I would vote for the poet. I would go to him
and give him my vote. I would vote for him with silence, white,
so silent, forgotten and alone,
as are the unheard words of all poets, workers
and proletarians, their fleeing from the mouth that cannot pay off language,
therefore, if you feel me serving you, please
vote for the crumbled, sullen, ugly poet, crushed from work,
sprinkled over paper, his straw of dry grass,
let’s pay him the elections, not with whichever money,
but with poetry, the mediator says that gold will gain value,
look at them, poets,
for the language candidate they would all give their loans,
debts, word, paying off to beauty, to her, sitting on the edge,
consoling him softly and worriedly, she who is carried by the non-elected poet,
knows without words that we stand on the same page of the book, he who writes and i
who reads and no migrant border between us,
no chemical agents, parties, currencies, plastic bottle caps,
and since this is not enough, between us there is that
which is less than silence, nudity, lemon or a goal,
no, the two of us are like water, washing ashore a book
for engines, tubes, vending machines, comfort, oil, continents to flow off it,
and ultimately even language slips beyond dark matter, where
totality is still without smell, rhythm, and shape, do you still believe,
that there I would find the poet’s madness and embrace it,
shorter than breath, memory, joy, or déjà vu,
so much shorter that even the poet would be taken away from me,
so he would not escape with me and I would leave him in my imagination,
since only there a candidate with a phd could be elected,
yet without a job, a shiny pendant, spectacle from a box,
human replacing human, relative, townsman,
just as all the foreigners across the wires of the purchased sky,
you and me just as he to himself a loyal follower, who cannot exit
imagination with me,
only him I would tell that in the keyboard
an ant, an artery, an ideal, dirt are stuck, or that the form from the bureau
reeks of wrath of a working woman’s day, the sweat of her unemployed
husband,
the smell of her hand, it touched a toy, she won’t bring it from the store,
not just any toy, but the toy-car with the price of the gaze of their child
a day before. only to him, the bestial poet, without stars or muscles,
I would trust, that I got an apartment by knowing the right person,
no taxes, arithmetic, fillers or bureaucracy, only parents
on the ground floor of the house. he would approve atomic bomb, since time
without shortcuts, appliances, bonces, servants, and brilliantine
without birthdays, holidays, visits, rides, and chocolate is so damn long,
that you erase the events, which should have happened, so that a half of year
would be
like a month without a pay, life of an empty banal planet,
with crooks, tycoons, dirty fellows, the naive, bureaucrats, smugglers,
with trained elephants, logic bills, as an apparition
or only a cynical poem of the day, covered in ice and its top,
a barefoot wish in a pine forest, like deserted snail shells,
dried saliva, left without greed, as it is just how it is supposed to be,
in this sucked-out world, without houses, door, roads, field, without event,
like space that life will pick up off the floor one day
to leave a mark on the bottom,
not in my, but in your imagination,
you, who I will vote for, because I cannot vote for myself,
yet I can carry a poem for us both.
Translation: Glorjana Veber
volila bi poeta. odšla bi k njemu
in mu dala glas. volila bi ga s tišino, belo,
tako tiho, pozabljeno in sámo,
kot so preslišane besede vseh poetov, delavcev
in proletarcev, njihov beg iz ust, ki ne zmorejo izplačati jezika,
zato, če me čutiš, kako ti služim, prosim,
voli okrušenega, mrkega, grdega poeta, zdrobljenega od dela,
posipanega na papir, njegovo bilko na izsušeni trati,
plačajmo mu volitve, ne s katerimkoli denarjem,
ampak s poezijo, posrednik pravi, da bo zlatu zrasla vrednost,
poglej jih, poete,
za kandidata jezika bi vsi dali svoja posojila,
dolg, besedo, ki jo odplačujejo lepoti, njej, ki sedi na robu,
mehko in zaskrbljeno ga tolaži, ona, ki jo nosi neizvoljeni poet,
brez besed ve, da stojiva na isti strani knjige, on, ki piše, in jaz,
ki berem in med nama ni migrantske meje,
kemičnega sredstva, stranke, valute, plastičnih zamaškov
in ker to ni dovolj, je med nama tisto,
kar je manj kot molk, golota, limona ali cilj,
ne, midva sva kot voda, ki naplavi knjigo,
da iz nje odtečejo stroji, cevke, avtomati, udobje, nafta, kontinenti
in naposled še jezik zdrsne onkraj temne mase, tja,
kjer je celota še brez vonja, ritma in oblike, še verjameš,
da bi našla tam norost poeta in jo objela,
na krajše, kot so dih, spomin, veselje ali déjà vu,
na tako kratko, da bi mi vzelo še poeta,
da ne bi pobegnil z mano in bi ga zapustila v domišljiji,
ker samo tam bi lahko bil izvoljen kandidat z doktoratom,
a brez službe, bleščeč obesek, spektakel iz škatle,
človek, ki nadomešča človeka, sorodnika, krajana,
kot vsi tujci čez žice kupljenega neba,
jaz in ti kot on sam sebi zvest pripadnik, ki ne more z mano iz domišljije,
samo njemu bi povedala, da se na tipkovnici zataknejo
mravlja, arterija, ideal, umazanija ali da na obrazcu iz urada
zasmrdi gnev delavkinega dneva, pôt njenega brezposelnega moža,
vonj njene roke, dotaknila se je igrače, ne bo je prinesla iz trgovine,
ne katerekoli, ampak avtomobilčka s ceno pogleda njunega otroka
dan pred tem. samo njemu, živalskemu poetu, brez zvezd in mišic,
bi zaupala, da sem dobila stanovanje preko vez,
nič davka, aritmetike, mašil ali birokracije, zgolj starši
v pritličju hiše. on bi odobril atomsko bombo, ker je čas
brez bližnjic, aparatov, betic, služabnikov in briljantin,
brez rojstnih dnevov, praznikov, obiskov, voženj in čokolade tako prekleto dolg,
da izbrišeš dogodke, ki bi se morali zgoditi, da bi bilo pol leta
kot en mesec brez plačila, življenje praznega banalnega planeta,
s prevaranti, tajkuni, umazanci, naivneži, birokrati, tihotapci,
z dresiranimi sloni, logičnimi računi, kot privid
ali samo cinična pesem dneva, pokrita z ledom in njen vrh,
bosa želja v gozdu smreke, kot zapuščene hiše polžev,
posušena slina, ki ostane brez pohlepa, ker tako pač mora biti,
v tem izsesanem svetu, brez hiš, vrat, cest, polja, brez dogodka,
kot prostor, ki ga bo nekoč iz tal pobralo življenje,
da na dnu ostane sled,
ne v mojo, ampak v tvojo domišljijo,
tebe, ki te bom volila, ker ne morem sebe,
lahko pa za naju nosim pesem.