Uroš Zupan Poems

Yesterday the dark sea began to come.
I heard it rise, displacing air,
I heard it grow over the canopy.
The rabbits in coops twitched nervously in their sleep.
Their closed eyes glowed in the dark, the shutters
banged and the steps of my forgotten body
glided through the deserted rooms. I am alone.
The silence in my skull has become thick like clay.
It shines into the distant rooms. Everyone has gone.
Sudden deaths and farewells. Slow deaths
and farewells. Farewells like death. Does it make
a difference anyway? And then the long bending over
the buzzing in the receiver. Countless impulses of silence.
The family disperse, go their separate ways, vanish
like music in the room. People disperse,
go their separate ways, vanish like light
when you switch it off. I sleep ever less.
That might be a cure for a longer life.
Sleep is nothing but the imitation of death.
I keep tossing and turning between the sheets. My lungs
are ebbing and flowing like the sea.
But I'm no longer conscious of it. I'm ever lighter
and ever more contracted. I need ever less room.
I displace ever less air. Ever more do I feel that
I'm beginning to resemble a sparrow.
The night wind is constantly bringing yellow dust
into my wakefulness. From it I assemble a woman's cry,
which I have buried at the bottom of the ocean,
which I have heard between the huts
on the border between life and death.
I didn't know her language,
yet the flight of her voice told me she is asking for light.
Then I didn't understand. Now I do.
Even my highest plea is a plea for light.
Solitude is milder in the light.
False is the belief that eyes can rest
in the dark. Only light brings them real rest,
illuminated beds on objects.
Animals are awake and flowers open.
We can exchange messages.
I can give them life. I can rear them
and water them with love that once
I gave to those closest to me. The neighbours
who pass by my house chat with me.
Talking to them I forget about everything.
Talking to myself I remember it all.
The shutters are banging and the sea salt is snowing over the meadows.
The night birds are beginning to speak the language of fish.
The hand onto which the angels of destruction
have burnt a mark is breaking the dusk.
There in the end-room, before sleep, it'll find
itself pulling the blanket up to her child eyes.
The further I go along the circle of time
the closer I come to my beginning.
The dimensions of my body are also ever more
like those from the beginning. There
in the end-room I might meet
a stranger whose mind quivers and sings.
He will offer his hand, trudge his way across the river
and take me to the other side. Why do I ever drift around?
I'm just imagining it all. The polar night
stretches deep into the day. Although I can hear
the blood filling my veins I cannot find
the way out from wakefulness. If you get up at night,
glide to the kitchen and there meet
the one who grew in your belly,
then you know there is still hope,
then you know that through him you move into the future.
Yet everyone has gone.
Although at times it seems to me that they have left
a trace behind like on postcards
they had written from big cities,
on which the streets remain intertwined
with headlights long after the cars
have all gone. The voices
are coming back to the birds. Soon dawn will break.
My plea will be heard once more.
I will get up and go into the garden.
I will look into the coop to see if the dark sea
has taken a rabbit instead of me.
I always think that I was given so many years
because they had been taken away from others.
I ask myself, isn't there an average of years
someone is playing around with, someone
who cannot calculate, who has no sense of
harmony and balance. And since, like some people,
I do not know of any other means of avenging the mortal's hand,
I will, at one point in the future, when the time is ripe,
touch the only tree in the garden on which
the sparrows always sit, and become what I have
always been. A solitary tree.
Its bark will be my skin.
When now and then the people will return,
their children will drowse in my shade.
And if I sleep, I will sleep like a tree.
And if I travel, I will travel like a sparrow
that always stays close to its nest
and never flies south.
...

