Marina Veverec 
Translator

on Lyrikline: 6 poems translated

from: croata to: inglés

Original

Translation

Iskaz o oprezu

croata | Monika Herceg

Toliko toga ne stignem izgovoriti
Savijena u strah, nevidljiva, nedjeljiva,
imenujem kamenje u prve ljude,
razlikujem jednu tišinu od druge
Tako godinama koristim
jedno ime za svaku bol

Od početka sam bivala tiho tijelo opstanka

U ljeto, rijekom si me povukao za stopala
U jesen, već sam razgovarala s površinom našeg stana
Tako smo postali kruh koji se podiže u pećnici,
prašina ispod kredenaca,
razborito mjesto šutnje nakon ružnih riječi

Ovdje ništa ne otvaramo na silu,
ni tegle, ni pisma, ni oči

Obučeni u sjetu, noseći faktor pedeset
da nam ne izgori nenadana opčinjenost,
promatramo slani mir na dlačicama

Ovdje ništa ne otvaramo na silu,
ni vrata, ni prozore, ni usta

Šutjet ćeš dugo
Obučen u mene
Skupljajući fotone u neraščešljanu kosu

© Monika Herceg
from: Vrijeme prije jezika
Zagreb: Fraktura, 2020
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

Statement on Caution

inglés

I leave so much unspoken
Stooped and scared, invisible, indivisible,
naming stones after the first people,
telling the silences apart,
for years I’ve addressed
every pain by the same name

Since my conception I’d been a silent body of subsistence

In the summer, you poured a river to pull me by the foot
In autumn, I already spoke to the surface of our flat
Thus we’ve become the bread rising in the oven,
the dust under the kitchen cabinet,
after hurtful words, a shrewd place of silence

Here, we force not one thing open
not a jar, not a letter, not an eye

Wrapped in wistfulness, we smear SPF fifty over our skin
to keep this abrupt enchantment from scorching,
observing the salty stillness as it rests on our hairs

Here, we force not one thing open
not the doors, not the windows, not the mouth

You’ll keep quiet for long
Dressed up as me
Collecting photons in the uncombed hair

Translated by Marina Veverec

Pjesnikinja, ljeti

croata | Monika Herceg

Neizbježnost dana skotrlja se
niz znojna leđa u pjesmu
kao dječja kolica
puna Venerina sumpora i sjete
Možda se nebo otvori jednom
kad nam kihne u večeru
taj pupak predvečerja
pa nahrupe horde vanzemaljaca
koji smrde na pokvarena jaja
I bog,
nečiji vrući rezignirani bog
koji samo zapisuje anegdote
o tome kako krivnju
jer tučemo djecu,
jer tučemo pse,
jer bacamo tek rođene mačiće,
guramo na vrh trepavica maskarom

Ugušit ćemo se u otrovnoj staklenci
ako uskoro netko ne smisli kako odrezati dimnjake
Bit će to jednog sparnog ljetnog popodneva
sličnom onom kad sam dobila prve batine
Muhe su jele komade neba glasnije od mlažnjaka

Psi ne, ali djeca sve pamte
Pamte kako gledaš poprijeko,
pamte sve dodirne točke
šibe i tijela
Što dublje,
što dublje
u slojeve odjeće

Ljeti je najteže
jer se nema gdje
osim u golog sebe

© Monika Herceg
from: Lovostaj.
Zagreb: Jesenski i Turk, 2019
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

The Poet in Summertime

inglés

The inevitability of the day rolls down
the sweaty back into a poem
like a pushchair
filled with Venuses’ sulfur and gloom
Perhaps the sky might open up once
the eve’s navel
sneezes into our supper
so the horde of aliens storm in
reeking of rotten eggs
And god,
someone’s fervid resigned god
who only writes down anecdotes
of how we push with a mascara the guilt
of beating the kids,
of beating the dogs,
of throwing away the newborn kittens
to the tip of our lashes

