.

Across the squares of Fužine
a mild wind from the faraway Alps blows

and sifts through the fallen newspaper leaves.
...

Vcasih, ko mi je dolgcas,
se pogovarjam z Bogom.
Pregledujeva vzorce v linoleju,
njihovo ritmicno ponavljanje
na kuhinjskih tleh.

Iz teh lis, recem,
lahko razbereš medveda,
iz teh macko,
in ce odmisliš klobuk
pri tem smešnem možaku,
dobiš levjo glavo.

Okorno ponavlja za mano:
Medved, macka . . .
Vedno znova zacuden,
ko enak lik najde ob kredenci
ali pod oknom.

Vidiš to crto,
ki prepolavlja pod?
Koliko neskladnosti vnaša v podobe.
Tu bi lahko bil bizon,
a se je izcimil le pohabljen
konjski hrbet.

Bizon, konjski hrbet . . .
Crkuje kot otrok ob prvem berilu,
zgrožen nad crno razpoko,
ki prepolavlja kuhinjska tla.

Kažem naprej, proti vratom na hodnik,
kjer se pricnejo predeli pošasti,
fantasticnih bitij brez glav,
grozljivih spak brez teles.
Pocasi ga izrivam ven,
ker je že pozno in bi rad spal.

A ko ponoci vstanem,
da bi popil kozarec vode,
še vedno stoji na pragu,
zazrt v tenko raz,
ki tece od zida proti oknu,
kot nekdo,
ki se je izgubil v tujem mestu
in ne zna jezika,
da bi vprašal za pot.
...

Sometimes, if I am bored,
I talk to God. We examine
patterns in the linoleum together,
rhythmical repetitions
on the kitchen floor.

In these shapes, I say,
you can see a bear,
and in these a kitten,
and if you ignore the cap
on this funny chap
you get a lion's head.

Awkwardly he repeats after me:
a bear, a cat . . .
And is utterly amazed whenever he finds
the same shape next to the sideboard
or beneath the window.

Can you see this line
cutting the floor in half?
What disharmony it brings into the images.
This here could be a bison,
but it turns out merely a deformed
horse's back.

A bison, horse's back . . .
He spells like a child at his primer,
enraged over a black crack
that cuts the kitchen floor in half.

I point forward, towards the door into the hallway,
where the monster zone begins,
the zone of fantastical creatures without heads,
horrible freaks without bodies.
Slowly I push him out,
after all, it is late and I would like to sleep.

But when I get up at night
to have a glass of water
he is still standing at the door,
staring into a thin line
that runs from the wall to the window
like someone
who is lost in a foreign city
and does not know the language
to ask the way.
...

To noc
sem sanjal o tebi,
oce.
V podobi jelena
si prišel v moje
sanje
in se ustopil vrh
travnatega
grica.

Poklical sem te
po imenu,
oce.
Poklical sem te
z besedo: oce.
Rekel sem:

Glej,
moji ocesi sta
dva mokra cvetova
ob gorskem
potoku.
Pridi
in tvoj topli
jelenji jezik
naj osuši roso,
ki je padla
na moje
oci.

Ti pa si stal
kot v nekem drugem
svetu,
kot v nekih drugih
sanjah,
vrh grica,
poraslega s travo.

Otresel si s svojim
mogocnim
rogovjem
in izginil v belem
oblaku
nikogaršnjih
sanj.
...

Last night
I dreamt about you,
father.
You came
into my dream
as a deer
and stood astride
a grassy
mound.

I called you
by your name,
father.
I called you
by the word: father
I said:

Look,
my eyes are
two wet flowers
by the mountain
stream.
Come,
let your warm
deer tongue
dry the dew
that fell upon
my eyes.

And you stood
as in another
world,
as in another
dream,
on a mound,
overgrown with grass.

You shook your
mighty
antlers
and vanished in the white
cloud
of no one's
dreams.
...

Oce, cas je, da se srecava v budnosti.
Ti ves iz spominov in pepela. Jaz . . .

