I Am Crying You,
Morning
Behind
the horizon the light is spraying.
The
sky tremble’s like a tear.
The
winged summer wilts.
Through
the algae’s a lonesome dew slides.
Trees
hold empty nests in their hands.
I
quietly sing birds psalms.
In
the empty night, empty star is falling.
Empty
gaze of water is still cloudy.
I
read an exclamation of silence
and
drink the morning blood stream aloud.
The
morning is taking deep breaths.
With
its soft palms of the hands,
the
haze crumbles poems.
Heart’s
beating is not quieter.
Unbelievable
sobs, like as if it was dead.
Translated into English by Smiljana Piksiades
PLAČEM ŤA, RÁNO
Spoza
horizontu strieka svetlo.
Obloha
sa chveje ako slza.
Okrídlené
leto smutne zvädlo.
Po
riasach sa rosa clivo skĺza.
Stromy
držia v rukách prázdne hniezda.
Potichu
si spievam vtáčie žalmy.
V
prázdnej noci spadla prázdna hviezda.
Prázdny
pohľad vody zostal kalný.
Takto
čítam výkričníky ticha.
Nahlas
pijem príval rannej krvi.
Ráno
náhle prudko dýcha.
Opar
básne mäkkou dlaňou mrví.
Výbuch
srdca ešte neutícha.
Neskutočne
vzlyká ako mŕtvy.
Summer
The
sun smashes our windows.
An
urgent song reaches us from the street.
On
the cellophane sky
steam
condenses.
Unconfirmed
reports are reproduced
about
the wind.
The
trees are the first to begin to talk
about
the two of us.
Translated into English by James Sutherland-Smith
LETO
Slnko
nám porozbíjalo okná.
Z
ulice dolieha naliehavý spev.
Na
celofánovej oblohe
sa
zráža para.
Množia
sa nezaručené správy o vetre.
Stromy
si prvé začínajú povrávať
o
nás dvoch.
Touch
Landscape
of a country of miracles.
Beds
of the bankless rivers of salty water.
Under
them flows a boiling metal.
A
female trunk is smouldering in my arms.
Translated into English by Smiljana Piksiades
HMAT
Pôdorys
krajiny zázrakov.
Bezbrehé
korytá slaných riek.
Pod
nimi preteká vriaci kov.
V
rukách mi dotlieva ženský driek.
Drizzle
It
dawns in your eyes
just
like at the fish farm.
You
kiss is cold
on
my absent face.
You
look at me
through
the morning windows just before waking.
Nevertheless
I
will go unnoticed
around
your sadness.
Translated into English by Smiljana Piksiades
MRHOLÍ
V
tvojich očiach svitá
meravo
ako v rybníku.
Studeno
ma bozkáš
na
neprítomnú tvár.
Prezeráš
si ma
rannými
oknami tesne pred prebudením.
Aj
tak
prejdem
bez povšimnutia
okolo
tvojho smútku.
It Is Snowing
Ice
angels are falling from the sky.
In
their mouths are snowy fountains.
The
imagined curves of snowdrifts are mature.
I'm
just watching, hands are not moving.
The
cold breath of the frozen flute
is
waking me up.
Translated into English by Smiljana Piksiades
SNEŽÍ
Z
oblohy padajú ľadoví anjeli.
V
ústach im pramenia fontány snehu.
Zmyselné
obliny závejov dozreli.
Ja
sa len pozerám, rukami nehnúc.
Tak
ma prebúdza
chladný
dych premrznutej flauty.
Pavol Janik
Pavol Janik virtuoso of slovak
literature Slovakia Mgr. art. Pavol Janik, PhD., (magister artis et
philosophiae doctor) was born in 1956 in Bratislava, where he also studied film
and television dramaturgy and scriptwriting at the Drama Faculty of the Academy
of Performing Arts (VSMU). He has worked at the Ministry of Culture
(1983–1987), in the media and in advertising. President of the Slovak Writers’
Society (2003–2007), Secretary-General of the Slovak Writers’ Society
(1998–2003, 2007–2013), Editor-in-Chief of the Slovak literary weekly Literarny
tyzdennik (2010–2013). Honorary Member of the Union of Czech Writers (from
2000), Member of the Editorial Board of the weekly of the UCW Obrys-Kmen
(2004–2014), Member of the Editorial Board of the weekly of the UCW Literatura
– Umeni – Kultura (from 2014). Member of the Writers Club International (from
2004). Member of the Poetas del Mundo (from 2015). Member of the World Poets
Society (from 2016). Director of the Writers Capital International Foundation
for Slovakia and the Czech Republic (2016–2017). Chief Representative of the
World Nation Writers’ Union in Slovakia (from 2016). Ambassador of the
Worldwide Peace Organization (Organizacion Para la Paz Mundial) in Slovakia
(from 2018). He has received a number of awards for his literary and
advertising work both in his own country and abroad. This virtuoso of Slovak literature, Pavol
Janik, is a poet, dramatist, prose writer, translator, publicist and
copywriter. His literary activities focus mainly on poetry. Even his first book
of poems Unconfirmed Reports (1981) attracted the attention of the leading
authorities in Slovak literary circles. He presented himself as a plain-spoken
poet with a spontaneous manner of poetic expression and an inclination for
irony directed not only at others, but also at himself. This style has become
typical of all his work, which in spite of its critical character has also
acquired a humorous, even bizarre dimension. His manner of expression is
becoming terse to the point of being aphoristic. It is thus perfectly natural
that Pavol Janik's literary interests should come to embrace aphorisms founded
on a shift of meaning in the form of puns. In his work he is gradually raising
some very disturbing questions and pointing to serious problems concerning the
further development of humankind, while all the time widening his range of
themes and styles. Literary experts liken Janik's poetic virtuosity to that in
the work of Miroslav Valek, while in the opinion of the Russian poet,
translator and literary critic, Natalia Shvedova, Valek is more profound and
Janik more inventive. He has translated in poetic form several collections of
poetry and written works of drama with elements of the style of the Theatre of
the Absurd. Pavol Janik’s literary works have been published not only in
Slovakia, but also in Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France,
Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Mexico,
Moldova, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Romania, the
Russian Federation, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, United
Kingdom, the United States of America and Venezuela.