As I lie

on this mattress

staring at the ceiling

and the fields behind my eyes

I think of Anna Akhmatova

whose only chance

of preserving her poems

through the times

of persecution

was to memorize

each one

by heart.

As I lie awake

under these glaring lamps

I think of the outline of

my only body.

And I think of them

and how they don’t understand

that even if they drag

a thousand trembling bodies

to a place

where they cannot be seen

and leave them there for days

or for years

they will never learn

how to tame our ideas

or catch a glimpse

of my dreams.

And they truly imagine

that this way they can

“do something about us”

unaware

that the one thing about us

that is “a threat” for them

is the one thing

they cannot

capture.

As I lie on this mattress

I think of Howard Zinn

and how he writes

that they have the guns

and we have the poets

and therefore we

will win.

I think of the way

the years and people unfold

inside these walls

they pass

and change

and return

and nothing ever changes

and no penalty punishes

nor a room

where bright ones

and mad ones

and strange ones

and those who refuse to comply

are thrown for a while.

And when the years have passed

and they’ve finally grasped

that they can fill up

all their jails

with piles of our warm bones

and still we will not end

like the bodies we are

we just pass through our cells

like time

when they finally get it

we’re already far away

we’ve walked

all the way across

the bridges of faith

when they finally get it

where there once were these walls

there will be an open field

filled with beauty and bustle

like it always was

strange, breathing blossoms

rising from it

like they always were:

our ideas and prayers,

the lanky limbs of our dreams.

I can feel the air

dense and heavy with them

as I lie

in this gloomy room

forgotten by fear.

Mornings here, in this wet valley, are good, the end of the world

as it happens isn’t on my mind too often, while I’m attending

to more important things: take one pill of euthyrox, place a quarter

of doxybactin in the cat’s mouth. Also, feed the dogs,

tell the dogs my dream, walk the dogs.

Mornings here are good, full of calm; they last until night.

trans. from the Polish Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Look, I really would have liked

to have put something cold, precise and

to the point in front of you,

if we don’t have time anyway, the continents

are about to drift apart again, and

nature can in any case be divided in two,

one part we leave cold, the other

we’ve already destroyed, even though

I kept going through the reading.

That’s why I thought I’d talk about

my favorite films instead,

if now the point of everything

is that nothing can be asserted,

that history is trifle and trash,

that the majority is drunk with self-abandon,

like a promotional pen, when in biology class

during a contraception demonstration

they use it as a prop.

See, if everything goes well, we’ll

talk about the final few minutes of your

favorite basketball player’s career

over what’s left of our gas station sushi,

and it won’t take much for me to present

my theory, according to which

there is only one constellation,

all of the stars belong to it,

and its name is despair.

At the end we’ll post up on the roof,

but the sentence, which I left below

locked in the bedroom, I am circling

a black crater, I am circling

a black crater, will break free,

and while we’re up there talking about

how what keeps the pagodas together

is what moves in them, it’ll be downstairs

destroying the flat.

Yes, all of it, yes. We can rename it,

sure, but I don’t think that changes anything.

(Translated by Ryan Lane)

the cowherd maiden leads her cows 

to graze upon the pasture. 

cowherd maiden, lead no cows 

to pasture now or after. 

cowherd maiden, your gentle cows, 

a plague upon their hides, 

for woodland bears on the prowl 

will split your gentle sides, 

will wring, will wrench, will unrefine 

your redly flowing blood, 

such that now, should i you find, 

while wandering by the wood, 

would never say this face was yours, 

what has he done, i rue, 

you never will be, nor were, 

my love, fair and true, 

a lowly shepherd boy am i, 

bears are far from few, 

reality’s a pliant thing and 

hear my song to you, 

cowherd maiden cowherd maiden 

cowherd maiden cowherd 

maiden cowherd maiden cowherd 

maiden cowherd maiden 

I am a ladykiller-girl

I carry a penknife in my pocket

and wires in my bra

I took a mortgage on my heart

wanted to build a house together

now I’m not even sure

if any of those people had ever loved me

but I let the past be past

I, Daddy, am the first one to break through the blanket of snow

and blossom, like hellebore

I was picky about food, I got up late

nothing will ever come of the likes of you, you said

but do you know, Daddy, what kind of woman I will be

as strong as e-mail passwords

I won’t wear make-up, I’ll have a healthy diet

on my forehead it will say “organic”