Z lahkoto me boš prepoznal.
Nosim tvoje oci, tvojo brado, tvojo usodo,
zapisano v koži.

Oce, cas je, da priznava obstoj sekire,
zadrte v grco.

Ne prosim te za cudež.
Ne prosim te, da bi izruval rezilo.
Pristajam na to,
da bo najino ognjišce za zmerom mrzlo.

Prosim te za preprosto priznanje:
nisva spoštovala zakonov rasti.

In sprejmem izgovor:
mraz je bil,
zato je toporišce vztrepetalo med prsti.

Oce, to je vse, za kar prosim.

Vem, zmerom si govoril,
da so ptice le gostje dreves.
Da veter prebira liste le sebi.
A jaz ne morem drugace.

Kako naj svojo vitko mladost
vržem na ogenj spomina,
ce v njej tici neizreceno jeklo?

Priznajva njegov obstoj, oce.
Da bo tebi smrt lažja
in meni življenje manj utrudljivo.
...

Father, it's time for us to meet in wakefulness.
You, entirely of memories and ashes. I . . .

You will recognize me easily.
I bear your eyes, your chin, your destiny,
marked on my skin.

Father, it's time we admitted the existence of a hatchet,
driven into a knot.

I am not asking you for a miracle.
I am not asking you to tug at the blade.
I assent to the fact
that our hearth will forever be cold.

I am asking you for a simple admission:
we did not obey the laws of growth.

And I accept the excuse:
it was cold,
which is why the handle shivered in our grip.

Father, that is all I am asking for.

I know, you have always said
that birds are merely trees' visitors.
That the wind sifts the leaves only for itself.
But this is the way I am.

How can I throw my slender youth
onto the pyre of memory,
if there is mute steel lurking in it?

Let us admit to its existence, father.
So death will be easier for you
and life less of a burden for me.
...

Zgradil nama bom hišo iz besed.
Samostalniki bodo opeke
in glagoli bodo polkna.

S pridevniki si bova okrasila
okenske police
kot z rožami.

Cisto tiha bova ležala pod baldahinom
najine ljubezni.
Cisto tiha.

Prelepa in prekrhka bo najina hiša,
da bi jo ogrozila
z inflacijo besed.

In ce bova spregovorila,
bova imenovala predmete,
vidne le najinim ocem.

Ker vsak glagol
bi lahko zamajal temelje
in jih razrušil.

Zato, pst, mon amour,
pst, pour le beau demain
à notre maison.
...

I will build us a house made of words.
Nouns will be bricks
and verbs will be shutters.

With adjectives we will adorn
the window sills
as with flowers.

In perfect silence we will lie
beneath the baldachin of our love.
In perfect silence.

Our house will be too beautiful
and too fragile for us to endanger it
with an inflation of words.

And if we speak,
we will name objects
visible only to our eyes.

Because every verb
could shake the foundations
and demolish them.

Therefore, hush, mon amour,
hush, pour le beau demain
à notre maison.
...

Enkrat v prihodnosti
bodo na Zemlji prebivali le še kmetje.
Vozili se bodo s konjskimi vpregami
in jedli žito.
Živali se bodo mirno pasle ob belih poteh
ali pa ležale v senci topol
in prežvekovale svoj poldan.

Zvecer bodo vašcani posedli okoli
belolasega umetnika,
ki bo utonil v globoko meditacijo.
iz nepredstavljivih daljav
bo v njihove zavesti pošiljal slike,
lepše od najlepših pesmi.

To ni utopija.
Mladenici bodo imeli bele obleke,
podobne kimonom.
Sedeli bodo na travniku
in jaz, ki bom prihajal iz bližnjega skednja,
še ves dremav od ljubezni,
jim bom pomahal v pozdrav.

Ko bodo umrli,
bodo umrli tišje kot umreta
list ali cvet.
...

One day in the future
the Earth will be peopled only by peasants.
They will drive around in horse carriages
and eat vegetables.
Animals will peacefully graze alongside white roads
or lie in the shade of poplars
and chew their cud.