We’re about to suffocate in a poisonous jar
if no one was soon to figure out how to cut the chimneys
It will be a sultry summer afternoon
resembling the day I first got beaten up
Louder than the jets the flies feasted on the pieces of the sky

Dogs may not, but children remember everything
They remember your frowns,
remember each point where
the whip and the body met
And deeper,
and deeper
through the layers of clothes

Summertime is the hardest
since there’s nowhere to turn
but to one’s naked self

Translated by Marina Veverec

Definicija pjesnikinje

croata | Monika Herceg

Kontrolna točka je ponoć, pisat ću o tome kako
nam je prije nekoliko godina upala u juhu ta imenica
koja je ogolila Pepeljugu, pisat ću o izmišljanju djetinjstva
u deset kvadrata, o svježim krastavcima na sniženju,
gorkom okusu u kojem smo se kupali
kao da će nas nahraniti ljetom

Pružaš mi vrhnje, u hladnoći se utapa zelenilo,
naši prvi krastavci nakon rata, ali malo se sjećam
Ti mi prepričavaš da sam bila brbljava i nezasitna,
da nisam znala reći hvala ili prestati,
da smo od gladi za svježim povrćem
umanjili noć i sjeli joj u krilo kao mačići

Moji su strahovi uvijek bili jednako obojani vapnom,
izjedajući, utišani ponori
Sav taj mrak koji sam držala u kosi padao je u obroke,
nisi ga znala počešljati, nisi ga znala iscijediti,
a ja sam godinama mislila da je dno blizu,
uvijek u beskonačnom padu

U zadnje vrijeme prije sna
u mene navali ono more
koje smo jednom upoznali
Imam kupaći s delfinima koji mogu pojesti
sve zlonamjerne poglede iz dubine
Prestravljena sam spoznajom
da sam daleko od obale,
da sam točka usred plave
i nikad se neću obraniti
od velikog prostora

Još uvijek ponekad prije pjesme
plutam u mokrom mraku
za koji mi se čini
da je bilo koji komad ponoći
u kojoj se lako prevari glad,
ali nikada ne odustajem
od pokušaja da se
odgurnem
o apsolutno ništa

© Monika Herceg
from: Lovostaj.
Zagreb: Jesenski i Turk, 2019
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

The Definition of a Poet

inglés

The checkpoint is midnight, I will write of how,
a few years back, we had dropped that noun in our soup
the one that stripped Cinderella down, I will write of dreaming up childhood
in a hundred square feet; of fresh cucumbers on sale,
the bitter taste we swam in
as if it would feed us summer

You are passing me the sour cream, the green submerging in the chill,
our first cucumbers after the war, I can only remember that much
You are telling me that I used to be chatty and insatiable,
that I’d never known how to say thank you or to stop,
that with our hunger for fresh vegetables
we had shrunken the night and sat in its lap like kittens

My fears were always evenly coated in lime,
the consuming, silenced sinking holes
All the darkness I carried in my hair was falling into meals;
you didn’t know how to brush it, how to squeeze it out
and for years I had thought the bottom was near,
it had always been an endless fall

Lately, before I fall asleep
that sea we once got to meet
engulfs me
The dolphins on my swimsuit can eat
any malevolent gaze from the depths
I’m terrified knowing
the shore is too far off,
I am a dot amid the blue,
and I’ll never fend off
the vast space

Sometimes before the poem begins
I’m still drifting at the wet darkness
that could easily
be any chunk of midnight
in which it is easy to trick hunger,
though I never gave up
trying
to push myself
against nothing at all

Translated by Marina Veverec

sitne smrti

croata | Monika Herceg

glasno dišemo zbog nesnosne sparine
spavajući u istoj sobi
tjeskoba je teža od zraka
ispuni prostor poput ugljičnog dioksida
pa se pogušimo u košmaru
u očevom se snu koti praznina
kao zlatice na krumpiru
dok u potpunosti ne unište nasade
svako malo nakašlje se
poput mačka koji izbacuje
klupko dlaka
brat škrguće zubima
majka je nepomična
stisnutih usnica
nalik na sliku gospe kojoj se moli
nekad se nagnem nad njeno lice
da provjerim diše li

osluškujem i
kako prerastamo već tijesne cipele
kako nam tamni kosa
i troši se hrskavica dok trčimo
vani izgara atmosfera
a u nama gore dječja tijela
kao rođendanske svjećice
dovoljno brzo da se ujutro
ne sjećamo

