Rain smells of paper
so does Versace’s Black Jeans, here hides the reason
I am reading and writing today, writing
and reading and learning how to live,
though nothing is comparable to
the changes March brings
or with Aleš’s belief that he is a great lover
and the boys are starting to believe that he really is.
I enter Paper like I would enter Rome,
barefoot across Rubicon, Fellini ordered,
I slip down the pages like I would slip down the rainbow,
I believe there is also pepper hidden
in perfume, but men do not smell of
pepper nor paper,
all of them rather use the old dull Old Spice
and consider every lighting of candels as the sign of being obsessed
with the feelings of romance.
It’s no use mentioning how they know nothing about women,
there lived only a few who knew something about women
Andrej Rubljov, Peter Abelard and John the Baptist.
After all, who really knows anything about anyone?
The other day I lit all the candles I had found,
wore a skirt and tide the scarf
with fringes and small shells around my hips
and danced the belly dance.
The main point here is not romanticism confessed my husband-to-be
and read aloud what someone had written in the magazine
The womb does not crave for the baby, it desires the phallus.
Who really knows anything about anyone?
Words do not show who we really are completely, and the same goes
for our actions,
maybe the fact that you cannot borrow Seferis
from our library, tells us a lot
or tells us nothing at all.
Instead the librarian pushed Richard Burns into my hands
and his eyes clinged to my face This could redeem you as well,
then after your salvation pull us up with you.
They wish to compose the book of books from world’s literature,
wanting to exchange Pentateuch for Grička vještica,
The Book of Joshua for American Psycho,
Judges for The Name of the Rose
and we would come to the Apocalipse.
The time for reading The Bible and Koran has passed by
Judaism and Maniheism have grown old,
Christ’s teachings have lost their flexibility.
It’s not much to ask said Richard Burns,
It’s not much to ask, only the common miracle.
I am reading and writing today, writing
and reading and learning how to live,
I am touching the books like they were cutting knives,
and they gracefully return with the same strength,
never mind there are no great events in them,
with no Ophelia dressed in white, just tiny
human fragility, under whose power the ground colapses.
Poetry, so that God does not need to create it all,
reality, so that Devil has a clear conscience.
Translated by Alenka Sunčič Zanut
Dež ima vonj po papirju,
enako Versacejev Black Jeans, zato
danes berem in pišem, pišem
in berem in se učim živeti,
čeprav to sploh ni primerljivo
s spremembami, ki jih prinese marec
ali z Aleševim prepričanjem, da je dober ljubimec,
kar so mu fantje začeli verjeti.
V papir vstopam kot v Rim,
bosa čez Rubikon, je naročil Fellini,
spuščam se po straneh kot po mavrici,
verjamem, da je v parfumu
tudi poper, ampak moški ne dišijo
po popru niti po papirju,
vsi do zadnjega uporabljajo star dolgočasni Old Spice
in imajo vsako prižiganje sveč za obsedenost
od romantike.
Odveč je omenjati, da o ženski ne vedo ničesar,
o ženski so nekaj malega vedeli kvečjemu
Andrej Rubljov, Peter Abelard in Janez Krstnik.
In kaj sploh kdo o kom ve?
Zadnjič sem prižgala vse sveče, ki sem jih našla,
oblekla krilo in si okrog bokov
zavezala ruto z resicami in školjkami
in odplesala trebušni ples.
Ampak tu ni štos v romantiki je priznal moj moški
in iz revije na glas prebral
Maternica ne hrepeni po otroku, ampak po falusu.
Kdo o kom kaj ve?
Besede nas ne razgalijo v celoti, tudi dejanja ne,
morda to, da si v naši knjižnici
ne moreš sposoditi Seferisa, pove veliko,
morda ničesar.
Knjižničar mi v je roke potisnil Richarda Burnsa
in se me oklenil z očmi Tudi to te bo odrešilo,
potem nas povleci za sabo.
Iz svetovne literature bi radi sestavili
knjigo knjig, Pentatevh bi zamenjali
za Gričko vještico, Jozuetovo knjigo za Ameriški psiho,
Sodnike za Ime rože
in tako naprej, vse do Apokalipse.
Minil je čas za branje Biblije in Korana,
postarala sta se judovstvo in manihejstvo,
Kristusovi nauki so zgubili prožnost.
Ne zahtevam veliko je rekel Richard Burns,
Ne zahtevam veliko, le navaden čudež.
Danes berem in pišem, pišem
in berem in se učim živeti,
knjig se dotikam kot ostrega noža,
hvaležno vračajo z isto mero,
čeprav v njih ni velikih dogodkov,
nobene Ofelije v belem, samo drobna
človeška krhkost, pod katero se ugrezajo tla.
Poezija, da Bogu ni treba ustvariti vsega,
resničnost, da ima hudič čisto vest.