at night I will walk around alone

I’ll be a girl like yarrow

a woman you would never want to marry

I will survive when lightning strikes

in substations, when the news anchor says

do not leave the house without necessity

and when pensioners break their hips on the pavement

I am alone, Daddy, for I am a girl like sharp crowfoot

I am balm when you press me to the skin

but if you keep me for too long, I’ll crack open your wound

I am a fresh plant, Daddy, and I am the dry plant

in the attic waiting for you to pour the tea

alas, I never had the feeling that I was

Mother’s or your delicate little plant

but, I have forgiven

the tractor started at dawn and returned

when it became dark

it was not the time

but my parents who have worked hard for me

translation in English: Maša Dabić

I am a terrible eater, the great Hungarian writers, 

as we know, bolted down their dinner. In the museum 

of Hungarian literature, after the section where Petőfi 

comes under bitter attack for his poems, I reached 

an exhibition filling several rooms, showcasing our greats’ 

own recipe books, teapots, and favourite dishes. 

Hangover soup, sloppy cabbage stew, and tripe. 

My nausea only subsided slightly 

when in a photo I spotted among a rather  

literary table society the antagonist 

replicant from Blade Runner: Roy Batty, 

who, when the Sentries weren’t standing guard, 

saw attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, 

and C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. 

And I’m going to be a wife, and one who likes 

neither cooking nor eating. Just writing and pasta. 

But then, wandering further, I eventually 

found something I did desire. 

In the next room the light came on over an altar, 

and there rested Endre Ady, laid out. His shroud-drapery 

had place enough for one or more to sit (to snuggle?), 

but I wanted to perch on his heart. I gave the life-sized Venus of Willendorf 

a kick up the arse, and wanted to pop myself down on his heart, 

like a nightmare, someone who can write as she pleases, when he 

is almost a hundred years dead. 

Translated by Owen Good 

I learned this from an emo girl 

I was fourteen and she sixteen 

she was roaring out ‘Lilac Bough’ all off-key and mega sexy 

and she said those words 

don’t mean a thing 

and that only yelling 

only yelling’s got a point 

FRA-GRANT-LY 

she dragged as deep on her cigarette 

as a loud emo girl could in 2012  

at the playground in the park outside the plaza  

and it wasn’t ‘the trees’ or ‘the breeze’ 

 or ‘the wind in the branches’ or the ‘rustling’ 

she was battling with but my world-suffering  

rising up inside her she wanted it to stop 

and everything to be good 

MO-THER-OF-MINE 

and ever since then that song’s got 

a special secret meaning 

it’s about selena about the girl 

who was really the spit of selena gomez 

just she’d fallen hard for the punk boys 

and knew that everything you didn’t  

keep to yourself could be sold off 

the tune comes down 

from a major pentatonic 

into a minor 

it might not be true but 

years later someone said that’s what 

makes this song so rare and sweet 

they wanted to impress me 

and did impress me 

I gave them a bit of it 

but like every rarity 

it has no value in itself 

when you reject the point of a song 

you can’t take it away 

only stick a new cover over it 

new burdens on the drunken yells 

because love is nothing 

compared to the world’s sufferings 

and it’s only by chance 

that these days I think a lot about  

the emo girl who’s since grown up 

and who once that time outside the plaza  

was so very right. 

aluness. n. 1. A name for the in-between phases of the moon. 2. A state lacking in stimulation, solitariness, a positively experienced sense of loneliness. 3. A fountain erected in the middle of the woods which suspends its babbling on sensing any movement at all.  

aortid  n. 1. A hose-like organ with muscly walls found in both humans and animals which, as it contracts and dilates, ensures the circulation of the blood in the body. 

mounding n. The (exterior) female sexual organ, the female pudenda. 

tossity. n. A sleepless state in which a person spends too much time trying to  

figure out who they should spend the rest of their life with. 

twisture. n. The distortion of the neutral meaning of words and symbols. 

ween n. (trad.) The general name given to young animals. 

clushing n. A feeling based on sexual attraction, chiefly expressed in desire for another person, clinging to that person and idealisation of them. Eg.,  ͠    blackmail;  ͠   flares up, dies down, cools off 

insourant.  adj. and n. (rare, formal) A <person> who spends more time burning books than watching drama series or films.  

