Ivan Slamnig Poems

Zene su s Venere bica, sto zive kod nas.
Pretrazujemo ih prstima, zeleci ih prouciti.
Cini se, da one znaju nesto bolje od nas,
nesto, sto mi ne zelimo dokuciti.
Kad ih prstima izbodemo,
mi tvrdimo, da ih znamo i odemo.

One ostaju i nikad im ne mozemo sve otet.
To nas ljuti i mi kusamo opet.

Ali kroza sve dane one nam ostaju strane,
I - mozda ce se jednom natrag na Veneru popet.
...

Women are creatures from Venus, except that we live together.
In order to become acquainted with them, we search them in and out.
There are some things they seem to know better,
some things that we don't really care to think about.
After we had fingered them for no other reason than to make a test,
we run off claiming we had already got to know their best.

They stay. All efforts to take everything from them seem to be in vain.
That's what really makes us cross, and so we try again.

Time passes but they are still alien and bizarre.
Maybe they'll go back to that planet, very far.
...

Bijah jednomjedan ludjak,
na dnu ulice mi kuca.
Imao sam mali ducan.
Prodavao sam zute knjige
ruzicastim djevojkama.
Ali jednog modrog dana
nesta mojega ducana,
izgori mi, rastopi se.

Mislim, pitam druge ljude
mora tako li da bude?

Drugi ljudi pametni su,
ne brinu se za te stvari.
...

Once upon a time I used to be a madman
with a house at the end of the street.
I used to have a little shop.
I used to sell yellow books
to pink-cheeked girls.
But then on one of those blue days
my shop disappeared,
it burned to the ground, melted away.

I think about it, I ask other people:
does it really have to be that way?

Clever, those other people are,
they don't care for things like that.
...

Bijeli ljudi u bijelim bundama
u bijelim saonama s bijelim konjima.
Osam osnijezenih bregova tisine.

Nebo je postalo bijela ploca.
Golemi valovi snijeznog pejsaza
gone ga u teturanje.

Zamoren, pred vrtoglavicom,
da oslobodi oci
prolio je snijegom crveno vino.
...

White people in white fur-coats
in a white wagon drawn by white horses.
Eight snow-covered hills of silence.

The sky has turned into a white board.
Huge waves of snow
make the landscape stumble.

Tired, on the verge of vertigo,
in order to give rest to his strained eyes,
he spilled some red wine on the snow.
...

Izrasli su moji prijatelji na jednom stablu
u zelenim bluzama i roza bluzama
utamnomordim hlacama i svijetlomodrim hlacama:
vise neki kao jabuke, neki kao kruske,
neki kao narance ili kao grozdje.
Ja tresem stablo i moji se prijatelji ruse
i, bome, ubijaju se
ali - mora da sam bedast - to mi se sad cini
kao jedini nacin komunikacije s njima.
...

My friends are growing on a tree
wearing green shirts and pink shirts,
dark blue trousers and light blue trousers:
some of them are hanging like apples, or like pears,
some like oranges, all others like grapes.
I shake the tree and my friends fall down
and, by God, they kill themselves
but - I must be stupid - for the moment it seems to be
the only way to communicate with them.
...

I am a nobody. Who are you?
E. Dickinson
Ja sam stranac! Dobar vecer
Da l' si i ti stranac?
Dva smo, znaci? nemoj reci, jer
stavit ce nam lanac.

Tuzno li je biti domac
i prosto, poput zabe,
kreketat do u bozju ponoc
sred zadimljene grabe!
...

I am a nobody. Who are you?
E. Dickinson
I am a Foreigner! Good evening.
Are you a foreigner too?
It makes us a couple, isn't it so? Don't tell, because
they'll chain up me and you.

It is sad to be a native
and it is boorish, like a frog,
croaking all night long
from a fuming bog!
...