Europe Poem by Aleš Šteger

Even now you peddle the story of the Turks
At the gates of Vienna, dismantling their tents only as a ruse.
And how masquerading as kebab vendors
Even now they're only waiting for the right moment
To leap out from their kiosks and cut your throats.

No matter that your tribes are lost forever
In the marshes of your barbaric designs
And even you can't tell the skull of a Goth from the skull
Of a Slav from the skull of an Angle from the skull of a Frank,
Still you believe only your sons' spilt blood will rejuvenate you.

Still you think you'll give the lie to all of us.
When I close my tired eyes, you appear
In the form of a hairy fat woman who gives birth while snoring
And of the man in the dark beside her secretly masturbating,
Thinking about America.

Translated by W. Martin and Tom Lozar