In the evening, villagers will sit around
a white-haired artist
sinking deep into meditation.
Out of unimaginable distances,
he will send pictures into their consciousness,
more beautiful than the most beautiful poetry.

This is not utopia.
Young men will wear white clothes
similar to kimonos.
They will sit in the grass fields
and I, coming out of the nearby barn,
still drowsy from love,
will wave to them.

Then their death
will be more quiet than the death
of a leaf or a flower.
...

Ce dobro pomislim, nisem bil nikoli
otrok narave. Primerjal sem kacje pastirje
s helikopterji in ostro plavut morskega
psa s periskopom. Ce dobro pomislim,

sta bila zame kavboj in indijanec
iz vesterna, ce že ne resnicnejša,
vsekakor pomembnejša od kmetov,
ki so vozili mleko v vaško zadrugo -

vsako jutro ob isti uri in po isti poti
mimo naše hiše. Ce dobro pomislim,
je bil ogled risanke ob sedmih zvecer
neštetokrat razburljivejši dogodek

od še tako divje nevihte, ki se je
razbesnela nad Morostom. Ce dobro
pomislim, je bil zame leta edini pravi
soncni zahod tisti v crno-beli tehniki.
...

On second thoughts, I was never
a child of nature. I compared dragonflies
to helicopters and a shark's sharp fin
to a periscope. On second thoughts,

Cowboys and Indians out of Westerns
were, perhaps not more real,
but undoubtedly more important for me
than farmers who took milk to the local co-op

each morning at the same time, along the same route
past our house. On second thoughts,
the seven o'clock cartoon was
a hundred times more exciting

than any storm, no matter how wild,
which broke out over Morost. On second
thoughts, for years the only real sunset for me
was one in black and white.
...

Ni vec prinasalec
luci.

Sam je postal predmet
igre
svetlobe
in senc.

Ujet v zakonitosti
snovnega sveta
kleci kot nekdo,
ki prosi odpuscanja.

Ce bi vstal,
bi se mu najbrz
rahlo zvrtelo
v glavi.

Obleka se mu guba
v pasu,
prepasanem z vrvjo,
in ob kolenih.

Krila so tezka,
skoraj mesnata.

Kot da se sramuje
padca
v obmocje cutnosti
in arhitekture,

trdno klecec
na mrzlem marmorju
skriva obraz
v senci.

Lavrica, September/October 1992
...

He is no longer the bringer
of light.

He himself has become the object
of the play
of light
and shadow.

Caught within the laws
of the material world,
he kneels like someone
asking for forgiveness.

Getting up
would probably
make him slightly
dizzy.

His robe wrinkles
around the waist,
girded with a rope,
and around his knees.

His wings are heavy,
almost fleshy.

As though he were ashamed
of the fall
into the realm of sensation
and architecture,

he firmly kneels
on the cold marble floor
keeping his face
in shadow.


Lavrica, September/October 1992
...

Nocoj plujem po vseh svojih rekah, nošen s tokom
govorice, plujem, ko govorim, govorim, ko plujem . . .

. . . reke, lesketave kot otroški smeh, staccato brzic, hitri
zdrsi prek kaskad, zanosno padanje prek slapov, delci
vode in v vsakem sonce in koncno pena, mehurji zraka, ki me
oblivajo kot velikanski jakuzzi . . .

. . . reka, veliki rjavi bog, me nosi kot spece bruno skozi
visoko poletje, brencanje žuželk, plujem, ko govorim,
govorim, ko plujem, vidim: sinje nebo, oblaki in ribe plavajo
cezenj, raki se skrivajo v krošnjah dreves, v zeleni eksploziji
joie de vivre, jata mladic prhne iz njih kot preplašene prepelice . . .

. . . vidim: pravilni Narcisov obraz, težke kvadre florentinskih
zgradb, loke mostov, prek katerih tecejo verzi o minevanju
(Apollinaire) in verzi pesnitve, ki jo berem . . .

