Taja Kramberger Poems

Ne govorim vam o čudežu,
ne o mistiki ali gnozi, ne.
Govorim vam o polnem in še bolj polnem življenju,
ki poka po šivih in se medi.
O neposrednem stiku
med lupino in sadežem, o veselju ob
prileganju in občutenju kože.
Govorim vam o obilju življenja, ki
gre skozi pore, ki poči in sproži novo polnost,
ki zalije anemične, da
stikajo glave in grmade.

O soku s prepoznavnim okusom vam
govorim. O hipnem in neskončnem užitku vsakdana,
o sreči otroških rok, ki stiskajo svojo prvo jagodo,
da se cedi do komolca in jo nosijo k ustom.
O sreči biti živ in se upirati razraščanju klišeja.

Ne bojim se konfliktov, konfrontacij,
jeze, joka, preloma, obupa, ne,
ampak zadušljive sape -
ki neslišno in nevidno prodira v prostor,
ga omejuje in razmejuje,
zastruplja okolje in življenje -
in prihaja iz ust tistih antipodov,
ki tiščijo glavo v pesek, stopala pa prepuščajo
varljivim tlem iz efemernih
sedimentov atmosfere.

11. april 2003
...

I'm not talking about miracles,
nor of mysticism or gnosis, no.
I'm talking about the full and even fuller life
that bursts at the seams, honey-ripening.
About the direct touch between peel and fruit, about the joy
of fitting sensually into your skin.
I'm talking about the plenty of life that goes
through the pores, that bursts and sets off a new fullness
which floods the bloodless
so they put their heads and the scaffold together.

It's the juice with a distinct taste I'm talking about.
About the momentary and the infinite pleasure of the everyday,
about happy children's hands squashing their first strawberry
so it drips down to the elbow as they lift it to their mouths.
About the fortune of being alive, resisting the creeping of clichés.

I'm not afraid of conflicts, confrontations,
anger, tears, of ruptures, despair, no,
but of the suffocating breath -
inaudibly and invisibly invading space,
limiting and delimiting it,
poisoning life and what it lives in -
coming out of the topsy-turvy mouth
of those whose heads are stuck in the sand, their feet
still on the delusional floors of the ephemeral
sediments of the atmosphere.

April 11, 2003
...

Preden sva se dokončno preselila v
novi dom, v Rdečo hišo, in montirala
rdeči nabiralnik, ki ima dovolj velike čeljusti za
format tujih periodik, in preden nama je sosed
izrazil dobrodošlico s tem, da je nabiralnik
krepko sunil na gobec,
sva vsak zase opazovala, kako se nama
deset mesecev neopazno lušči med prsti
in dva za rezervo, ki sva ju
tudi zapravila za izboljšanje ratinga
omledne lokalne intelektualne atmosfere,
kljub temu, da verjameva le v pokrajine
samostojnega preboja, sva opazovala,
kako se leta in desetletja spojijo v tkanje
goste, enobarvne buhare, ki jo
bova morda kupila za
dnevno sobo, in sva se pogovarjala, kako je
vsaka od njihovih opevanih
samot merljiva z istimi odtrajanimi pomeni besed,
celo z istimi gestami in ena od njih je doletela
najin ubogi nabiralnik, in
kako jim, ko etika zapoje svoj
visoki C, vsem po vrsti zmanjka tal pod nogami in
jecljajo nerazumljive litanije iz priročnikov in
starih avstro-ogrskih ali jugoslovanskih bontonov
ali se oprimejo zadnjih udobnih strategij
pred skokom v goltanec jezika,
ironije in formalizma, in
preden sva se zares preselila v Rdečo hišo,
sva vedela, da večna razpoložljivost konflikta
prihaja od spodaj; iz pritličja ali kleti,
od tam, kjer se telo in glas razhajata, kot
v našem novem krožnem stopnišču, kjer
je odmev glasu slišati do vrhnjih nadstropij,
četudi nikdar ne uzreš fizične prisotnosti
naslavljalca.
...

