Blackbird ArchiveKo poči srce
Prehitevam v mraku, ker bi se rad ubil.
Obenem sem globoko hvaležen za vse svoje
življenje. Če se zaljubim, mi poči glava, žalostna
novost. Bedim. Vzamem apaurin. Kot
mlad si ga nisem upal. Hotel sem biti čist.
Tudi zdaj hočem biti čist. Ljubiti se je
lepo, ampak strašno. Poezija h kakršnemukoli
miru ne prispeva. Prispeva k eksplozijam in
bolečinam. To, kako mi žge in tre prsi, bi se lahko
zdelo smešno, če se ne bi začela tam groza in
tema. Ljubezen ubija, danes je svetel dan. Vse
je čisto. Sneg je divje kopnel vse te tri dni.
Spomnim se, kako sva se z Jašo zgražala, ko sva
zvedela: Tito je obiskal sestro. Sestra mu je
ponudila vino in Tito je rekel, pospravi to
kislico. Steklenico mu je odprl šofer. Vsi
šoferji so strašni. Vsi tisti, ki porivajo moje
pesmi v tuje jezike, tako kot jim rečem.
Brian Henry has published six collections of poetry, including Astronaut (Arc, 2000/Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002), Graft (Arc, 2002/New Issues, 2003), American Incident (Salt Publishing, 2002), Quarantine (Ahsahta Press, 2006), The Stripping Point (Counterpath Press, 2007) and In the Unlikely Event of a Water (Equipage, 2007). Henry won the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America for Quarantine . Other honors include the Poetry Society’s George Bogin Memorial Award, the 2006 Carol Weinstein Poetry Prize, and a Forward Prize nomination for Astronaut . He has co-edited Verse since 1995, and he also co-edited The Verse Book of Interviews (Verse Press, 2005). He currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Richmond in Virginia. Brian Henry’s translation of Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices has just been published by Harcourt