. . . vidim sebe v menjavi letnih casov in svojo ljubezen,
žalostno kot vrba, ki se sklanja nadme, ki sem reka, ki plujem
skozi zimo, skozi mesto de la Tour Unique du Grand Gibet et
de la Roue . . .

. . . reka sem, odsotno sprejmem nesrecnega ljubimca,
vélikega pesnika in nisem žalosten, ko se obarvam s krvjo, in
nisem vesel, ko se topijo ledeniki, ko se dvigam v nebo, ne.
prizadeneta me niti jez niti nasip . . .

. . . reka, temno božanstvo onkraj prepletajocega se
barjanskega zelenja, brezcutno blatno božanstvo, moja usta te
imenujejo Amazonka, ti recejo Nil, Misisipi, moje oci
postavljajo ob tebi skrivnostna mesta (Eldorado), jaz
te delam za Okinavo . . .

. . . mladenica, lepa kot Hijacint, drgetajoca v rosnem jutru,
zreta vate, izgubljena v sebi, zreta vate, lepa kot Hijacint,
a ti se niti ne ozreš nanju . . .

Nocoj plujem po vseh svojih rekah, zvezde, zvezde
globoko pod mano, nocoj plujem po sebi, plujem, ko govorim,
govorim, ko plujem, plujem po sebi, razmnoženem v neštete
tokove, potok sem, ob katerem brusim nož, divja deklica se
umije v meni po hitrem ljubljenju na produ, moja ljubezen
sega vame in mi rece Kolpa in mi rece Rokava in mi rece
'hladiš, odstiraš pot' in mi rece, ti si led, led, led . . .

. . . govorim in govorjen sem, plujem in plut sem, resnicen
sem in privid sem, voda sem, ki me obliva, plavalec sem, ki
ostro reže enakomerni tok, pocasni hod reke proti morju,
morje sem, ki je reka vseh rek, nebo sem, ki je morje morja . . .

Ljubljana, poletje 1998:
Na vrtu predmestne krcme berem Octavia Paza, sivi caplji se
kot dobra zmaja spreletavata v prosojnem veceru . . .

. . . enakomerni hrum Ljubljanice ob zapornicah, svetlobno
telo reke, veliko sonce ugaša v njej . . .

. . . poberem za otroško pest velik kamen izpod nog in ga
vržem prek ograje v vodo . . .

. . . ne beri me kot zgodbo, beri me kot koncentricne kroge
na vodi . . .
...

Sineadin glas pada vame
in me oplaja kot duh devico Marijo.

"Vcasih moram poslušati . . . ,
da je bilo mojega gibanja konec
pred puškami strelskega voda
leta 1916," je zapisal Yeats.

Vec kot pol stoletja kasneje
sem v nekem dokumentarcu videl Ben Bulben
in pod njim pesnikov grob,
obdan z avreolo vecera.

Še vedno iz strahu pred lastnim koncem
napovedujem konec sveta.
Še vedno me plaši življenje.
Še vedno moj konj nemirno rezgece v hlevu.

Na drugi strani tehtnice
je vokal Sinead O'Connor,
dišec kot mošus,
kot ambra,
v kateri je za vedno shranjen
kitov smrtni krik.

V Sineadinem glasu vedno odmeva
mirni Yeatsov odhod.

Zdaj pada vame in me oplaja
kot luc pozabljenega
poganskega boga.
...

Sinead's voice falls into me, impregnating me
as the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary.

"Sometimes I am told in commendation . . .
that my movement perished
under the firing squads
of 1916," wrote Yeats.

Over half a century later,
in a documentary, I see Ben Bulben,
and at its foot, the poet's grave
surrounded by the evening halo.

Still fearing my own end
I foretell the end of the world.
Life still scares me.
Restless, my horse still neighs in his stable.

On the other side of the scales
is the voice of Sinead O'Connor,
perfumed like musk,
like amber in which
forever the whale's death shriek
is captured.

In Sinead's voice, Yeats' calm
departure always resounds.

Now it falls into me and impregnates me
like the light of a forgotten
pagan god.
...