apie
praeinantį
nelaimingumą
——————————————————————————————–
on
passing
unhappiness
I never listen to old people’s advice
I insist on learning from experience
no matter how unsavory
eg: there was the mathematics professor’s widow, who
spent her entire life caring for him, raising his children,
as for me? what did I care? do I care? (or really still do care?)
I loved passionately, but at the same time,
I didn’t really believe, to be honest, that it was love,
she herself did not take care of me, it was more like
a motherly love: “how? how could you!
do it with that old man?”
It’s been a year already since I’ve seen him,
who needs that kind of a past?
I am alive and well and unhappy,
but the mishap is so distant that
if I were to give anything away—
it wouldn’t be my life, but my death,
which, after all, being alive, I won’t be needing for some while.
*
*
*
svajonė
apie
tyrą bernužį
————————————————————————————
a fantasy
about
an innocent youth
Yet I feel
how little by little my life
slips away with each
entry endlessly gentle, there weren’t
many, but with each one
I took a little longer, and later
I began to dream
about an innocent youth
(how else can I put it—
like the kind out of folk songs)
after all, I had met one of those, he
kissed like a fish (from dry land or paradise).
When he opened his mouth—from some murky depths
philosophical bubbles
rose to the surface,
truly he was pure,
cowardly,
an annoyance.
*
*
*
ant palangės virtuvėje…
—————————————————————————————————-
on the kitchen windowsill
a sad geranium blooms
your good wife—the wedding
album—now she is with her beloved—
now I am important to you
the memories do not comfort
I dream of an enlightened friendship
restlessness fitfully grows into hatred
not because you are famous, but because I love you,
only I hear you saying:
“So I, so I, love you.” And her:
“He cannot live without love. His every
Love is true and the one and Only.”
*
*
*
eilėraštis
Netgi su moralu
———————————————————————————————————
a poem
that even has a moral
at first he even came up with a nickname for me
it had four letters—he called me: NABĖ!
oh, and before each time
he’d say: hello, my dear…
Hello! He was a gentleman
with a respectable belly. And his respectability began
to get on my nerves. Because I wanted love,
and a home, and everything! Only he
was already married (for the fourth time already, so
how was he going to marry a fifth time, especially
when it was okay with his fourth wife
to bring home a Lover)
In the long run it wore me down,
and my name became my own again…
I no longer felt it the last time—At all…
All in all: He was enamored with me, however,
I was not meant—for him
*
*
*
miss Poezija
——————————————————————————————————–
miss Poetry
(the soul) an endlessly exalted mournful
faced whore, a woman who’d like to be taken
for a girl, at first glance pretty,
pretentious! All she need do is open
her mouth and you feel the pleasure
of what you’d say were her lips, not
her lipstick, or even her real lips,
but the soul soul…Soul! That matters.
*
*
*
poetiui
saulėtam drugeliui
(nejau išsigando?)
——————————————————————————————————-
for the poet,
that sunny butterfly
(don’t tell me you’re scared?)
He dreamed of composing a poem for my Name
but another cute girl got in the way.
I desired to Honor that poet friend
But quite accidentally he squat on a fragrant flower.
So then, it’s not even tragic—I’ll keep the butterfly
and fold it between the pages of the poet’s collection.
What a shame or perhaps it’s not a shame that I am not a flower:
And the butterflies are like the blooms I will never scent.
Or maybe I won’t scent—this gallant moth
incessantly knocked at my night light and fell to the table
begging for my love and my honor, oh what hopelessness,
and that is how this poem about my dear golden friend was born.
*
*
*
vakare,
nežinia ką veikiant
——————————————————————————————————
in the evening,
doing who knows what
as the winds were blowing sugar,
the bar white with cigarette smoke,
off the bay, humble,
kind, then elated
let’s go somewhere, where?
look, at the sky beyond the city
you blow in my ear—I blow back
words untouched
*
Baseinas
————————————————————————————————————
The Swimming Pool
You must swim so long that when you close your eyes
just before sleep you see the aqua bottom of the pool that together with the water,
clear like rubbing alcohol, soothes your soul. However, these heavens
have no (?) depth. And as for the soul—it is only a yellowish radiance—
something that can easily be still in the stillness of water.
The swimming pool tops any drug—a phone wakes me and my friend asks—
What did you do last night?—I dropped off with Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen.
When the phone call had startled me awake, I realized that my fourth finger was numb—
I had used it as a bookmark. When I climb out of bed
I notice that one of my legs is dragging behind me like a lifeless bone.
Sometimes it’s a good thing to be woken by a phone call—it gives you something
to write about. That person… “After swimming I had wanted to die, badly…”
And this kind of writing is yet another form of swimming, floundering, with a mouth full
of golden bubbles that you blow out through a straw that luckily comes your way.
You calm down. Memories chirr like zuckli in your head. I’ll drink some coffee now.
I toss in a few saccharin-free spoonfuls.
Are you my bitch?—he’d ask when he was aroused.—I was as stupid
as a hen, a clucking foolish hen!—Now I’d tell him. If you were older,
ooooh! if you were a mature woman, how you’d brag
that I didn’t need anyone else but you…
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!
Enough.
After that I want to swim even longer—otherwise I’d drown
in my own apathy. If you went out feeling this way you’d only
end up spending far too much money… Friends?
Friends aren’t meant for this! Anyway, I’ve decided to get my life on track
or at least organized.
The swimming pool is my desire.
True, I don’t know how to swim. I can only float along the very
edge like a half-dead fish.
Athletic men dive over me and each time it looks as if
They’ll hit their heads against the bottom.
Like a seal I roll my massive body out of the water
onto dry land. Shivering, I run to the sauna—I’ll seat myself
beside the feverish stones. We understand each other.
It’s as though I were one of them. That’s why I go to the pool
Alone, so that I could meet with them. I like their hard
sweltering hearts.
Sulfurous boulders…
Their bodies are untouchable. They don’t try to comfort me.
Because of them you can’t see who is sitting next to you,
drawing in the stones’ hissing rage.
You need to swim for a long time so that you’d see it longer still—
the Aqua,
the Aqua freedom that overflows the edges of the pool
and fills up your own emptiness…
By the way, you can’t pee in the pool. The chlorinated water
would react with your urine, turning it the pale red color of shame.
Maybe the swimming pool could open—a wound?
Translated by Laima Sruoginis
—————————————–
Source: http://www.Booksfromlithuania.com
Neringa Abrutytė (b. 1972 in Neringa) is a poet. She studied Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius University. She made her debut in 1995 with Autumn of Paradise (Rojaus ruduo), a collection of poetry. She later published two books of poems: Confession (Iš pažintis) (1997) and By Neringa M. (Neringos M.) (2003). In creating her “non-poetry” – syntactically abridging sentences, transforming affirmatives into questions, shortening words – Abrutytė consciously frustrates the literary tradition. The predominant genre of her work is, in the author’s words, “unlyrical” love poetry.
Neringa Abrutyté 