Silver are the bellies of fish bargaining with their weight,
trying to discard it in the pawnshops of th sky,
Silver are the backs of waves, telling the rocks where
they've come from, and what they've experienced on the way,
but they never finish the story; because, short of breath,
sentences fall apart again and again on formations of salt,
Silver is the kindness of olive tress unlocking their shadows
and placing them in three tone levels of braying,
Silver is the scent of rosemary, that with the same care
pastes the juice from a wound on a baked fish, and on a gradual
leave-taking of the day,
Silver is noon, ordering everyone to keep still,
to measure the volume of their happiness with slow breathing,
to journey in their thoughts to the harbor
from which their childhood sailed away in a distant dawn,
Silver is the wind, adding to every hour of oblivion
three additional hours of oblivion, the hours that constantly
happen in the present,
Silver are sails, which in truth are white, and are silvery
because of the imagination's needs, and because of the
celebration of their inaudible movement,
Silver is the stillness of the afternoon, fastening its warmth
to the earth and then refusing to give
the seat to the approaching evening,
Silver are the traces of clouds, buildings cities in the air,
where we are invited when, after lunch,
we are buried under the avalanche of sleep,
Silver are the snow-drifts of algae, which have emerged
from the night waves to succumb on the silent indifference of
gravel in the morning,
Silver are the shouts of people who love their bodies,
Silver are the treetops of cypresses etching fugitive letters
on the flexible skin of summer,
Silver are vineyards, where the restless pheasants are preparing
for the shipwreck of the southern wind,
Silver is the flight of a seagull, stitching together the spoken
and the unspoken, making a lasting truce with the banging
of evening bells,
Silver is the movements of dry grass, having forgotten
the true life of the previous spring, and now
its ghosts wrestle day after day with the empty sleeves of wind,
Silver is the ring of moonlight which I place
on your ring-finger as you leave your body and urge
the night to return to you, prematurely dead,
Silver is the moon's rain, stopping
to caress the two of us when we are melting, silvered from
summer sweat,
And silver are the downy seeds
I watch lying on my back,
with eyes etched in the azures of the sky,
watching them falling from nowhere, disappearing to who
knows where.

Silver, the color of my mind!
...

Srebrni so trebuhi rib, ki barantajo s svojo tezo
in jo skušajo odloziti v zastavljalnice neba,
Srebrni so hrbti valov, ki pripovedujejo skalam, od kod
prihajajo in kaj vse so doziveli na poti,
a nikoli ne dokoncajo zgodbe, ker jim
zadihani stavki vedno znova razpadejo na oblike soli,
Srebrna je prijaznost oljk, ki odklepajo svoje sence,
da bodo vanje polozile tri razlicne višine oslovskega riganja,
Srebrno je dišanje rozmarina, ki z isto pozornostjo
prilepi sok iz rane na peceno ribo in na pocasno
poslavljanje dneva,
Srebrno je opoldne, ki ukaze vsem, naj mirujejo
in s pocasnim dihanjem premerijo širino svoje srece,
se v mislih sprehodijo do pristanišca,
iz katerega je v neki davni zori odplulo njihovo otroštvo,
Srebrn je veter, ki vsaki uri pozabe prišteje tri
dodatne ure pozabe, ki se konstantno dogajajo v
sedanjosti,
Srebrna so jadra, ki so v resnici bela in so srebrna
zaradi potreb domišljije in slavljanja neslišnega
gibanja,
Srebrna je nepremicnost popoldneva, ki svojo toploto
priveze na zemljo in potem noce odstopiti
sedeza prihajajocemu veceru,
Srebrne so sledi oblakov, ki gradijo mesta v zraku,
kamor smo povabljeni, ko nas po kosilu
zasuje plaz spanca,
Srebrni so kriki ljudi, ki ljubijo svoja telesa,
Srebrni so vrhovi cipres, ki rišejo neobstojne pismenke
na prozno kozo poletja,
Srebrni so vinogradi, kjer se nemirni fazani pripravljajo
na brodolom juga,
Srebrn je let galeba, ki šiva skupaj povedano in zamolcano
in sklepa trajno premirje z udarci vecernih zvonov,
Srebrno je gibanje posušene trave, ki je pozabila
svoje zivljenje v zadnji pomladi in se zdaj
njeni duhovi vsak dan ruvajo s praznimi rokavi vetra,
Srebrn je prstan iz mesecine, ki ti ga natikam
na prstanec, ko zapustiš telo in nagovarjaš
noc, naj ti vrne vse prezgodaj umrle,
Srebrn je dez lune, ki se ustavi in naju
boza, ko se topiva posrebrena od poletnega
znoja,
In srebrna so puhasta semena,
ki jih gledam lezec na hrbtu,
z ocmi, vrezanimi v modrino neba,
kako padajo od nikoder in izgnjajo neznano kam.

Srebro, barva mojega uma!
...

