Poems by Andrijan Turan

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

You sleep and under your heart

our child strains itself.

It goes left,

and then right,

as if it was already preparing

to go round the world.

As if it wanted to say:

I will be your laugh.

I will be your tears.

I will illuminate your way.

Like Sun, Moon and stars.

So that you can see with your heart,

not with your blinded eyes.

So that the corn can ripen in your words,

and not the thistle

be in bloom.

So that you listen to organ,

not the bugle.

So that

we all

hold each other’s

hands.

 

White Room, Black Horse

I

You’ve hidden yourself.

We will find you nowhere.

Now you have

a white room inside.

There is no window there

with a red mace,

flowering into the cold,

wooden chair, cabinet and table,

bread, jar of honey,

nor the clear water from a well,

rocky and transparently serene.

You don’t hear any child’s laugh.

You sit in a corner

on the ground

or in the field

in a deep furrow

near the edge of a stubble-field,

where you wearily, with your hands,

embrace your knees.

II

Today was a bad, cold day,

full of gusts of wind.

It was already evening, when the funeral guests,

with fingers salty from real tears

took from china which did not shine

warm curd cakes.

In the middle of the light

we got scared of the darkness

and after the cups we drink it sobbing

in the coffee.

III

Thank you for teaching me how to like

the smell of gasoline and oil,

metal and machines,

quill of ducklings

and grass of a pasture,

when it still did not lose the morning dew.

Only few days later

at Martin’s feast,

I longed to have strong drinks with you

and then, easy-going,

on the Sunday walk through the village by the way

crack the pips from Clara.

IV

Perhaps in the middle of the village

near a column,

where a nest is being built

by a sleepy stork,

you would recollect

how – into a baby phone,

made of plastic – you whispered almost shyly:

I love.

Now I pick it up tentatively

that small receiver,

although I know

that on the other end of line

there is only the rumbling silence of a white room,

where only your laugh quietly tinkles

on the bottom of a glass.

On a black horse, Martin came.

Translated by Zuzana Vilikovská

 

 

                                         

Second Rainbow After the Deluge

As the soil surrenders its screen

The songbirds fly from their roost

Their hunger permanent like snow.

 

Horizon is heavy with haze.

Hundred in chorus crookedly cackle

At the Cain-like congregation of crows.

 

From stinging coarseness of soil

Sparkles the wistful solitude of snowdrops.

Above it, the hesitation of bees

And fluffy lustiness of little flies.

 

The young and the old care most

About the friendship of flowers.

They eagerly smell

The first scent of coltsfoot

Their gaze upwards is encouraged

By the teasing freedom of predatory birds.

 

But we don’t see their unrest

Nor hear their tearful tunes

Because we pluck the bouquets

That will burn in crematoria

And cut with saw century-old spruce trees

Where they nested from time immemorial.

 

We release poisons without remorse.

Mother Earth sees that,

Crowned by the eagle eyes.

Their direct fall

Into ashes of accursed generation

Will remain a forgotten memento of evil men.

 

The second rainbow after the deluge

Writes the first story 

Of how from water, earth, and sun

Grew Custodians of visiion

Who cure with kindness.

 

 

The Other

I.

You won’t hide from the snake.

Even if you do,

Then only at midnight

Of St. John’s Eve

In a valley where the moonlight

With two birches

Ingrown through the heart of a star

Without cross

Illuminates all the signs of the zodiac

II.

He stood in front of a rock

And words burned in his mouth.

III.

Don’t read his name.

Axeanoxylas.

 

Rising from the Bed

I.

Dead calm

I see a vision.

A narrow road,

Just for two,

Broken glass in the ditch,

Shard marked by lips,

Burning confetti.

This way, please.

II.

You are on the way to your lover

To determine the coordinates of love.

Behind the glass of the train

Is a facial amulet.

You can’t sleep

Just so you could in the morning

See on the platform

A clear grain of salt

In the middle of eyelashes

And someone’s dazzlingly curt

Good-bye.

III.

None of us know

How birds shake off their shadows

When they quickly reach altitude.

The snow blackens bellow their wings.

He too wakes up alarmed.

IV.

Coffins are full of statues.

V.

Some wine is left in the glass.

Darkness does matter.

 

       Translated by Peter Petro