Essay on Slovenian poetry
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Other featuresin this issue
Josip Osti
Translated by Evald Flisar
IN MY POCKET I STILL KEEP THE KEY
TO MY FORMERHOME
In my pocket I still keep the key to my former
home, which, sincethe last war in my
home town, has been lived in by strangers
who have changed the lock on the main door
a long time ago … Iknow that a key without a lock
no longer has a reason for being,but
this key means something higher to me, just like
many othergenerally useless
objects … The dry chestnut I picked up
on atree-lined avenue leading to the source
of the river Bosna … Asaucer for the beer mug from
the Golden Tiger Inn in Prague, where I
met Hrabal … The napkin on which
the English poet AdrianMitchell
drew me an elephant … The dust of a lemon
flowerwhose unforgettable smell reminds
me of our walks along theseashore
between Podaca and Brist … Objects which
warm thepalm, like the egg my neighbor
brought me as soon as it waslaid,
and which stir the memory … In my pocket
I still keepthe key to my former home …
I don’t know if this key dreams itsown memory,
its other half, as I dream my
beloved wife, equallydark and
mysterious, to whom for years in my dreams, althoughshe
sleeps next to me, I have been writing poems
instead of loveletters. All I know is that,
inexplicably, she shows me the way tothe darkroom
of language, in which alone I feel perfectly
free.
BUILDING A HOUSE AFTER THE WAR
After the war we’re building a house … After yet another war,
during which many people have remained without a roof over
theirheads, we’re building a house and arranging the garden
around it.We’re building it on the scale of a snail’s house,
small andbeautiful, but for two. We learn from
the sparrows. We ask the windfor advice, and
the rain. We build it with hands that smell
ofsoil into which everything that comes from it
always returns. Withhands that gently
touch and, exhausted, laugh loudly like
anelder-tree in bloom. We’re helped by stone and water,
which we unitewith the smell of lavender and
images from a dream … After the warwe’re building a house …
For two bodies that will lie in bed asif
under a blooming apple-tree, and for two souls that will
silently wander around it like the soul
of an old woman who hadlived and
died among its walls … We’re building little walls
that will cut us off from cruel reality,
and stairs that will leadus beyond
the known, to where only two who love
each other everget … After the war we’re building a house … Day
and night,although we’re only too aware that we are
building tomorrow’s ruins.
THE SUN WARMS EVERYONE EVERYWHERE EQUALLY
The sun warms everyone everywhere equally … There is no
alien skywith an alien sun,
as you claim, my good Aleska, in your poemRemain
here. Neither in your time nor in mine, equally
taxing.Only people are alien to each other under the common sky
and thecommon sun. Especially full of hatred
for one another are thebrothers you
refer to. From Cain and Abel onward. The mostreliable
witness to that is precisely the sun, who decideswhether
crops will mature or burn, whether there will be bread
and wine. Also a witness to the fact
that the homeland for whicheveryone
should lay down their life is not a mother … I do notbelieve
a man is born to die for his country. Especially not for theone which has
always been a battleground, an arsonfield and aslaughterhouse.
Which, if a mother, is a murderess of her children…
The sun warms everyone everywhere equally …
There is noalien sky with an alien sun,
as you claim, my good Aleska, in yourpoem Remain
here. For a human being among human beings,
as longas he or she is a human being and truly
among human beings, flowersand wormwood grow equally.
That’s why I advise all those you’reasking to remain here
to go and remain where
they won’t have toask themselves who is going to kill them,
but who is going to lovethem.
WITH A RUSTY BAYONET FROM WORLD WAR ONE
With a rusty bayonet from World
War One I weed the garden.Thrusting
it deeply into the soil as it might have been thrust
into hard bread or soft human flesh in the times
long cleansed fromits
memory. When its former shine
mirrored the fear anduncertainty
of the beautiful young man who,
at the war cemetery,has for decades
been feeding flowers and weeds
as nameless ashimself … With a rusty bayonet
from World War One I weed thegarden …
Pulling out nettles, dandelion … When the bayonet
touches a brass cartridge in the soil
I blow in it the way I learnedas a child.
The silence of the Karst is broken by an unusualsound
to which a wood-owl responds. A wood-owl
whose measured,ominous voice
fills the air all night long.
COME, LOVE, QUICKLY INTO THE GARDEN
Come, love, quickly into the garden!… Before
the shadow of thecloud changes its image.
Before the splendor of the bloomingflowers and ripening
fruits I have planted and cultivated for youdisappears…
The sunflower will bend its head and look
blindlyinto itself like you and I, after silently
looking at each otherand waiting in vain for an answer to an
unspoken question. The shineof olive silverlings will darken,
and the golden sun will no longerbe reflected in
your eyes, and mine, and those of the cat… Come,love, quickly
into the garden!… Before the shadow of the cloud
changes its image… Because after that, nothing
in our life will bethe same again.
