Stankas poems translated in English:
INTENT
I wake up early;
to look through the grate
into the dark morning.
Perhaps I will be able to bend the iron,
thread my body through the narrow opening,
fly.
Out there an obstacle awaits me,
that I cannot nor wish to evade:
a man composed of conviction and spite.
He stands there like a reaper
with a moribund amorous smile
on his face of a masked reprobate impenitent,
driven by yearning
which he cannot escape.
I come to dissuade them,
by myself, from myself;
those two inseparable,
compulsive friends.
VIGILS
Let everything be brief,
arrivals and departures,
parades, speeches, carnival charades…
Only let the prophets’ vigils last
next to your narrow little white bed
covered with a porous sheet
surrounded by tin bells,
which supposedly protect you from the onrush of silence,
excessive emptiness,
and where above the console table, your eyes,
pinned with tacks on the cork board,
like the one on which stands the punctured
picture of your dog,
in the neglected house of crumpled paper,
renounce what is dearest,
forever, unquestioningly.
LOVE
(For my mother)
I will think of you,
your face from a Renaissance canvas,
your melancholy eyes,
staring into the distance,
at the instant
of a skillful hand’s stroke
masterfully applying
warm oil with a small paint brush,
spreading blueness with its fingers,
the lace of your anxiety
pressing submissively, ecstatically
before the goddess,
… when I will be leaving.
Never were you more beautiful
and you are even more beautiful in the time
that is yet to come,
the time in which no one yet knows you,
the gentleness of your soul
trained through the wind,
harmed by nothing,
knowing how to resist even the terrible storm,
whilst my loyalty follows you from a distance.
AT DAWN
And the last guests have gone,
only the animal remains,
in the middle of the pavement,
growling and yelping,
and a sour grin
dribbles from its mouth.
Under my window,
it is a human, a minstrel
on whose account, I sacrifice my sleep
in a May dawning.
While I am still
awake in its thoughts
and calm as an owl,
it grows silent and becomes quieter
from the redness of the dawn
in our eyes.
WITHOUT BREATHING
I untie the tired snake line from the rock,
raise the anchor, I pull away.
I sail all alone.
Nowhere a despot or slave.
Machines breathe for me
when I forget to.
The outside world, immersed in itself,
can no longer summon me,
hidden in its split shell.
One day lost, another gifted,
but only one.
I depart from no one;
I arrive from nowhere:
I will see myself off,
greet myself,
launch into the sea.
In the quivering, red-hot boat
coated in a mantle plume
and broken pine needles,
I shall discover my calming poison;
picking my own wound
healing it, without breathing.
HARMLESSNESS
All IS HARMLESS,
SURRENDERED TO
REPRESSIVE TRANQUILITY.
PERHAPS BECAUSE
OF THE INNOCUOUSNESS,
GOOD INTENTIONS,
POINTLESS HOPING.
RESIGNED PRACTICALLY TO DEATH,
FLEETING AND FIERCE
LIKE A PINCH OF HOT WHISKEY
POURED DOWN THE THROAT
BY THE FORCE
OF HEEDFULLY FORETOLD CONFLICTS.
THE COVER OF EXPERIENCES
OF LONG AGO IS ABOVE US,
AND IT’S HERE TO PROTECT US,
FROM THE PRESENT SUPPOSEDLY.
A LEAP FORWARD
I LEAPED ABOVE THE DAY
LIKE OVER A BARBED WIRE FENCE.
FEARING INJURY,
HAPPY THAT I WILL FIND MYSELF
ON THE SIDE WHERE,
I REFLECT,
THERE’S ROOM FOR YET ANOTHER EXHAUSTING DASH
IN SPITE OF THE CLEAR MENACE
OF THE NEXT BARRIER:
PERHAPS THE BUSHES
WITH THEIR DAUNTING THORNS
OF FAIRY-TALES,
OR THE UNBROKEN LINES
OUTSTRETCHED PARALLEL WITH THE SKY GUIDING GENTLY
TO THE GRACEFULLY LONELY,
FLEETING SUNSET.
WITHOUT FORGIVENESS
LIKE A RUNAWAY INMATE A CAMP,
A MAD HOUSE, A PRISON,
I GRASP FOR THE BURDEN
OF MY HUNGER AND FEARS;
ABANDONING MY VOW OF CAUTION,
LEANING TOWARDS
THE PROMISES OF THE HEART,
SMACKING THE DELIBERATIONS,
THE TENACIOUSNES OF VALUES,
HORRORS, LOYALTY.
FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE OPENINGS BETWEEN THE BARS
NOT A SINGLE MORSEL IS SO LARGE
THAT IT COULD BE REPLACED,
OVERCOME,
CRUSHED WITH SHAMELESS SUPPRESSION FROM WITHIN.
FOR ME THERE IS NO EQUINOX
OF FORGIVENESS.
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