grasalt. n. 1. A pale, rarely used colour mixed from seawater and ambergris. 2. adj. A <substance> which, when it is burned, yields itself. 3. A stark state of consciousness experienced after a person has figured out who to spend the rest of their life with, holds a degree, has the keys to a car and their own apartment, a cat and two dogs in the garden, a rewarding job that pays well, but thinks every time they lay their heads down to sleep that there’s no point to any of it. 

nole n. A small brown, reddish or black birthmark found on the nape of the neck.  

bimp n. A child’s drawing of a malignant tumour. 

tripden n. A bicycle for three people. 

whirrage vb. 1. A slight, tremor-like movement made by a creature, usually accompanied by a soft sound. 2. n. Prophecy made on the basis of birds’ flight and calls, carried out by a separate priestly order. 

wizdiz n. 1. A person who likes philosophy and philosophising. 2. A wisdom tooth that has never emerged. 3. derisory the Kalmü people, a group of people espousing the Buddhist religion.  

futheed. n. 1. Geog. a narrow wooden bridge connecting the village of Göd with Nevelek Hillside, on which only pedestrians may cross. 

hoal n. 1. Sensing, feeling, experiencing, la fonction du réel. 2. Nihil, emptiness. 3. A black spot which turns up on a painting while it is being exhibited. 

The cut flowers stink of pizza 

when there’s mixed delivery, and the packaging  

of the COVID test recalls the garlicky  

cucumber salad, like how dreams 

and waking can get mixed up together. 

I waver, still half-asleep, should I 

mention Wolt¹ by name in my book, or 

just use the brand’s colour to hint at it.  

In the end I dream I’m a horse and  

they’re burning a double-U into my skin, 

but I don’t feel it, just hear the branding-iron 

sizzle. I’m galloping. Don’t even notice 

I’ve got hooves. By the time I do, we, 

the support teams’s darlings, are hurtling 

down an empty Andrássy,² Shetland ponies, 

Kisber Felvers³ with beers. On our backs 

beans and Neapolitan wafers. 

For us, the tenements’ doors stand 

open; the city smells of stables,  

there’s blue rain dying our manes. 

Up on the screen, Krisztina and Jocó,  

two freshly christened raindrops, are  

lauded for their advertising value.  

Only the 6th District residents grumble. They 

carry manure up the service stairway: proof. 

But then they fling it out of the windows to  

spatter on our backs. I wake up,  

then fall asleep again. The company pulls out of 

our contract on account of a poem. I argue 

I couldn’t have written it. It’s true. Horses don’t write. 

Let’s get going, the lights are harsh, over there, look, check out all those pics 

At the chemical plant crates of geraniums, deer in the rape fields, ears pricked 

In a sidecar a side of ham, garden gnomes in the mason’s yard, poplar trees 

Lorries parked by the access road, and over the hills come the cans of beans. 

Circus tent on the industrial estate, a blonde woman brushing the lama’s coat. 

The clown’s bleeding, the patrol’s heading over, the fire-eater’s pushing candy floss down his throat 

Up on the billboard a grave-looking grown-up, cottony clouds on his frowning brow: Vote for me! 

Lalalala- lalalalalala, lalala- lala – You cute little bumpkins, come and see! 

the train to Tiszalök might just wait 

the karma jam bubbles and thickens at a rate 

my sweet chick 

you stare out the window, let in the breeze 

where it’s taking you, you just can’t believe,  

nor what you see in the pics 

– nor what you see in the pics 

The banner snaps and flaps in the breeze: Lower Eden, come pick-your-own 

Red plastic bowl, puli dog on a chain, outside the Land Registry a Fiat cabrio 

On an old pram’s frame a heron tall and grey, it’s drawing its pension and won’t fly away 

In the thicket an Ikea mattress decays, a complex life  – cut with the plain  

Your forehead pressed against the cold glass, don’t say a word, just watch the pics 

Working girls rest by the fast-food shacks, outside, a beetle steps over sticks 

The bunny is cunning and carries a gun, on the road to Damascus the traffic is stuck 

A branch goes crack, a huge apple drops, watch out baby Newton, you’d better duck! 

the train to Tiszalök might just wait 

the karma jam bubbles and thickens at a rate 

my sweet chick 

you stare out the window, let in the breeze 

where it’s taking you, you just can’t believe  

nor what you see in the pics 

– nor what you see in the pics 

Let’s get going, the lights are harsh, over there, look, check out all those pics 

There in the coupe the man with the mustache unwraps his meat sandwich, gives it a lick 

His lips are moving, he’s shouting something, “Góliáth Dávid, there’s no such name”  

an old lady rips the shrink wrap from the Bible and loudly refutes this claim 

the train to Tiszalök might just wait 

the karma jam bubbles and thickens at a rate 

my sweet chick 

you stare out the window, let in the breeze 

where it’s taking you, you just can’t believe,  

nor what you see in the pics 

– nor what you see in the pics 

We stand in a narrow, grubby yard, 

circling slowly, facing each other, 

in my raised hand a syringe. 