The world is in slow motion, in tune with the morning steps.
Sluggishly it adheres to my soles. I am sitting in a room,
the sun's rays magnifying its space. I slept through
last night in an avalanche of silence. I'd put my skull at
the bedside, my life out of my mind. Dark
hollow figures came knocking at my door.
The love of self thawed like spring
snow. I wouldn't let them in. I kept my skin on.
Out there New York is growing like a cancer cell.
It writhes like an electric centipede, curving up
its tail as if a frightened scorpion. But I am
tucked up inside myself, safe. No longer fighting
the air somebody had smuggled out of
the haunted house. I am seated in my breath.
Nobody gets killed by the sky. A flower
sprouting in crazed blood kills. A razor blade
kneaded into the daily bread by the hollow
figures kills. God is forever counting out
his rhyme, murmuring in his sleep - first,
second, first, second ... I sit to his right.
I sit to his left. I sit inside his
head. Nothing can reach me. First,
second, first, second ... Hands are aflutter in
mid-air like false angel's wings, yet the body
stays faithful to its shadow. A child has
awoken from a bad dream, walked the distance
to his parents bedroom and got
into their bed. Nothing can reach me.
Hell's visitation is put off. The world
shines like gold shrouded in black.
...

Upocasnjen je svet, uglašen s koraki jutra.
Pocasi se lepi na moje podpalte. Sedim v sobi.
Soncni zarki širijo prostor. Noc sem prespal
v plazu tišine. Svojo lobanjo sem polozil od
posteljo, svoje zivljenje pozabil. Temne,
votle postave so trkale na moja vrata.
Ljubezen do sebe je kopnela kot spomladanski
sneg. Nisem jim odprl. Nisem slekel koze.
Zunaj New York raste kot rakava celica.
Gomazi kot elektricna stonoga. Dviguje
rep kot prestrašen škorpjon. A jaz
sem znotraj sebe, varen. Ne bojujem se
vec z zrakom , ki ga je nekdo pretihotapil
iz hiše, v kateri straši. Sedim v svojem dihu.
Nikogar ne ubije nebo. Ubija roza,
ki zraste v podivjani krvi. Ubija britvica,
ki jo temne, votle postave zamesijo
v vsakdanji kruh. Bog se nenehno igra
izštevanko in v spanju mrmra - prvi,
drugi, prvi, drugi ... Sedim na njegovi desni.
Sedim na njegovi levi. Sedim v njegovi
glavi. Nic me ne more doseci. Prvi,
drugi, prvi, drugi ... Roke plahutajo v
zraku kot krila laznega angela, vendar
telo ostaja zvesto svoji senci. Otrok se je
prebudil od nocne more. Prehodil razdaljo
do spalnice staršev in zlezel v njuno
posteljo. Nic me ne more doseci.
Obisk pekla je prelozen. Svet
sije kot zlato, odeto v crnino.
...

Slanting rain is falling from the sky. I cannot
split myself into different personalities and live
so many imaginary lives. I cannot.
Even if I am trapped inside unfinished metaphyics.

Even if love letters seem ridiculous to me,
also. I'm ashamed of them, and am burning them.
I don't get along very well with my former
self. He was too savage, innocent,

trusting the grace of heights. However, I summoned
you with the letters, with what are now
as you lie by me, ashes on the palm of the hand. Our bed
is our sole sustenance, you say. You lie next

to me, you lie in my thoughts even when not present, while I
am vanishing, sustained, sewn together with depth.
Slanting rain is falling from the sky. Your father and mother
are white clouds, dances of light sailing over our days.

Pain rises and dies in you. I keep quiet. With love
it is the same as with a catastrophe. It transcends speech. We
are left with babbling and hawking when we find ourselves
in the grip of its power. Even without words the two of us are protected

and wealthy in it. Our thoughts intersect and shake hands
continually. They mix breaths, adding some weight to the air.
Short are the days, and even shorter are the nights when I am
startled in sleep, and watch you from the height, how you lie in your

body, deeply immersed in the folds of linen. No one knows
which one of us will be the first to hand a coin to the somber
boatman. But long before, we'll live in a house with gay balconies.
Your flowers will bloom and drop, will drop and bloom.

And outside will fall the slanting rain.
And outside will shine the horizontal sun.
...

Poševni dez pada z neba. Ne morem se
razcepiti na razlicne osebnosti in ziveti
toliko imaginarnih zivljenj. Ne morem.
Ceprav sem zaprt v nedokoncano metafiziko.

Ceprav se tudi meni ljubezenska pisma zdijo
smešna. Sramujem se in jih zazigam.
ne razumem se dobro s svojim prejšnjim
sabo. Bil je prevec divjaški, nedolzen,

zaupljiv do milosti višin. Ampak z njimi sem
te pravzaprav poklical. S tistim, ker je zdaj,
ko leziš ob meni, pepel na dlani. Postelja
je najino edino prezivetje, praviš. Leziš ob

meni, leziš v mislih, tudi ko te ni, in jaz
izginjam, nošen, prešit z globino. Poševni dez
pada z neba. Tvoja oce in mati sta bela
oblaka, plesa svetlobe, ki preletavata naše dneve.

