Barbara Pogačnik

The vaults above our boats have many layers.
We touch the depth and the relief of sky’s border.
Now other heavenly vaults shed
their skins under the sun. Calmly
a palm rests at the sea’s edge.
While kissing, a head opens like a flower
and in its calyx, lies’ pollen
outlines against the desperate borders
of vaults.
Translated

Translation: Carolyn Dille

When I got back home, my apartment sighed,
a draught-horse straining at the weight.
The room I had abandoned was left ajar
like an unbuttoned shirt,
a breathing slightly open,
a breathing long obstructed.
The balcony hung over us like a long-legged
morning full of turning iron cranes.
I tried to gnaw through the gray wool knot in my
   throat.
The freshly washed palm dropped for a moment.

Cranes can turn the world down or
up: they build like thousands of horses.
The demolishing of love is an enduring process.
At times it feels like plucking eyebrows,
then like an operation without anesthetic.
The fridge wheezes, gas installation throws
flashes of lightning and the weather frowns.
A drop keeps spilling over the edge of dirty dishes.
It seems someone had moved into the apartment
on so many of my layers while I was travelling and it
patiently awaited my return.

Now there’s a birdhouse here, and fire devouring it:
   the good flame,
strong wingbeats separating from water,
flaming cranes, blazing cranes.

Translation: Julija Potrč and Christopher Meredith

We came to an inn with a sign at the door:
We don’t serve drinks!
We have excellent curtains.
In the entire room, he sits alone with a fork
and a knife, looking sullen.
Someone poured pepper in the yoghurt and now
we have to wait and see what will come out of this.
How alone he is in this big room
where a traveler wanders only by chance,
immediately noticing black pepper on white
yoghurt and this man writing, writing, and eating
but nobody
to cook for him.
He teases ever smaller signs or great
events from the fine pepper dust.

Enter skilled waiters:
in white outfits, their hands holding snail shaped
pralines that melt on the skin: so much elegance!
The starched white of the jackets with the soft black
  of chocolate
curves, the middle ear of writing in this long tunnel
winding to the inn, and we hear clocks
whistle into the wind.

Three days of clocks that nobody winds,
like three snails on the heart.
It’s nice to hear the pocket watch cases click
their flaps on the silent ocean floor. It’s impossible to
stop the yoghurt colored snow, it’s coming down,
covering the lavishly set table and delicious dishes,
warm candle colors, even their flames
will have to wait for a stir on the water surface.

Under the snow remained labels that meant the opposite:
»drink me« meant you had to look away,
»speak« meant you had to keep silent,
and the sign »are you working?« meant your head
was spinning with drowsiness.
With someone kissing you, remember that
they will never arrive.

The clocks thronged together, eager to know what
was going on, shoving each other. Later, most of those
at first sitting in the darkness managed to crowd
into the office, and the ones that were assigned
places on armchairs were mowed down like
    grass in bed.

Oh! said Alice, tiny fingers on her mouth. Of course
you should get married! My fingers are far too thin to wear a ring!

The boy who said something earlier cannot be seen.
Supposedly he’s standing behind the bench, anyway
Alice
is the only person in the photo.
Inflated clouds above the bench
are esthetically well matched with the dots on her dress.
The rabbit behind the vintage camera draws attention
to his English pocket watch, but Alice
can’t seem to get a thing like that into her head.
The other rabbits, in their blue-tinged waistcoats,
wait upright, in a rather straight line
against a plain white background for someone
to signal they can start coloring Easter eggs.
Incredible amounts of dead silver water here
as the ballpoint pen
squeaks on its way, like a boat.

 

Translation: Julija Potrč and Christopher Meredith