That’s how it starts. 

I’m little. 

The one opposite is twice 

as tall, and though he’s skinny he’s a man. 

When it seems it’s all up, 

out of an upstairs window, a woman leans, 

she aims, she throws, and the man tips over. 

The syringe sticks out of his neck. 

The woman looks down from the window. 

Her hand is exact, she’s a doctor. 

I remain alone in the house. 

The mess is humongous. 

My uncle is a tattoo artist, 

the black ink gets everywhere, 

and I have to scrape it up. 

I dye my hair black. 

My girlfriend’s a gorgeous, blonde 

sensation, willing to do anything, 

she announces she’s leaving me: 

she’s going to do porn. 

I’m heading down the stairs, the crew’s coming up: 

a team of fifteen. 

They argue in shrill voices and they’re blind. 

I herd them outside. 

I open the door wide, step out into a park, 

Spring has sprung, the sun is bright, 

May Day families on checked rugs, 

a cheery big wheel further off. 

One or two of them remark, the widow’s come out. 

I. 

You, who turn the Earth so it can 

learn the sun’s heat, you are  

acquainted with the stones’ grating song,  

you also rub dignity into the spine   

of the lolling, recumbent hills; 

You, who with careful hands, stir up 

the base of the sky so birds can soar 

freely on the waves of the wind; 

You, who, to keep the soil warm,  

melt with your breath the rocks 

under the crust, you strike pines 

with lightning to teach them  

humility, you know what the flames  

crackle and mutter, one to the other; 

You, who speak the waters’ babble, 

who know the springs’ fresh chuckle and gush 

who sieve short showers out of the clouds, 

to cool the migrating buffalo, and who  

call the sea-trenches by name; 

To You I plead! 

II: 

Be merciful to the titterers and the unworthy, 

forgiving to the lechers and the strutters, 

Do not become angry with compulsive achievers, 

the peddlers of desire and the honey-tongued prophets. 

Be forbearing towards them, and wink at their hurtling, 

for they too are defenceless and fallen. 

And also forgive us, who to keep  

our heads above the swelling waters must 

cling to the last twig of shame, because 

what would people say, if we let go. 

Forgive us, who from time to time 

twist the night tightly about us and  

sweat toxins and scorching stars. 

Forgive us who seek love adrift  

on the froth of dubious beers, for as  

often as we discover it, it dissolves  

into nausea, migraine and nervous tension,  

and burns the words from our tongues 

leaving us without a word of farewell 

and tossing with frustration. 

Forgive us, who overwatered  

the promises we were gifted, 

but still guard them zealously 

in hopes they’ll revive. 

Forgive us, who were herded with blandishments 

into the Land of Possibilities, then found 

the borders closed behind us, 

our documents confiscated, and who, as 

the embassy building was burnt down 

around us were told only, “We believe in you, 

you can do it!” 

And, I implore you, forgive the boomers 

whose lungs were encrusted with 

Iron Curtain dust long before 

they inherited this land, who had 

 the scalding condensate of freedom 

thrown in their faces; 

Who, still learning to swim, bit on 

the first hook, till cynicism swelled them  

to pufferfish. Their dreams then 

privatised, they drove themselves  

hard, atoning through work, fleeing 

the threat of their own feelings; 

And who became so accustomed 

to finding what lay beyond bars was  

merely more bars, that long before their 

release back into the reservation, their survival 

instinct had died. 

Forgive the chocolate-scented  

angels whose halos blind 

even the purest of eyes, and who 

someday soon will in fact bulldoze  

the earth and leave it flat. 

And forgive me too, for I am descended 

from all of these, I sit beside chairs 

in just the same way  

and have nothing to do with any of them. 

And forgive me for loving them with 

biting bitterness and humble devotion, 

I love them, I love them all! 

III. 

Neat-bearded hipsters, your arms 

inked black with nighttime forests, 

sipping like connoisseurs  

at your craft beers, I love you all! 