Bolecina raste in ugaša v tebi. Molcim. Z ljubeznijo
je isto kot s katastrofo. Prerašca govor. Ostaja
nam le brbljanje in odkašljevanje, ko se znajdemo v
primezu njene moci. Tudi brez besed sva zašcitena

in premozna v njej. Najine misli se nenehno krizajo
in rokujejo. Sape mešajo in dodajajo nekaj teze zraku.
Kratki so dnevi in še krajše noci, ko se vcasih zdrznem
v spanju in te gledam z višine, kako leziš v svojem

telesu globoko pogreznjena v gube posteljnine.
Nihce ne ve, kdo od naju bo prvi izrocil novcic mracnemu
brodarju. A še veliko prej bova zivela v hiši s pisanimi balkoni.
Tvoje roze bodo cvetele in se osipale, se bodo osipale in cvetele.

In zunaj bo padal poševni dez.
In zunaj bo sijalo vodoravno sonce.
...

Dusty roads, a voice that rises from a throat
and dissolves in the desert, the smell of a polished parquet floor
on one September morning, dialogues of light
and shadows we have forgotten to transcribe, a possibility

to be in some other place, though our feet are
indisputably impressed in this asphalt, and time
rebounds like quicksilver in our veins. In all
this we seek shelter, returning home.

The sky above our heads is ruffled, and down below,
somewhere on the right, the calm ripple of the river
never stepped into twice is heard. Somewhere,
for someone, it is so, always so. At home,

things pushed aside into silence await us. And at times
it seems some forgotten bird has fluttered
out of the morning mist, setting off
for the borders of expectation, for life puts itself together

now, in the absence of a face observing its reflection in the glass,
in the absence of a hand sliding down the cheeks for
the hundredth time this evening to learn of the age
of one patiently awaiting us. Calmly the steps echo,

slithering along the moist walls of the night, calmly that
dark river runs, which will turn into silver in the morning,
and calmly the distance which memory may yet measure
grows longer and longer, like these steps, slowly winding

into the arms of an uncertain future.
...

Prašne ceste, glas, ki se dvigne iz grla in se
raztopi v pušcavi, vonj zlošcenega parketa
v nekem septembrskem jutru, dialogi svetlobe
in senc, ki smo jih pozabili zapisati, moznost

biti na nekem drugem kraju, ceprav je nespodbitno,
da so noge vtisnjene v ta asfalt in se cas
kot zivo srebro odbija po zilah. V vsem tem
išcemo zavetišce, ko se vracamo domov.

Nebo nad glavami je zgrbanceno in spodaj, nekje
na desni se sliši umirjeno drhtenje reke, v katero
nikoli ne stopiš dvakrat. Nekje, za nekoga je tako,
vedno tako. Doma nas pricakujejo stvari, ki so

odrinjene v tišino, in vcasih se nam zazdi,
da je neka pozabljena ptica prihnila iz
jutranje megle, se napotila proti mejam pricakovanja,
kajti zivljenje se sestavlja zdaj, ko ni obraza,

ki bi opazoval svoj odsev v steklu,
in ni roke, ki bi ze stotic ta vecer zdrsnila po licih,
da bi preverila starost nekoga, ki nas vztrajno
pricakuje. Mirno odmevajo koraki, se plazijo po vlaznih

stenah noci, mirno tece tista temna reka,
ki se bo zjutraj spremenila v srebro, in mirno se
razdalja, ki jo še lahko izmeri spomin, daljša in daljša,
se pocasi kot ti koraki vije v narocje negotovi prihodnosti.
...