I DON’T KNOW WHEN I WILL GO BLIND
I don’t know when I will go blind, as I don’t know
when life ordeath will tear me away from my
beloved wife. That’s why in mytreasury of memories
I collect and keep everything I haveexperienced and
got to know with awakened senses. With mysight,
hearing, taste, smell and touch… I look
for a long timeand attentively at everything, listen
to different, loud and quietvoices, smell
more or less strong, pleasant and unpleasant
scents and fragrancies, taste sweet and bitter
fruits, touch softand rough, hot and
cold shapes … I don’t know when I will goblind,
as I don’t know when life or death will tear me
awayfrom my beloved wife. But I do know
that even then I will recogniseby smell every
flower I have ever smelled, by sound
every bird Ihave ever seen, by touch
every shape I have ever touched.
Butabove all I will unmistakably recognize every
woman I have everloved and caressed for
a long time. Even when she will silentlystand
beside me, naked and washed with a soap smelling
of roses.And if time will have changed
her body, I will still recognise her—by the
unchanging smell of her soul. Bitter-sweet. Poisonous and
healing at the same time.
WHENEVER WE MEET,
WE GAZE AT EACH OTHER FOR A LONG TIME
Whenever we meet, we gaze at each other for a long time…
Whenunexpectedly we meet on the path
that leads through the wood orvineyard, and also
when in the orchard, through the grass overfilled
with star-shaped dandelions, she approaches
me naked. Withsprightly movements. Without
a sound, as if walking on toes. Inher
beautiful eyes, which hide the coolness
of the deepestfountain, I see every time my
own eyes, and in them two burningsuns.
I don’t know if she feels my desire,
as I feel hers, thatwe should at least once
engage in a passionate kiss… Whenever wemeet,
we gaze at each other for a long time… That’s how
italways ends, my meeting with the snake.
MOST OFTEN I SPEAK TO THE DEAD
Most often I speak to the dead…
Especially to poets and writers.Only they
come as soon as I call them. When I am,
frequently ina crowd, desperately alone.
Only they have enough patience to
listen attentively and with understanding to my
dirges, even when Iforget that they are
with me, and carry on talking,
as I havedone all my life, to myself…
Most often I speak to the dead…
Especially to poets and writers. Only their
living words, and evenmore so their living silences,
which I read from their lipsovergrown
by grass, are in accord with their deeds.
I alsospeak to some of the living. But since the
war, during which many ofthose I knew,
also friends among poets, for a few years
besiegedand destroyed Sarajevo, I speak
to them very rarely. And more andmore frequently
not in the dying tongue of my mother,
but in thetongue of the dead poets that is
coming alive in these new poems ofmine.
ALL MY LIFE I AM SAYING
GOOD-BYE TO LIFE
All my life I am saying good-bye to life…
To everything beautifuland bad in it. To
parents and other relatives. Some dead,
somestill alive. To friends and enemies.
Also to those friends who have
in the meantime changed into enemies, just as
some of myenemies have changed into
friends. To victories and defeats, ofwhich
there were many, not only in youth, but in
the losingrace with time. I am saying good-bye
to all my loves. To the momentsof
greatest pleasure and greatest pain,
the pain which hasoften, to tell the truth,
brought me joy… All my life I am sayinggood-bye
to life… To you, too, my dear soul, just as
tomyself, I am saying good-bye all the time.
I watch you, caress youand kiss you, as if
every time were the last time.
WHEN YOU ARE NOT WITH ME IN TOMAI
When you are not with me in Tomai I chisel you day and night
in themiddle of the garden out of the crystal clear
air of Karst. . .From the memory of the eyes which have
looked at you, and of thehands which have caressed you
for a long time. From the memory of myheart which has heard
the beating of yours, beating with it inharmony.
From the memory of the soul, which has kept theindelible
traces of our laughter and weeping, sadness and joy. ..When
you are not with me in Tomai I chisel you day and night
inthe middle of the garden out of the crystal clear
air of Karst. . .In natural size and invisible
to all but me.
“In My Pocket I Still Keep The Key To My Former Home”
Hrabal: Considered one of the greatest twentieth century Czech writers,the poet and novelist Bohumil Hrabal, wrote Closely Watched Trains andDancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age. He died in 1997 from a fallfrom the fifth floor of a hospital in Prague.
“The Sun WarmsEveryone Everywhere Equally”
Aleksa:. Bosnian-Serb poet Aleksa Štansić, who lived during the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is known for the beauty andpatriotism of his poems and songs written in Serbian. “Remain here” isstill memorized by Bosnian schoolchildren.
“With A RustyBayonet From World War One”
Karst: Mountainous region of Slovenia known for the beauty of thelandscape where Osti has lived since moving from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