Tuberose-scented divas, discussing 

self-esteem in the gym each morning, 

then dining on hamburgers  

with a knife and fork, I love you! 

You tofu-recipe-posting neo-Marxist 

arts students, with your satchel of 

deconstruction always on your shoulder, who  

could make yourself homes in ever more memes, 

and you dads, nomadic horsemen, twisting  

in the saddle to shoot your bows, you dynasty- 

founding Hungarian housewives,¹ weeping at the 

pharmacy and dreaming of home births. I love you! 

You, who regularly slip away from company 

to pick the snot out of your noses, so you 

can finally get some air, and you, who fold 

your clothes neatly before you have sex. 

I love you! 

You, who quake like the leaves of the aspen 

at the word ‘foreigner,’ but teach Gypsy kids 

from the end of the village to read and write, 

and you, from whose throats broad-mindedness  

bursts forth with such force it sets church bells 

ringing, I love youl!  

You, who bathe daily in anxiety  

and never wash out the tub after, 

and you who put every neighbour’s  

house in order, just so you don’t 

have to deal with your own, I love you! 

You, who in ringing tones prophesy 

love, fearing you are not worthy  

of it, and you who, lest you be unmasked, 

still insist you love, though your tongues  

have been pierced by red-hot nails, 

I love you! 

You, who make sacrifices, and you 

who are yourselves the sacrificial victim, 

I love you! 

You who have moved mountains out of 

the way of truth, for it would crush 

them to dust, and you, who’ve put electric 

fences round a country’s worth of terrors, I love you! 

You, who have passed on your wheel-broken dreams 

like rickets to the bones of your descendants, 

and you, who are not virtuous, just far too timid 

to be wicked, I love, love, love you! 

IV. 

I pray for them all therefore. 

For in me they live on, and I too 

live on in each one of them. 

Their names are my name, their land is 

my land, their muteness my muteness. 

I beg You, then, incline Your ear to us, 

hear the words of our mouths, grant us  

forgiveness and endeavour to love us, 

as the earth loves the clods, 

as flames the crackling, 

as wingbeats the wind, 

as white-crested waves the sea. 

I haven’t got my own special mug, and even those I did once have,  

like that mess tin dad bought after mum died, which has turned up again  

from who knows where, they aren’t mine, they’ve all become Ildi’s  

as well. The same way I don’t own Ildi, though sometimes  

I think I do. If we had a kid, I’d say the same about it 

I suppose: that one’s mine, while they wouldn’t  

be only mine, in fact they probably wouldn’t 

be anyone’s. That’s not how it works. You can’t 

compare a mug to a child. 

When I was a child I called mugs beakers 

and I wouldn’t drink coffee from them, but chocolate milk 

at the same time each day. The flowers and trees 

on the family porcelain, if I close my eyes they spring  

up before me, one after the other.  

But the gold trim on the cup’s lip may have 

been silver. Or not even silver, just bronze. In my hands right now  

is the rose-coloured one. It’s capacious, potty-shaped, cracked. 

In spite of this, or precisely because, I love it. And I’ve got one 

that’s sea-blue, which Dad and his partner Gizi brought back 

from somewhere in Germany. There’s a picture on it, an unreal, 

cold-looking city, I don’t remember which, I don’t remember 

what they said about it. Though I listened. I’ve forgotten. That too.  

And I love my long-disbanded rock group’s only mug. The pattern  

on it is fading and will soon be gone for ever. The more I use it, the sooner 

it’ll wear off. In the end, there’ll be just me who knows, just me who sees 

something, anything in that grubby white. The Snoopy mug with the 

missing handle, that’s my favourite currently because of my dog, 

who has no idea why I’m typing just now, why we’re not out 

on the street having a walk.  

There are also the Ikea mugs, they’re good too I guess, and were 

also my favourites for a long while; maybe ’cause they’re modern 

and for a long while there was nothing they reminded me of. There  

are one or two with muffins on them, that’s the kind Ildi threw at me  

from the other end of the room; fragments of them still turn up though  

perhaps neither of us knows now what started it. A story from 

my childhood springs to mind:  mum squirting her milk onto my face 

when I’d fallen asleep during breastfeeding. Okay,  so it’s not a story,  

but it is to do with childhood. For me at least. Some people don’t find it 

off-putting; I like falling asleep at their houses. I always fall asleep 

at Dad’s place for example. I enjoyed that, at one time at least. Sometimes 

I sit there in the mornings, mug in hand, yawning until I drop off again. I 

spill coffee down myself and over the duvet, on the bed like Mum did once  

with one of her school certificates, or maybe someone else, not her, 

dad, perhaps, or someone else in the middle of an argument or making love,  

or was it a passport, not a certificate? 

