Slovenia 2-2 USA

Taja Kramberger (1970- ; trans. Ana Jenicar)



A Poem for Slavica, Giving it my Best

The best poems are still to come.
I feel it in my bones, in those same bones
that five years ago wanted to fold into a shrine
and sleep from exhaustion. Sleep on and on
in no one’s memory.

The best poems are still to come,
they collect like white blood cells round a cut,
like puppies round the nipples,
they seethe like new wine, they smell
like babies smell of milk, of mother, of life,
o, water, o, earth, o, those who are thirsty!
They return to the sea like aging sailors.

The skyline is high today, says Jana, it’s as though
I was watching it from the bottom of the well, but
the air is clotting slowly, and I am glad
we have that landing that isn’t
slippery, those young doves to flap their wings.
We have two small Zivas, born in the same year,
to babble, dribble, and smack their little mouths over breakfast, and Vid,
touching the floor with his head,
having infinite fun.

You won’t find the sentence
wunderbare melodische Gedichte
if your book was turned down.
People walk around like loaded cartridges
with a broken lid and a rusty ability to judge,
though there is someone whose eyes glitter,
and who, as taut as a string, sent vibes
through a place you once knew but had forgotten.

The bastard epistemology in the global:
horrendous lead pellets and their flatulent
promotion. Rewind! Reset!
All the things you have to swallow before
you set eyes on a patch of fertile land. An eyelid,
weighted heavily with the tears of those who were silenced but
didn’t bend under the burden.

There’s no one who would dedicate
such a beautiful poem to me, Slavica said. There is.
The best poems are still to come.


Kenneth Koch (1925-2002)



Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1.
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2.
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3.
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4.
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!