EVA LUKA – translated by James and Viera Sutherland-Smith


EVA LUKA

Translated by James and Viera Sutherland-Smith

 

BLUE GAP

 

The last night with you, the wine almost
drunk up, its red breath
still damp. The Thai music
lies like an embryo in a dark womb
in this enchanted, craved for
room. Is it the scent that’s shackled me to you,
Blue Gap, mingled with the odour
of musty books? I touch you
for the last time, it’s like my mother in childhood
killing a rooster; he’s still beautiful
and yet already gone. The wine is improper,
like blood, it doesn’t belong. It shines, a pomegranate
full of pips, a derisive
ruby.

The indefinite pain, known as dailiness,
comes with the face of a licking dog, with the dog
howling. We sleep entangled in one another, but
from my breast a fantastical
red eye gazes at you,

unwavering it waits as if the coming morning
has not hurt it with some

useless lens from the sky.

 

BLUE GAP

 

Posledná noc s tebou, víno je takmer
dopité, jeho červený dych
ešte vlhký. Thajská hudba
leží ako embryo v temnom lone
v tejto prekliato vytúženej
izbe. Je to vôňa, čo si ma k tebe pripútala,
Blue Gap, spojená s pachom
zatuchnutých kníh? Dotýkam sa ťa
naposledy, je to ako keď mama v detstve
zabíjala kohúta: ešte je krásny
a už ho niet. Váno je nepatričné,
ako krv, nemalo by tu byť. Svieti, granátové
jablko plné jadier, výsmešný
rubín.

Neurčitá bolesť, známa ako každodennosť,
prichádza s oblízanou psou tvárou, psím
skučaním. Spíme zapletení do seba, ale
z mojej hrude na teba pozerá
čudesné červené oko,

uprene čaká, či ho bližiace sa ráno
neporaní nejakým

zbytočným sklíčkom neba.

 

 

NAKEDNESS

 

Nakedness like a white whip
snaps about the flat, winged horses
and knickers are inapt, there’s just
plain and simple
nakedness, a bare wall with a shadow.
Knees, white sugar cubes,
bait for felt-coated
dormice, erupting
from the dark. Bras and feathers
from peacock and peahen, the honey
of a paw. Unhurriedly and completely
poured papayas; furs
and dead grapes. Nakedness
clicks her teeth, threatens

with embryos and deliveries,
with over-ripeness

and emptiness

 

NAHOTA

 

Nahota ako biely bič
plieska bytom, okrídlené kone
a nohavičky sú nevhodné, je iba
prostá a jasná
nahota, holá stena s tieňom.
Kolená, belostné kocky cukru,
návnady pre plstnaté
plchy, vyrážajúce
z tmy. Podprsenky a pierka
páva a paviána, med
paže. Nenáhlivo a doplna
naliate papáje; kožušiny
a mŕtve hrozno. Nahota
cvaká zubami, vyhráža sa

plodmi a pôrodmi,
prezretím

a prázdnom.

 

 

THE OLD WOMEN

 

The old women wearing grey suits, sweaty
former nursemaids, bearers
of snakes and medusas, foster-mothers of bald
teddy bears in their
empty wombs. The old women
without wombs. The old women
who have forgotten:  they collect
only what is. Toadstools
and small change, rain worms.

Grey-haired; not our mothers,
not us. High heels
on varicose legs; a face – the posthumous
mask of Marilyn.

That’s not us. We still
regularly gaze into the face
of the bloody moon in the toilet
bowl. Youth, you howl
like a dog; you depart

on a very strange road.

 

STARÉ ŽENY

 

Staré ženy v sivých kostýmoch, upotené
bývalé varovkyne, nositeľky
hadov a medúz, pestovateľky vyplešivených
medvedíkov vo svojej
vyprázdnenej maternici. Staré ženy,
bez maternice. Staré ženy
čo zabudli: zbierajú
už iba, čo je. Muchotrávky
a mince, hlístočky.

Sivovlasé; nie naše matky,
nie my. Vysoké podpätky
na kŕčovitých nohách; tvár – posmrtná
maska Marilyn.

Nie sme to my. My ešte
pravidelne pozeráme do tváre
krvavému mesiacu v záchodovej
mise. Mladosť, skčíš
ako pes; odchádzaš

veľmi čudnou cestou.

 

 

Eva Luka was born in 1965 in Trnava in Slovakia. She studied English and Japanese at Comenius University in Bratislava and later Japanese language and literature in Japan gaining her doctorate there. She has published three collections of poetry and a children’s novel. She teaches at Trnava University.

Viera Smithová was born in Prešov, Slovakia and works as a teacher of English in a vocational secondary school for architects and construction engineers. With James Sutherland-Smith she has co-translated a number of Slovak poets including Mila Haugová, Ivan Laučík, Milan Rúfus, Ján Buzássy among other others.

James Sutherland-Smith was born in Scotland, but lives in Slovakia. He has published seven collections of his own poetry, the most recent being The River and the Black Cat, published by Shearsman Books in 2018. He also translates poetry from Slovak and Serbian for which he has received the Slovak Hviezdoslav Prize and the Serbian Zlatko Krasní Prize.