Before we finally moved into
our new home, the Red House, and fixed
a red letter box with jaws big enough
for the size of foreign magazines, and before
our neighbour bid us welcome by giving the box
a good whack on its mouth,
we had both seen ten months
slip unnoticed through our fingers,
and an extra two
also wasted in trying to improve the rating
of the bland local intellectual atmosphere;
despite the fact that we believe only in vistas
of independent breakthrough, we watched
years and decades merge into a weaving
of a thick monochrome Caspian rug
we are still thinking of buying
for our sitting room; and we talked about how
every one of their highly praised
solitudes is quantifiable in always the same depleted words,
gestures even, one of which hit
our poor letter box; and
how, as the ethics sing out
their high C, all of them lose ground to stand on and
stammer unintelligible litanies out of manuals and
old Austro-Hungarian or Yugoslav books of manners,
or they conveniently grab hold of the one remaining strategy
before leaping into the gullet of language -
irony and formalism; and
we knew, even before moving into the Red House,
that the ever-readiness for conflict
comes from below: from the ground floor or the cellar,
from where the body and voice split apart, much like
on our new spiral staircase, where you can
hear the echo to the topmost floors,
yet never see the physical presence
of the person calling.
...

Najboljše pesmi še pridejo.
V kosteh čutim, v istih kosteh, ki so se
pred petimi leti hotele zložiti v relikvijarij
in od utrujenosti zaspati. Dolgo spati v
nikogaršnjem spominu.

Najboljše pesmi še pridejo,
zbirajo se kakor bela krvna telesca okoli vnetja,
kakor mladi psički okoli seskov,
vrejo kot mlado vino, dišijo kakor
dojenčki po mleku, po materi, po življenju,
o voda, o zemlja, o žejni!
vračajo se kakor ostareli mornarji na morje.

Nebo je visoko, pravi Jana, kakor
bi ga gledal z dna vodnjaka, a
zrak se počasi strjuje in dobro je, da
imamo tisti podest, na katerem
ne drsi, golobčke, da prhutajo s krili.
Dve mali Živi imamo, rojeni v istem letu,
da čebljata in mlajskata in se slinita pri zajtrku, Vida,
ki se z glavo dotika tal in se pri tem
neznansko zabava.

Stavka
wunderbare melodische Gedichte
ne srečaš, kjer ti zavrnejo knjigo,
ljudje hodijo okoli kakor nabiti šaržerji s
pokvarjeno zaklopko in zarjavelo presojo,
čeprav se sveti v očeh nekoga, ki
je, pozoren kot struna, zavibriral
skozi znani, a pozabljeni prostor.

Bastardna epistemologija v glokalnem:
strašne svinčene kroglice in njihova zaripla
promocija. Rewind! Reset!
Kaj vse je treba požreti, preden
ugledaš krpo rodovitne pokrajine. Veko,
obteženo z jokom zamolčanih, ki
se ne povesi od bremena.

Nikogar nimam, ki bi meni posvetil tako
lepo pesem, je rekla Slavica. Imaš.
Najboljše pesmi še pridejo.
...

I.

Zares je to pesem samo za tiste, ki
si jo zaslužijo:

pesem za tiste, katerih črte na podplatih so
legende, prepisane
s starih zemljevidov, z vsako
netočnostjo ali zabrisom
zgodovinsko preoblikovane, znamenja, ki
jih danes vidimo kot gorske verige, speče
na velikih tektonskih prelomnicah;

pesem za tiste, ki jih ni mogoče preprosto
razstaviti na komponente, ne da bi
terjal ugrez lastne doline, pesem
za vse tiste, ki so
se samorazstavili in so
deljivi le s seboj ali z enakovredno ljubeznijo;

pesem za tiste, ki so sklenili premirje s svojimi
ruševinami in jih ne podstavljajo drugim, ki
nikdar ne šepetajo v uho zgodovine
in se v zadregi ne prestavljajo z noge na nogo,
pesem za tiste, ki so nekoč dihali s sapo, ki je
bila blato in je bila lava, ki je bila
kamen in je bila pepel;

pesem za tiste, skozi katerih roke
je šlo črnilo kot hudournik in je struga
dokončno oblikovala bregove;

pesem za tiste, skozi katerih telo je šlo mrzlo
drhtenje mravelj in križarska vojska
tujih verzov in na koncu novo življenje,
drugačna beseda in drugo telo,
ki je ljubezen in je nepopustljivost.


II.

