Sibila Petlevski 

Translator

Maudlin, stumbling’, falling senseless

to the ground, I used to show

my little bruises like exhibits,

pleading people not to touch them,

though they never cared a hang,

not even noticed wooden gibbets –

warnings put in words, exposed

to rain and ridicule and birds.

Forty days fed by ravens.

Forty days fed by ravens,

I have changed my walk of life.

Cloyed with pleasure, rich & sweet,

my lips are now saying grace

not before, but after meat.

Lying quite at her feet,

veins cut, in a field of wheat,

he expects her face would relax

in a smile. Teasing flex,

disturbing the peaceful

current of his life, she holds on

a fretted rope, beyond hope.

He hopes her grip would relax

but that frightful virgin sex

does not seem to let him go.

All he seeks is a little bit of peace.

He’s meek. Tame as a unicorn

and weak. Weak as water.

Virgin Mary, let him spring a leak.

Wet leaves on a stairway. A slow wind still drawling   

Weasel words from the night before. Cats prowling.      

Is that little Alvina weeping: her long, unkempt hair  

Stuck in the chimney again? It sounds like a fanfare

Of small trumpets. The impish noise of cornets blowing.

Only nightingales were using the technique of bowing.   

No more 'jug-jug'. Now it’s: 'Pee-wit, pee-wit, pee-wit!'

Wildfowl crying 'come back' – actually meaning 'Leave it!'

Owls hoot and screech, hawks scream and foxes yelp;   

Only falcons chant. Their all-purpose liturgy can help

You and me to understand that nothing really matters

As long as we feel alive. People cross like letters

On their way out of difficulties. Gratify your lust.  

If I go off the main road, say just: 'Dust to dust.'

Meadows, acres of meadows and gravitational fields.

Crushed to death with hundreds of my own shields,

Unarmed, stark naked like a slug, buried on a rock,

I escaped myself eventually, turned the key in the lock.

In the darkest hour, just before the dawn, like that Robin

Redbreast who picked the blood dyed thorn, I have to choose

a way to be reborn. My pulse is playing fast and loose

with me; the quiet engine in my veins still throbbing.

I eat live send, no longer search for footing.  

Much like a pigeon – a piece of clay for shooting,    

I gorge on earth, sniff mud; I fly on fumes    

and let the winged form my breath assumes

take off your jaded palate that tells but deadly lies.

Snatch your own body, then anatomize!

It’s hard to imagine anything could happen

on a piece of ghost land furrowed by old age.

We have lost our place in the seventh heaven

like stuffed ducks reconciled to onions and sage.

It’s like seeing snakes. It’s like losing all sensation

in your legs. It’s like having your field of vision

reduced to bits and snippets, snatches of conversation.

Everything is possible in a bad dream: we lack decision.

One by one, wooden idols, marble saints are falling prone.

Only heavy sleepers know what it means to sleep

with your shadow set up over your head like a stone.

Trade winds stopped. Storms ceased to rage.

It’s hard to imagine anything could happen

on a piece of ghost land furrowed by old age.

We blew the balloons for six whole days,
thought there was no other way one could
frame the breath. Manna was falling from
the sky on our ways, sweet and tepid like milk
from a breast. Oh, God! We could have reached
one hundred percent the same with our kisses,
we could have done it also by breathing onto
the glass, so that fog would write our name
on a clear glass, and say instead of us we are
alive, so that our writing transfers the warmth
without a touch or a sound, and makes it possible
for us to be simply here and not entangled in a net
of blood, not like hungry dogs to be found,
not with forever hungry heart that roars from
our breasts and the lot. We blew the balloons and
then tore them with a knife for six whole days.
On the seventh we took some rest in our life.

A onda je u prašini nacrtao lice,
žensko lice, i pitao
čovjeka koji je pio viski pokraj njega
je li je ikada sreo, ili možda zna tko je ona,
i svo vrijeme je zurio dolje u nju, baš kao
da će od toga žena biti cjelovitija. A onda,
na odrječito kimanje glavom, čizmom je
raspršio njen lik u oblačak koji se slegao.
Dodao je cjepanicu u vatru,
iskapio čašu i još jednom nalio do ruba
prateći pogledom svojega psa kako ustaje
da bi promuklo zalajao prema prljavoj cesti
koja se pružala, pusta, u pravcu brdovitog horizonta.
Srsi su ga prošle baš u trenuku kad se ogasio prvi lavež
koji se potom udvostručio, utrostručio, zaštektao kao mitraljez
koji presreće nadolazeće ništa, i tako je ustao  
spreman na suočenje, ali nije bilo čak ni vjetra
da mu očeše lice, nije se uobličila nikakva prilika,
pa kad je pas zamuknuo, nečija ruka
mu je pomogla da ponovno sjedne i pridruži se čaši.