I don’t know anymore. Perhaps never did. Those huge brown stains on the brand-new  

mattress are my dog’s. My dog is a miniature cow. I get cross when other people say that. 

Only I’m allowed to say bad stuff about him. 

And then just when he makes me jump by barking unexpectedly, 

by chasing a terror-stricken cat up hill and down dale, 

or by finding something stinky and dangerous on the ground 

and eating it though I’ve explicitly asked him not to. 

I used to take my coffee with loads of milk and loads of sugar. 

I couldn’t imagine ever drinking it differently. 

It was the sugar I gave up first. I kept running out when  

I was still living alone. Then it struck me the coffee was fine without, that 

it was perfectly drinkable that way too. I got used to the coffee not being so sweet, 

or accepted it. Later, it would taste odd, if by accident… 

I stopped adding milk a couple of years ago: half of my life was behind me, 

and I’d never linked the diarrhoea to drinking milk. Just as I grew to like coffee 

bitter, I also started to like it black, and now there’s no other way I could drink it. 

Grief, on the other hand, I can’t get used to. The worst of it is 

there’s no end, it seems. It leaves a residue, like dregs. 

What can I do with them. The last few gulps. The end of it. When it’s gone cold.  

It’s drinkable. But not pleasant. Bearing it, getting used to it, accepting it. 

Sometimes for fun, I picture it all completely different from how it is now. 

I don’t know Ildi, I don’t have a dog, I take my coffee differently too. 

Sweet and milky, like I used to. I’d be bolder, entrancing,  

and irresistibly sweet myself. Then I think, by this stage both Mum  

and Dad’d also be taking their coffee black, if they were taking it. 

Or maybe neither of them would be drinking anything, 

the mugs would be empty, and they’d just be listening as I tell them  

all the stuff that’s happened in the world since they stopped living. 

By Greek time, poetry and falsehood are as 

old as each other. I yearn to touch something  

existing before and after me, on the shores 

of the Aegean or in my bloodflow, under seashells 

or in the shell of the ear. I succumb to the 

underwater waves. The genesis of blood cells  

and verses is poesy. The pulse quickens going uphill. 

What can it be like, stiffening into a pillar on the Acropolis? 

The caryatids’ dictum is don’t move, their concept is bearing up. 

Figures tense under the linen drapery: not word, not body. 

Sensuality was carved from stone, but survives the sinews 

and the model. Touching the marble is strictly forbidden, 

a crossed-out hand on the signboard. I want to stroke the 

caryatids’ hands, instead I look at them from a distance,  

unseen by their calcified pupils. They’re women,  

they bear a great deal, but are still not real statues, 

just supporting columns. Is looking at them like this touching? 

Behind the corner, inside a house that looks like the bottom of a swimming pool, there is an attic where young communists go to kill time. Along the road to the house there is a hillside full of carnations and a sky full of stars.

The gateway of the half-moon’s griefs. It blooms with verdant rose, its red fangs scratch when you go under them and Lilja always does. The eye combs through the rose thicket’s thorns, toward the juicy droplets of morning dew.

Outside the young communists wave at Lilja, who is wrapping up a green-striped marquee and smiles back. The sugar from the bun saved from the waste falls onto the asphalt, they laugh and they have a downright wonderful time right down to their marrow, the sun bows over them fully rounded and hisses.

With canvas bags packed to the hilt with something they bicycle along the ripping rippling asphalt streets, they bike to the shore with the plastic palm trees, Lilja shuts her eyes against the sun. She is one of the young communists, one who lives in the fire of the passion of her convictions, love from head to toe.

The gateway of half-moon’s griefs. It blooms with verdant rose and Lilja weaves under it, the young communists in her wake. They hold a effectual board meeting and move on to the attic, into the house that looks like the bottom of a swimming pool, they unwind their thoughts from the round windows like Lilja will be wrapping up the marquee again the day after tomorrow. The hillside full of carnations and the sky of stars, they all fall asleep in each other’s arms.