Pesem za tiste, ki nikoli niso poteptali trave, da
bi videli v kakšni prsti raste, za tiste, ki ne slonijo
na tujem ali zamolčanem glasu v
bojazni za svoje krpe zemlje -
za kraljestvo na konici zobotrebca.

Ne za tiste, ki bingljajo s kislih borovcev oholosti,
ne za podhranjene in preobjedene, ki
pol življenja skrivoma prištevajo tuje kitice k svojem manku in
v naslednji polovici odštevajo prirastek tuje bilance od svoje;
ne za mučenike, naveličane poete,
ali tiste, ki
baje nekoč bodo, pa nikoli zdaj še niso,
o mizerabilija, ne za
plutovinaste zamaške, ki se zabašejo v grlo steklenice,
se tam zdrobijo in pokvarijo vrhunsko vino.

Ta pesem je tukaj in zdaj in
je samo za tiste, ki si jo zaslužijo;
za tiste, ki jo tukaj
in zdaj razumejo, ne za tiste, ki jim bodo
posamezne besede začele svetiti
v prasketajoči temi čez 30 ali 90 let
ali še kasneje, ko bom razpršena povsod
in nikjer tako živa in polna
življenja, kot danes.
Ne za tiste, ki naskakujejo večnost in
poskrbijo, da se iz nje ob točno določenih
intervalih smetarjev ali eksekutorjev
na smetišče pozabe zmeče druge,
močnejše in bolj temeljne glasove.
Je m'en fous. Ha!


III.

Treba je z glavo skozi zid in
pri tem ne vedeti, kdaj se bo zid pojavil
in ne ali je glava dovolj trpežna.
Ne skozi stiropor z baklo v roki,
ne skozi priprta vrata, ki jih je nekdo
priškrnil in jih varuje, ne z
zaveznikom ali v paru, ne
skozi koeficient vode,
ali medu, ne
bos po rosnem mahu ali žerjavici
s pogledom uperjenim v zvezde, ne.
Ne zadostuje.

Vse to pride kasneje.
Treba je iti s svojo glavo skozi časovni zid besede
iz najtršega betona in na drugi strani ven -
ker samo v primeru, če kaj ostane
samo, če res kaj ostane -
je ta pesem tudi zate.
...

I.

Truly, this poem is only for those
who deserve it:

a poem for those whose soles have lines
which are legends copied from
old maps, all
the errors and erasures included,
transformed by history, marks
seen today as mountain chains dozing
on the great fault-lines;

a poem for those whom you cannot simply
disassemble without incurring a sinkage
in your own basin, a poem
for all those who have
dismantled themselves and can
only be divided with themselves or equal love;

a poem for those who have reached a truce
with their own ruin and don't foist it on others,
who never whisper into the ears of history
and don't fidget in embarrassment,
a poem for those whose breath
was once mud and was lava, it was
stone and it was ash;

a poem for those whose hands let a torrent of ink
flow through them and let the river
give final shape to its banks;

a poem for those whose bodies
have experienced the cold onrush of ants, crusades
of alien poetry, and finally a new life,
a different word and a different body
which is love and is tenacity.


II.

A poem for those who have never trampled grass
to see what soil it grows from, for those who don't lean
on someone else's or a silenced voice,
because afraid for their patch of land -
for the kingdom at the end-point of a toothpick.

Neither for those dangling from the acid pines of pride,
nor for those undernourished or overfed, who spend
half their lives slyly filling their deficit with other people's stanzas and
the other half subtracting what they have acquired of this foreign balance;
neither is it for martyrs, weary poets,
nor those who
apparently, one day, will, but have never managed to so far,
O, misery, this poem is not for
cork stoppers that block a bottle's throat
and crumble there, ruining best vintage wine.

This poem is here and now,
and only for those who deserve it;
for those who, here and
now, understand it,
and not those
who might see it come aglow
in the crackling dark of 30 to 90 years,
if not even more, when I am everywhere dispersed
and nowhere as buoyant and full
of life as now.
Neither is it for those who keep pouncing on eternity,
from which they, at intervals, as dustmen or executioners,
throw other stronger and more fundamental voices
onto the rubbish heap of forgetfulness.
Je m'en fous. Ha!


III.

You must run your head against a brick wall,
not knowing when the wall will rise
or if your head will take it.
Not against the polystyrene, a torch in your hand,
or against a guarded door
left ajar, not with
an ally or in twos, not
through the coefficient of water
or honey, not
barefoot across dew-covered moss or red-hot coals,
your gaze fixed on the stars, no.
It won't do.

