Dubravka Djurić 
Translator

on Lyrikline: 3 poems translated

from: الانجليزية to: الصربية

Original

Translation

Kill Yourself with an Objet D'art

الانجليزية | Maxine Chernoff

  

Choose a heavy one shaped like (a) your first ride in a car or (b) the Hitchcock leg-of-lamb, served at dinner to the unsuspecting detective. Or a light objet d'art, (c) an ice cube in whose reflection is suggested the history of the subconscious.

Now choose a forehead, yours to be exact. Where your hand intersects the mirror-image forehead, strike the blow. If (a) has been your instrument, you will feel run over but sincere; if you chose (b) you will feel theatrical. (C) as you know, was Freud's preference in moments of despair.

If none of these objects appeal to you, consider the following technique: Serve as executor to a millionaire-idiot. He'll gladly leave you trifles and before you know, you'll be the owner of possibilities: a Max Ernst bed equipped with guillotine, a Picasso whose lips are razorblades, a Goya with personal angels, black and familiar.


© Maxine Chernoff
Audio production: Interim

UBIJ SE SA OBJET D'ART

الصربية

Izaberi neki tvrdi, oblikovan (a) kao tvoja prva vo-znja kolima ili (b) kao Hickokova jagnjeca nozica, posluzena za veceru jednom detektivu na koga se no sumnja. Ili jedan svetli objet d'art, (c) kao lederm kocka u cijem odsjaju je sugerisana istorija podsve-sti.

Sada izaberi, sasvim precizno, sopstveno celo. Tamo gde tvoja ruka preseca sliku cela u ogledalu, izne nadi vetar. Ako je u pitanju (a) tvoje orude, oseti-ces da si pregazen, ali iskren; ako ga izaberes osetices se teatralno; (c) kao sto znas, bio je in objekt kome se sam Frojd prepustao kada je olinjmi.

Ali ako se pred tobom ne pojavi nijedan od ovilt objekata, razmotri sledecu tehniku: budi dzelal >.oljl milionera-kretena. On ce ti rado prepustili silnioo, i pre nego sto shvatis, imaees mogucnosti: Knihlm krevet sa giljotinom, Pikasovu zenu cije su leti, jednog Goju sa licnim andelima, tanmim i |iti znatim.

Prevela: Dubravka Djurić

Lost and Found

الانجليزية | Maxine Chernoff


I am looking for the photo that would make all the difference in my life. It's very small and subject to fits of amnesia, turning up in poker hands, grocery carts, under the unturned stone. The photo shows me at the lost and found looking for an earlier photo, one that would have made all the difference then. My past evades me like a politician. Wielding a flyswatter, it destroys my collection of cereal boxes, my childhood Jived close to the breakfast table. Only that photo can help me locate my fourteen lost children, who look just like me. When I call the Bureau of Missing Persons, they say. "Try the Bureau of Missing Photos." They have a fine collection. Here's one of Calvin Coolidge's seventh wedding. Here's one of a man going over a cliff on a dogsled. Here's my Uncle Arthur the night he bought the prize peacock. Oh, photo! End your tour of the world in a hot air balloon. Resign your job at the mirror-testing laboratory. Come home to me, you little fool, before I find I can live without you.


© Maxine Chernoff
Audio production: Interim

IZGUBLIJENO I NADENO

الصربية

Tražim fotografiju koja bi mi izmenila život. Sasvim je malena i podvrgnuta amneziji, pojavljuje se u ru~kama sa pokerom, kuponima za kupovinu, ispod neokrenutog kamena. Na fotografiji se vidi kako stojim u birou za izgubljene i nadene stvari tražim jednu stariju fotografiju koja je tada mogla da promeni sve.  Moja prošlost me zaobilazi kao da je neki političar. Vitlam sredstvom za uništavanje buba, ono uništava moju zbirku kutija napravljenu od zr—na, moje detinjstvo provedeno pored stola na kojem smo doručkovali. Samo ta fotografija mi može pomoći da pronadem četrnaestoro dece koju sam izgubila, a tako liče na mene. Kada nazovem biro za nestala lica, oni kažu: "Pokušatje u birou za izgubljene fotografije".  Imaju odličnu zbirku. Evo jedne sa sedmog venčanja Kalvina Kulidža. Evo jedne na kojoj se vidi kako se jedan muškarac penje po steni na sankama koje vuku psi. Evo mog ujaka Artura, one noči kada je kupio pauna. O, fotografijo! Prestani da putuješ po svetu u vrelom naduvanom balonu.  Napusti posao u laboratoriji za testiranje ogledala. Vrati me se, dođi kući, mala lodo, pre nego što shvatim da mogu da živim bez tebe.