I have twelve kittens sitting around me,

                              howling newborns, slimy

               they color black and white pictures in their minds

I like to think

with my hands ten fingers ten toes twelve

around me coloring the Truth dark green

                              I like sitting around

The sleet passes through the eyelids causing inflammation

               When I go out I climb the stairs to a Library to the side of a Library

                              screaming newborns, from saliva

               to pick up a Christmas Tree from a Reception, but not in summer

               to ask in which book was that one sentence on the cover a dark green Circle

I read it that one summer on a Motorboat

    I would have been better without

We were twelve years old that summer

except for my brother, he was ten

that summer when my brother hid under a bench, our friend told us about Lip Gloss

                                                                                                the stinking

I sit bad-tempered but moderately energetic not in a Barn

or a Kitchen, not an Observation Tower,

except in dreams I mumble words

not Sheets nor Pitfall nor Swimming Pool (the track for fast swimmers) on Concrete

                                                                                  I only use fishkicks 

I sit eating cuticles the inside of my cheek the soles of my feet and other dryish things

I shit

My armpits are stuck in a hole I cut yesterday

               paper scissors on an envelope for the fall and Father’s Day

               Twelve mutts barking around me that summer

               to get away with everything 

The sun throws
your features on the sand.

What is left
swims.

grave ruin (pile of stones, a relic)

the city opens up in front of me as I stand on the steps of the building

where I’ve been sitting

smoked my first cigarette of the day and had breakfast

shouted

recited poems written with blood

they pass me on their way in

there’s commotion, leather shoes, big windows

hectic glances, furrowed brows and a sense of self-worth

people full of themselves

yes, I do know

your reality, your truth

in this house, realities are reduced to numbers

theoretical talk

concepts abstract enough

to maintain distance

so you wouldn’t have to face it

look up at the hard worn benches of the gallery

not one of us has spoken within those walls

not one of us has been given space

to live, to be, to breathe

this place was built by the hard hands of colonialists

the cold stone walls repeat history

like a theater stage repeats the same patterns

until the last breath of post-capitalist society

i am a butterfly

and you caress my wings

i know you mean well

and you don’t understand

that then I can no longer fly

i am a butterfly

and you caress my wings

you shut me in a glass jar

it breaks me to pieces

i know you mean well

but we are different species

and you don’t know how to caress me

without causing pain

the final tears of paradise

will form

the boat where our gestures

glide

like happy

cross-stitches

you suture

on the spot

you are

the first prints

the animals have left

and we’re left with

a thousand ways of looking, avoiding traps

making observations

a language like Africa

and languages like math and

laziness

contagious

laziness

the fear of holding on

perfectly perfectly ordinary

it’s good to have fun

to be restful

it heals us somehow

a valid state

comprehensible

like a beeping

beware of feelings! and at the same time

feel free

when tomorrow slumbers

heedless of prophecies

you’re a nightingale

and everything is just

as troublesome

a precision rises in the small hours

that hits and sinks

every strike

breathes a thin threat

memories dig

into the face

beautiful deers mid-ditch-jump

a quarrel flows

in temperate harmony

a living flame as of new-lit torches

an extinguishing shower from a waterfall

rolls across the skin

spinal dents

like grooves paths quills cells blooms dust

you drip

into corners into newfound dreams

on a dark blanket silently

soundly celebrating

on the other side of this humming

many live as if unaware of us

and it doesn’t matter

here tears are capable

they wash

soft laundry

in flight

in the wind

hundreds of fluttering sheets

in knots

words all tied

part of the work site

cats on the boughs

are mewling in chorus

of love in all its forms

pssssht

don’t stay

to keep gathering

in the middle of the day

and pssssht

don’t recall harshly

these trembling commandments

I was just shattered sticky with agony

and sensitive to the touch

a stony tablet

by my count it doesn’t take long

when they say

there is no ugliness

from any perspective

there is no ugliness

when you dare

to be

injuries and all

perfectly perfectly ordinary

Bury me next to the safari

in Arugambay

sprinkle my ashes in the north after the snow has fallen

play Hector and Avicii at the wake

dance on the tables until the morning comes

serve cheesecake and white wine

pray to whoever you want

hug all the guests,

no one should leave alone

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Share stories from my life

the bad ones too

decorate the place with dream catchers

someone could recite a few poems

If I die before my mother

embrace her and make sure she has lots of handkerchiefs

my brother can wash the dishes

my sister will perform a dance

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Don’t look at pictures or PowerPoint presentations

look around you

get to know each other

so you will always remember me,

a girl at whose funeral you found a new friend

and the cheesecake tasted lovely

Where does my story begin?

and where does it end?

what is if you try to get freedom by shifting through matter.