All of this comes later.
You must go with your own head through the time wall of a word
out of the toughest concrete and out at the other end -
because only when there's something left over,
only if there's really something left over -
this poem is for you.
...

Allí
donde mi presencia es esperada me hago realidad.

(Jorge Pimentel, Balada para un Caballo)



Ljubi Braco,


I.

Nobeno nebesno telo in ne zemeljsko,
nobeno drsenje med njima.
Nobena nespečnost s težko glavo nad ali pod posteljo.
Nobena abdikacija teritorija ali funkcije, nemogoče.

Tvoja stvarna roka, ki vodi k izviru moje
in prav ta stol tu, na katerem izmenoma sediva: zadostuje -
tout à sa place.

In tu si, tu sem, tu je vse,
kar potrebujeva,
tu sta
dve veliki duni, ki se zložita v eno
in potem dež in potem strast in potem tla pod nogami.

Dve veliki duni iz vsega znanega, a iz štirih konkretnih
samostojnih rok, štirih očes in dvajsetih prstov.

Dve duni iz neštetih zrn peska, ki se med seboj
dotikajo in komunicirajo vsako z vsakim posebej.

Duni, ki ju nežni objem ljubezni iz dveh lokov sklene v krog.
Duni, ki ju nežni objem ljubezni iz dveh notranjih svetov preseli v enega.


II.

In potem prideš in se odkriješ v celem obsegu
In potem prideš in me bereš tam, kjer nikdar nisem
upala uspeti biti brana. Ne v tem življenju.

Vibrato pokrajine, ki naju združuje, je tisti, ki
te je pripeljal k meni.
Vibrato pokrajine, ki se človeku razkrije z branjem in je
sam pokrajina,
ki je nekoč bila tvoja in je nekoč bila moja.

Kako sva, oddaljena
drug od drugega, a vselej blizu
kopičila in prelagala
svoje samotne peščene sipine
in z vsakim letom je
število samotnih krikov bilo večje.

Jih lahko odšteješ, nerabna
leta svojega življenja;
od česa? Ti, ki nikdar nisi izključil
glasu drugega na račun svojega.

In potem ljubezen: droben šiv,
ki v pregib stare pokrajine doda novo;
prav tam, kjer
so mnogi drugi, ki se jih komajda še
spomnim, skušali vdevati svoja
okorna šila in slabo obstojne niti.

Kakšna sreča je v tej puščobi bilo srečati tebe, praviš
Kakšna neverjetna sreča je bilo naleteti na tebe, pravim.
In potem tišina, na katero v celoti prisloniš uho.

Nikogaršnje dlani, razen tvojih, ne dosežejo mojega telesa.
Nikogaršnji glas, razen tvojega, ne more doseči tona mojega ključa.


III.

In tu, kjer se potovanje običajno ustavi in
se odpre velika jasa nepremičnega kamenja,
zdaj potujeva preko luže, ki
je od poljubov oblegan ocean;
tu zdaj potujeva prek jase,
ki sva jo že obšla, tokrat
kot drobni cvetlici z nihaji vetra.

Potujeva vsak zase in oba skupaj,
prek nešteto malih zavojev na krivulji skupne dune,
ki se neprestano seli med tabo in mano;
dune, ki vpije sleherno kapljo rose,
v kateri se se zrcalita najini goli telesi.

In tu je zdaj tenka reliefna črta v pokrajini,
nit, ki deli najini telesi, a ju hkrati spenja,
kažipot, po katerem lahko določiš smer vetra v puščavi in
nikoli ne more postati neprehodna meja v prostoru.

In samo najini so ti listi praznih dlani, ki jih
palme v oazi rišejo v pesek.
In samo najine so te besede, ki
iz kamnov črpajo roso in
čeri zdrobijo v mivko,
ki jo srečava povsod in sva povsod doma.


IV.

In vleči analogije iz znanega sveta je tu več
kot nesmisel. In Braco, ljubezen, danes se Donava
na nekaterih mestih steka vase in jaz mislim
nate in na najini roži v kuhinji, ki
sta medtem, praviš, postali živahni.

