How to read and why Poem by Primož Čučnik

Not what it really was but how
it was written. In stars and shifts
in traffic in desolate houses, and big cities.
Jesus is the true answer for all the troubles, preachers
say on street-corners and makeshift platforms.
And only then do we have a real show.
How to read this and why
the holy bible for a pedestal
to be this reader, half-reclining, reading
hectic words, peeling off from the ceiling
discretely like an explanation.

It's that our books say anything but this.
Love used to be eternal
but something must have gone amiss.
How to read this and why
do you need to go through this hell and what to say
to beings who were here before the two of us
and will remain once we are gone.
As though there were another hell
but not as spicy and you can easily wake up
from it as from a nightmare.

Not what's really true but what's
written. In notebooks bending over us
like broken promises,
I'm dying of thirst to see you happy
again, as you were when we first met.
We still are free and alive.
Vulnerable like a flower in a small decorated pot,
it has not wilted, all along it rises
into something that will outlive. Our
vague images of fear
we recognized in each other.

No doubt, it was ours.

And every time over and again explanations.

Translated by A. Pepelnik and M. Zapruder