Is it better to express regret?

Emotions control the body.

The only course of action, but in its nature the most difficult one.

Complicated in its matter that doesn’t feel too good.

Never had the experience of trial.

I missed the part of understanding, how waisting time on one thing speeds up the rate of others.

Your mind can’t find peace with the new challenges.

Take it or leave it.

A big difference that you will understand later,

which you will never get back.

What I want to be, that I am not.

What kinda of inspiration do I want to be,

that I am not.

The journey to your courage seems long.

Brave people say; push your worries aside.

You just can’t sell your bravery to them.

Is there a difference on playing cold, or to go with terror to the light to shine courage.

Every opportunity is a free throw.

Excuse are the worst way to fall.

Remember to holdfast of your pedal in your journey.

suddenly this forceful effort

hard dull dark stuff palpable

in the stomach suddenly an unfamiliar weight

a flattening of the world outside rotations of a rubik’s cube

in a well-practised hand suddenly a rumbling

from the street below receding a drifting off of colours into grey

suddenly a name spelled out in red-hot wire

across the world one name for all that is one

a name a symptom of a bygone us a name stiffening

to senselessness to sameness a name suddenly

birds suddenly a skyline a breaking down of light

suddenly the sadness reappears

translation: Katja Zakrajšek

when i arrived at the hospital,
i had to undress,
put on white pajamas
and hand over my phone

my mom’s last words
before they took me in
were

first they’ll observe you,
then they’ll transfer you
to another ward

from behind the locked door
of the closed ward
i heard animal screams

when they opened the door, a sound barrier,
the bedlam crashed against me

they escorted me to my bed,
each person i saw
was playing a carefully assigned role

the security guard, the nurse,
the silent killer, the youthful friend,
the pretty temptation, the ugly screamer,
and many others,
who were orchestrating
my own personal
truman show

they take off their clothes
take off their shoes
remove jewelry and watches
strip to bare skin

they strip further
stroking with their hands
they take off their professions,
their names and habits
with patient kisses
they strip off their past loves,
their expectations
with small bits their age, their lust
with their mouths
they strip off each other’s sex

they take off their childhood
(this takes the longest time)
mother father they wash off
by hugging by rubbing
flesh against flesh
the juice pours out

they reach the dark
never named before
give it names from the past
forgetting them
caught in the fire

they strip further
through crying
moaning, screaming
to the nameless
body
beyond birth

naked they are

translated by Barbara Siegel Carlson

They’re not going to make love today.

Exhausted from walking and cold,

they’ll fade out slowly

in front of a TV set.

The lids will softly fall

on their heavy eyes.

Lying on the bed, she’ll turn towards the wall

waking him up; he’ll turn off the TV.

Instantly, the blue light will vanish from the flower-patterned wallpaper.

The window will be yellow with the light

of night-time Moscow.

He’ll get up then and take off his shirt,

the way men take off their shirts:

grabbing it by the shoulders and pulling it across their back,

which will thus split open like a tent.

He’ll lay down beside her, and in her light sleep she’ll feel

his warmth.

Slowly they’ll descend into a deeper slumber.

They’re not going to make love today,

and I’ll be relieved.

When their voices stop seeping

into my bluish solitude,

I’ll know that they’re asleep.

If they’d made love, I’d have been embarrassed,

as one’s embarrassed when one walks upon a kiss

or into a bathroom when someone’s naked and entering the tub.

If they’d made love, I’d have been embarrassed

by the gasping and then moaning

that I’d hear through the thin wall.

The moans of a woman whose breasts are being kissed

are different from those of a woman penetrated.

For at that moment she’s relieved that the man hadn’t gone far away.

That’s what I’d ponder in my sleeplessness.

I’d start sketching your naked shoulders across the Moscow skyline

among the wallpaper’s gold and turquoise flowers.

I’d imagine your vulnerability

in the moment before you come,

when you lose the ability to retreat into yourself and your lips

betrayingly transform into a taut little ribbon.

I’d know

that what was caught

was not the voices of two people,

male and female.

That it was my solitude,

the fact I’m sleeping in a hotel room alone

and strangely ignorant:

not knowing what to do

with the accumulating distance

from my home.

translation in Englihs: Jernej Županič