In ni je ljubezni zunaj velike dune, če je
ne občuti vsak najmanjši delec posebej.

In celo tu, na severu sosednje dežele, ob
odprti žili sinje reke, ki vodi vodovje in ladjevje,
natančno vidim pozorni in visoki lok najine dune
kot okameneli val, ki je zdržal sol
and is never shaken:

odpovej se
povrneš se
. . . ni mogoče niti pomisliti -
in seveda potem dež in potem strast in
potem tla pod nogami.
...

Allí
donde mi presencia es esperada me hago realidad.

(Jorge Pimentel, Balada para un Caballo)


I.

No heavenly body nor an earthly one,
no gliding between them.
No sleepless head drooping above or below the bed.
No abdication of territory or status - not a chance.

Your real hand leading to the origin of mine,
this very chair here you and I in turn sit on - is enough:
tout à sa place.

Here you are, here I am, here is all
we need,
here are
two large dunes that fold into one,
and then rain and then passion and then the ground beneath our feet.

Two large dunes from all that is familiar, but from four very concrete
and independent hands, four eyes, ten toes and fingers.

Two dunes out of a myriad sand granules touching
each other, each of them communicating with all the rest.

Dunes, two curves closed into a circle by a gentle embrace of love.
Dunes, two inner worlds seeping into one in a gentle embrace of love.



II.

And then you come and reveal yourself in all that you are.
And then you come and read me where I have never
hoped to be read. Not in this life.

The landscape vibrato which binds us is what
has brought you to me.
The landscape vibrato which opens in reading
and is in itself a landscape -
once it was yours, once it was mine.

How, when away
from each other, though never apart,
we piled and shifted,
each his own solitary sand dune,
and how with each passing year
lonely shrieks multiplied.

Can you substract them, the useless
years of your life;
substract from what? You who have never shut out
another's voice on account of your own.

And then love: a delicate seam
stitched afresh in the crease of the old landscape;
precisely where
many others, whom I can barely still
recall, tried threading
their blunt bodkins with short life-span yarns.

What luck it was to meet you in this desert, you say.
What immense luck it was to be met, I say.
And then the silence against which you fully lean your ear.

Nobody's palms, except yours, can reach my body.
Nobody's voice, except yours, can reach the tone of my key.


III.

And here, where the journey normally ends and
a vast glade of immovable stone emerges,
we are flying across the waters, the ocean
beleaguered by kisses;
we are travelling across the glade
whose edge we have already walked, this time
like tiny flowers carried on the gust of wind.

We travel each to himself and both together
across thousand small bends on the curve of our together dune
incessantly sliding from one end to the other;
the dune that soaks up every drop of dew,
small mirrors to our naked bodies.

And see here now a thin relief line in the landscape,
a thread separating and binding our bodies,
a signpost to establish the direction of the desert wind:
it can never turn into an impenetrable border.

And only ours are these empty hands, which
desert palms cast across the sand.
And only ours are these words
which draw dew from stone
and crumble rocks
we see everywhere and everywhere is our home.


IV.

And drawing parallels from the world we know is
complete nonsense. And Braco, my love, today Danube
flows into itself and I am thinking of you
and of our two kitchen plants, which, you say,
have in the meantime perked up.

And there is no love outside the great dune if
each and every smallest part does not feel it.

And even here, in the north of the neighbouring country,
by the open vein of the sky-blue river leading the waters and fleets,
I can distinctly make out the tall, vigilant arch of our dune,
a wave turned to stone, having endured all the salt -
and is never shaken:

give it up
you'll be back
. . . impossible even to consider -
and then, naturally, there's rain, then passion
and the ground beneath our feet.
...

Tegobe se niso in niso hotele sprijeti.
Stol je žarel, a Holan tedaj ni imel čevljev,
da bi odšel,
da bi odrinil bolestno kepo masti.

Hamlet mu jih je uplenil,
v tisti dolgi noči, ki se je začela leta 1949
in končala šele leta 1964,
in ga pustil
samega v elegičnem salonu disonanc, v
maligni gubi Srednje Evrope.

Praški rečni vitraž nad Kampo še danes
predvaja vse te podobe, kakor bi jih
krošnje še vedno žvečile in prav počasi
puhale iz svojih, davno
napolnjenih in nikdar
do konca pokajenih pip spomina.
...