Barbara Pogacnik [Slovenia]

 

Cavern
 
The dream is sown with
multiple stains, and you
are anxiously crossing over,
a storm rolling over an apron
while you abandon our speech,
my house, our panic.
Yellowish under the old sun,
the cobbler beats
on the anvil of the broken guilt,
I cry with him as if at a funeral,
but the beating leads nowhere.
I wipe away the stains on the floor
of the dream, while the fright still remains
about today, about here:
 
we have no home,
our only home is a poem,
but God looks upon
and behold, it is good,
he claims,
even though the ancient Greek scribe
with sculpted shoulders and beautiful gray
beard instantly rolls his eyes.
 
                       (Translated by the author)
 
 
Ceiling, Autumn
 
I have something to confess,
and it's not accumulating below or under me
but above
It won't burst out from beneath our feet,
but will be water, in pearls,
like the weight of a necklace, accumulated above
and continuously singing,
incessantly dancing in grace,
keeping me in axis
while God takes us in his hands
anoints us with his invisibility,
so that I'm losing more and more weight
 
slowly accumulating minutes
the raindrops seep into me
love lurks in the streets
licks me with its
soft wet tentacles
jumps at me from corners and angles like a
passing dog,
its gentle tongue brushes me, lightly,
the sun from childhood, white flowers
surrounding one`s head,
forced into the rainy light
 
with the persistence of a drop
love tears down a house
I'm not afraid, yet I vomit
 
the weight of summer
bends over autumn
 
                   (Translated by the author)
 
 
 
 
Bucket
Je n'ai fait que danser ma vie – Isadora Duncan
 
Our story is a bucket that falls through the well. Everything
except a massive nail driven in the breastbone burns down.
Let’s not pull this out,
it will dissolve in the body over time. At first,
I’m describing a summer day when I went back
to the ballet conservatory. Just for a day, just
passing by on a deserted summer day,
and I saw it only from a distance.
I’m describing my bliss, my lips,
the skin, the body’s quiver. I’m describing
how I didn’t get caught experiencing this.
 
Building material is being lowered from the second floor,
like the feeling that I can’t live without M. He is
a bucket of dark water hanging
around my neck—I might fall
into the well and die, or lose my mind.
The downpour is so heavy that even
my bed is wrinkled and soaked
like cardboard in the street.
Ana and I are rearranging iron teapots
on the plate. Suddenly one of them
leaps at me — leaps by itself! — and
boiling water almost smacks my neck.
 
At the end of the story, at the start of the summer,
we cast off: the bay is still closed in,
but I can lower myself down the hull of a great ship
without it harming me, I can stroke its flank,
a giant whale.
The sea is deep even on land;
it comes deep if you call out far.
The touch of a finger brings together everything
about whales, orchids, perfect like a glass of water,
and the one thing you cannot give me: freedom — this
perfect touch is killing me to the sea.
              (Translated by Julija Potrč & Christopher Meredith)
 

 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Barbara Pogačnik, Slovenian poet, translator, literary critic and promotor
of literature, graduated from Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium
and completed her MA at the Sorbonne in Paris, is among the most translated
 Slovenian poetic voices of her generation. She has published four poetry books:
“Poplave’ (“Inundations”, 2007), “V množici izgubljeni papir” (“Sheets of
Paper Lost in the Crowd,” 2008), “Modrina hiše”(“The Blue of the House”, 2013)
and “Alica v deželi plaščev” (“Alice in the Land of Coats”, 2016). Her fourthcoming
books are “Lise ljubezni” (“Spots of love”), “Beležnica o sevanju” (“Notebook on
radiating”) and “Nikoli videno” (“Never seen”). Her selected poems appeared in
Croatia and in France. She also writes short stories, literary critics and essays. Her
 poetry in translations has appeared in 36 languages, she has participated in more
than 90 literary festivals all over the world. More than 200 authors have appeared in
her translations, from French, English, Italian, Serbian, Croatian and Spanish. She
was member of several literary juries, and member of several literary associations,
such as PEN Slovenia, Slovenian Writers Association, Slovenian Literary Translators
Association, Association franco-anglaise, Poets of the Planet. Currently she is
working as the director of the Association of Slovenian Authors – Collective
Management Organizaton ZAMP and lives between Ljubljana and Trieste.