Vceraj je zacelo prihajati temno morje.
Slišala sem, kako se dviguje in spodmika zrak,
slišala sem, kako raste cez krošnje dreves.
Zajci v zajcniku se nemirno trzali v spanju.
Njihove zaprte oci so zarele v temi, polkna
udarjala in koraki mojega pozabljenega telesa
so drseli po zapušcenih prostorih. Sama sem.
Tišina v moji lobanji je postala gosta kot glina.
Sije v oddaljene sobe. Vsi so odšli.
Nenadne smrti in slovesa. Pocasna umiranja
in slovesa. Odhodi kot smrt. V cem je sploh
razlika? In potem dolgo nagibanje nad
brnenje v telefonski slušalki. Nešteti impulzi molka.
Druzina se porazgubi, raztepe po svetu, izgine
kot glasba v prostoru. Ljudje se porazgubijo,
raztepejo po svetu, izginejo kot svetloba,
ko ugasneš luc. Cedalje manj spim.
Mogoce je to zdravilo, ki daljša zivljenje.
Spanec ni nic drugega kot posnemanje smrti.
Samo obracam se med rjuhami. Moja pljuca
se dvigujejo in spušcajo kot morje.
A na to nisem vec pozorna. Cedalje lazja
sem in bolj skrcena. Cedalje manj prostora
potrebujem. Cedalje manj zraka odrivam.
Cedalje bolj cutim, da postajam podobna vrabcu.
Nocni veter nenehno prinaša rumen prah v mojo
budnost. Iz njega sestavim krik zenske,
ki sem ga zakopala na dno oceana,
ki sem ga slišala med barakami,
na meji med zivljenjem in smrtjo.
Nisem poznala njenega jezika,
a let glasu mi je govoril, da prosi za luc.
Takrat nisem razumela. Zdaj razumem.
Tudi moja najvišja prošnja je prošnja
za luc. Samota je na svetlobi blazja.
Zmotno je prepricanje, da se oci spocijejo
v temi. Samo luc jim prinaša pravi pocitek,
osvetljena lezišca na predmetih.
Zivali so budne in roze razprte.
Lahko si izmenjujejmo sporocila.
Lahko jim dajem zivljenje, lahko jih vzgajam
in zalivam z ljubeznijo, ki sem jo
nekoc dajala najblizjim. Sosedi,
ki gredo mimo hiše, me ogovarjajo.
Ko govorim z njimi, pozabim na vse.
Ko se pogovarjam sama s sabo, se vsega spominjam.
Polkna udarjajo in morska sol snezi na travnike.
Nocne ptice zacenjajo govoriti jezik rib.
Roka, v katero so mi angeli unicenja
vzgali znamenje, prelamlja mrak.
Tam v zadnji sobi se bo našla,
kako pred spanjem vlece odejo do otroških oci.
Bolj ko se oddaljujem po kroznici casa,
bolj se blizam svojemu zacetku.
Tudi dimenzije mojega telesa so cedalje
bolj podobne tistim z zacetka. Tam
v zadnji sobi bom danes mogoce srecala
neznanca, cigar um drhti in poje.
Podal mi bo roko in utrl gaz skozi reko,
me popeljal na drugo stran. Kaj sploh blodim?
Vse si samo domišljam. Polarna
noc se vlece globoko v dan. Ceprav slišim kri,
ki mi polni zile, ne najdem
izhoda iz budnosti. Ce ponoci vstaneš,
oddrsaš do kuhinje in tam srecaš
cloveka, ki je rasel v tvojem trebuhu,
veš, da še obstaja upanje,
veš, da se skozenj seliš v prihodnost.
Toda vsi so odšli. Ceprav se mi vcasih zdi, da so za
sabo pustili sled, kot na razglednicah,
ki so mi jih pisali iz velkih mest,
na katerih ulice ostajajo
prepredene z avtomobilskimi zarometi
še dolgo po tistem, ko so avtomobili
ze zdavnaj odpeljali. Ptice dobivajo
nazaj svoje glasove. Kmalu se bo zacelo daniti.
moja prošnja bo še enkrat uslišana.
Vstala bom in odšla na vrt.
Pogledala v zajcnik, ali je temno morje,
namesto mene, vzelo kakšnega zajca.
Vedno mislim, da je bilo meni naklonjenih
toliko let, ker so bila odšteta drugim.
Sprašujem se, ali ne obstaja neko povprecje
let, s katerim se nekdo igra,
ki ne zna racunati, ki nima obcutka za
skladnost in ravnovesje. In ker tako
kot nekateri drugi ne poznam drugacnega
nacina za mašcevanje smrtnikove roke,
se bom enkrat v prihodnosti
dotaknila edinega drevesa na vrtu, na katerem
vedno sedijo vrabci. In postala tisto,
kar sem ze ves cas. Drevo na samem.
Njegovo lubje bo moja koza.
Ko se bodo ljudje vcasih vrnili,
bodo njihovi otroci dremali v moji senci.
In ce bom spala, bom spala kot drevo.
In ce bom potovala, bom potovala kot vrabec,
ki vedno ostane v blizini gnezda
in se nikoli ne seli na jug.
...