Primož Repar

A red smudge has smeared the sparkle of white
teeth in the pit of the jaws that spat out its
thorn, as if from afar, who knows when,
who knows where, ravens would take off
in their most ardent plea, but from the haven of the loved one,
before the veiled face,
the voice would crack and sink
into the holy symbol. At dawn,
it would start conquering the vastness of tender designs; let us love!
Oh, startled tufts, heavy is the symbol;
Oh, lovely cliff, overheated are the oceans; oh, fish
immaculate, the cradle of peace. Anointed are the bubbles
in the pit of the jaws that spat out its thorn;
anointed are the bodies of elusive solitudes;
anointed are the sighs of the approaching;
anointed are anointments with the sword of the cross,
with the sword of silence, with the sword of hell. Crumbled are the pillars,
that gave support to the noblest shudder. Rejected
blues, blue, kind, mythical blues, sparkle in their completeness
and not even the sheen of everyday can claim it. On the
overheated sky the stars battle the blood
of speech, and on my shore, a seaweed-spangled fish
swallows the azure star.
I beseech my myrrh; from head to tail, the fish scrapes itself
with the knife’s handle. I see: chopped up, someone will bury it in embers.
The ancient horrors will be horrified! The red blade will awake
from a cloud, there, somewhere in the
pit of the jaws!

translated from slovene by Polona Šeško

*
Divine promise
remained loyal to itself,
playing with the cracks around it.
The sap of the living explained this unconditionality.
The law created meaning
and loyally drank up all the blood.
Loyalty to oneself is
a sharp knife
in the heart of divine promise.
*
Fallen angles,
smitten with gifts,
resting in mid-sky.
Sterile thunder,
again and again,
but nothing fell asunder.
The impure have
skipped perfection
and did not quake
before the flattering shield.
They reached into condition
and covered the cloud.
The shield crumbled.
The fallen angels did not fall.

translated from slovene by Polona Šeško

Cradling solitary spasms, as if nurturing
captured demons on the altar of ecstasy, deep beneath the ground,
through the nostalgias of your demented stars, through the droplets
of distant suffering, through the smell of a twitching, bloodied
crucifix, the white hands are blindly reaching out for the mirror
of the pallid should of the decaying firmament.

translated from slovene by Polona Šeško

A flaming statue in unrecognisable splendour of empathy
and a tinny face in the look of wounded rhythms,
shadowed mediations of the soul's wings
of self-intuition are consumed by the inviting jaws of destiny
and hoping that the angles of self-pity will stop
the raging voices and save the cobwebs of virginity before they are scraped way.

translated from slovene by Polona Šeško