Prevela: Dubravka Djurić

Breasts

الانجليزية | Maxine Chernoff

If I were French, I'd write
about breasts, structuralist treatments
of breasts, deconstructionist breasts,
Gertrude Stein's breasts in Parc-Lachaise
under stately marble. Film noire breasts
no larger than olives, Edith Piaf's breasts
shadowed under a song, mad breasts raving
in the bird market on Sunday.
Tanguy breasts softening the landscape,
the politics of nipples (we're all equal).
A friend remembers nursing,
his twin a menacing blur. But wait,
we're in America, where breasts
were pointy until 1968.1 once invented
a Busby Berkeley musical with naked women
underwater sitting at a counter
where David Bowie soda-jerked them
ice cream glaciers. It sounds so sexual
but had a Platonic airbrushed air.
Beckett calls them dugs, which makes me think
of potatoes, but who calls breasts potatoes?
Bolshoi dancers strap down their breasts
while practicing at the bar.
You guess they're thinking of sailing,
but probably it's bread, dinner,
and the IgorZlolik Show (their
Phil Donahue). There's a photo of me
getting dressed where I'm surprised
by Paul and try to hide my breasts, and another
this year, posed on a pier, with my breasts
reflected in silver sunglasses. I blame
it on summer when flowers overcome gardens
and breasts point at the stars. Cats
have eight of them, and Colette tells
of a cat nursing its young while
being nursed by its mother. Imagine the scene
rendered human. And then there's the Russian
story about the woman...but wail,
they've turned the lights down, and Humphrey
Bogart is staring at Lauren Bacall's breasts
as if they might start speaking.

© Maxine Chernoff
Audio production: Interim

GRUDI

الصربية

Da sam Francuskinja, pisala bih
0 grudima, stmkturalisticki bih se bavila
ujima, dekonstruktivisticke grudi,
giudi Gertrude Stajn u Pere—Lachaise
ispod dostojanslvenog mermera. Grudi u filmu noire
male su masline, giudi Edit Pjaf
oscncene su pesmom, lude giudi besne
snbotom na pijaci ptica.
langijeve grudi umiruju pejzaz,
|iolitika bradavica (svi smo jednaki).
IVijatelj se priseca kako su ga dojili,
lljegov blizanac bio je preteca mrlja. Ali,
II Americi smo, tu su giudi
|ve do 1968. bile uzdignute. Jednom sam izmislila
tnjii/ikl Basbi Berkli sa nagim zenama
Isnjc su sedele pod vodom za pultom
Mrjvid Boui ih je zasipao sodom
i /'Jcrcrima od sladoleda. Zvucalo je tako seksi
ili je vazduh bio plalonski prociscen.
jjnkH ih zove sisama, to me navodi da pomislim
tin kiompir, ali ko grudi zove krompirima?
Dok vezbajii uz precku
plesaci Boljsog teatra ispravljaju svoje grudi.
Pomislis da mastaju o jedrenju
a oni verovatno razmisljaju o lilebu, o veceri,
o Sou Igora Zlotika (njihovog
Fila Donahjua). Na jednoj fotografiji Pol me je
uhvatio dok se oblacim,
pokusavam da sakrijem grudi, i jos jedna
ovogodisnja, na zidu, na
kojoj se vidi kako se moje grudi
odslikavaju u srebrnim naoearima. Optuzujem
ih leti kada cvece prekrije baste
a one upiru u zvezde. Macke ih
imaju osam, a Kolet prica
o macki koja je dojila svoje mlade dok
je nju dojila njena sopstvena majka. Zamislilc MI I
koja lici na ljudsku. Tu je i ruska
prica o zeni... ali cekajte,
Svetla su se ugasila, a Hamfri
Bogart zuri u gmdi Lorin Bekol
kao da ce progovoiiti.

Prevela: Dubravka Djurić