© Monika Herceg
from: Početne koordinate
Zagreb: SKUD Ivan Goran Kovačić, 2018
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

tiny deaths

inglés

unbearable sultriness urges loud breaths
sleeping in the same room
angst heavier than the air
fills out the space like carbon dioxide
and we suffocate in the nightmare


in father's dream emptiness proliferates
like potato bugs
until they’ve completely destroyed the crops
at times he coughs
like a cat trying to cough up
a ball of fur
brother grinds his teeth
mother is motionless
her lips pressed
alike our lady’s in the painting she prays to
now and then i lean over her face
to check if she’s breathing


i listen and
as we are outgrowing our already tight shoes
as our hair is growing darker
and our cartilage erodes as we run
the atmosphere outside combusts
and the child bodies in us burn
like birthday candles
so rapid that in the morning we
do not remember

Translated by Marina Veverec

zečje smrti

croata | Monika Herceg

u životinje smo pažljivo spremali smrt
hraneći ih svježe pokošenom travom i sijenom
a onda tu istu smrt vadili iz njih bezbolno
jednim rezom ispod vrata

krzno zečeva uvijek bi visjelo na starom orahu
kao prevelik kaput
a kraj krznenog odijela
mišići koje smo ogolili
posramljeno su gledali prema nama
i lelujali u naletima vjetra

očevo ukočeno tijelo majka je
našla kraj zečinjaka
jednog rujanskog jutra
naslutivši tako aksiom
kojeg smo rijetko svjesni

smrt kojom hranimo druge
ponekad se nehotice
vrati i u nas

© Monika Herceg
from: Početne koordinate
Zagreb: SKUD Ivan Goran Kovačić, 2018
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

rabbit deaths

inglés

we stored death into animals with care
feeding them freshly cut grass and hay
and then drew the same death out of them painlessly
one incision under the neck

rabbit fur always hung from the old walnut tree
like an oversized coat
and next to the fur suit
the muscles we stripped bare
gazed at us in shame
and swayed in the gusts of wind

my father’s stiff body mother
found by the rabbit hutch
one september morning
thus suspecting the axiom
we are rarely aware of

the death we feed to others
sometimes by chance
comes back into ourselves

Translated by Marina Veverec

Brat

croata | Monika Herceg

imao je dječju paralizu kao mali
i bacali su ga neprestano u mrzlu vodu
da ohlade njegove užarene organe
a on je tek udahnuvši gorio
kao da je udomio nuklearne procese zvijezda

možda je kasnije uskočio sveti ante
kad se bogu nije dalo
pa je prohodao makar su pročitali još tri bolesti
u njegovom spužvastom kosturu

u glavi je uzgajao neimenovane ptice
s kojima je pričao češće nego s ljudima

ostalo je još nešto od užarene sunčeve korone
ispod njegove neiskusne kože
i ponekad
kad nitko ne gleda
svijetli u mraku

© Monika Herceg
from: Početne koordinate
Zagreb: SKUD IGK, 2018
Audio production: Croatian P.E.N. Centre

brother

inglés

as a child he caught polio
so they kept tossing him into the ice-cold water
to quench his blazing organs
but only upon taking a breath he truly burned
as if he’d absorbed the nuclear processes of the stars

maybe later saint anthony jumped in
when god wasn’t feeling it
so brother walked despite the three other diseases they found
in his spongy skeleton

he was raising unnamed birds in his head
talking to them more often than to people

there’d been one more thing the fiery sun corona left
underneath his too green skin
so that sometimes
when no one is looking
he glows in the dark

Translated by Marina Veverec