The word HERE,The heaviest word,It weighs moreThan a grammarAnd vocabularyFull of elephants.Here is a place,An over-saturatedCrossroadsOf dead ends.The word HEREPutsThe word JUNGLE in it.In it, the word ELEPHANT,Which breaks into it.The word is nearlyEmpty.Only a holeInside a holeInsideEmptiness.A mouth without lips,Without a throat,Swallowing a word.The word HERE,A word whereOnce upon a timeThe word ELEPHANTStretched out its trunk.Even though the holeDoes not markThe place of disappearance.There was something.There isn’t something anymore.Some once upon a time,The lightness withWhich it breaks intoA mouth that rattlesOne more time,But it isn’t dying,You think,And this thoughtBreaks intoThe questionAbout the disappearance of death.And the question breaksInto the objection NO,No into the argumentAbout the arrival of death,Which has noHere of its own;It arrives withIts own unplaces.Enter,You absent guest,Leave,You unreadable trace,StillIn search ofA worldFor a place,Which it carriesWith itself.
The word here
Feature Date
- October 1, 2020
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Copyright © 2020 by Aleš Šteger
Translation © 2020 by Brian Henry
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Aleš Šteger has published eight books of poetry, three novels, and two books of essays in Slovenian. Five of his books have been published in English: The Book of Things, which won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award; Berlin; Essential Baggage; the novel Absolution; and Above the Sky Beneath the Earth.
Find more information here: http://alessteger.com/
Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns, 2020). He has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices, Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers, and Aleš Šteger’s Above the Sky Beneath the Earth and The Book of Things, which won the Best Translated Book Award. His work has received numerous honors, including two NEA fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and a Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences grant.
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