RISTOVIĆ, Ana
Ana Ristović, born in 1972 in Belgrade, studied comparative literature at the Faculty of Philology. Her poems have appeared in ali major Serbian literary magazines and newspa-pers (Reč, Književne novine, Povelja, Letopis Matice srpske, Poezija ...)¦ In Slovenia her work has been published by Literatura, Sodobnost, Dialogi and Apokalipsa. For her first collection of poetry, Dream-seeing Water, she received the Branko Radičevic Prize for the best first book of the year (1994), while in 1999 her book Entertainment for Idle Daughters was awarded the Branko Miljkovic Prize. Her poems have been translated into Slovene, German and English. Since 1998 she has divided her tirne betvveen Ljubljana and Belgrade, living, as she says, in "internal exile".
Ana Ristović, rodena 1972. u Beogradu, študirala je komparativnu književnost na Filo-loškom fakultetu. Pjesme je objavljivala u svim najznačajnijim srpskim časopisima i listovima (Reč, Književne novine, Povelja, Letopis Matice srpske, Poezija,...). U Sloveniji je objavljivala u Literaturi, Sodobnosti, Dialogima i Apokalipsi. Za prvu pjesničku zbirku, Snovidna voda, dobila je nagradu Branko Radičevic - za najbolji pjesnički prvenac, a za zbirku Zabava za dokone kčeri 1999. nagradu Branko Miljkovic. Njene pjesme su prevedene na engleski i njemački jezik. Od 1998. godine živi i radi na relaciji Ljubljana-Beograd, po vlastitim riječima u unutrašnjoj emigraciji.
Sodobnost 2001 I 324
ANA RISTOVIĆ
Beautiful Dead Seas
From day to day aH I give you are things that evaporate:
mist over asphalt, mist in pockets
and fields stripped bare by beastly words.
Instead of a ticket for two
I offer you passages through the eyes of needles.
From day to day, I pour in front of your feet
beautiful dead seas.
We live by counterfeiting
chronic freedom: the address is known.
Between the main prison and the old sugar works
where poets used to end up, and where now
other down-and-outs gather vanished delights.
But I think ali I need is one town:
the network of streets created by your veins.
Tent and refuge provided by your skin.
And that your hair is the Birnam forest
that will come towards me even
while I stand rooted, like a candle:
burning too strongly sometimes sticks me to the ground.
I deceive myself that water pouring
from mouth to mouth is enough,
even when it turns to ice.
In your land of the young with overmature minds
I am an immature girl who needs to be led by the hand.
In mine, where tirne had come to a standstill a long tirne ago,
I carry the soul of the old and the views of a wise bitch.
Sodobnost 2001 I 325
Ana   Ristović
You're telling me I have to get used to a new aggregate state: what evaporates in the boiling south you change here by hLndwork into water which you can seli for goods.
You bend over,
rest your heavy head in your hand: your sigh increases the distance between our two half-empty glasses; mine pushes them to the edge of our table.
"I buy immediately, but I pay with my body," I say and lick a droplet of sweat off your brow: it seemed to me to glow like the end of a cigarette.
"Too much comparison kills even a poem," I hear you say, seeing that your entire hair and cheeks are already aflame: only I don't know whether because of excitement or despair.
Leibnitz
Day and night, night and day
we're travelling to Slovenia:
in the little bus, the silence between us
growing like
a town cut off from the Earth and the Universe.
Stili enigmas, like two lazy flies, each curled up alongside her window -
She, a little old woman, Maruška maybe -
in her lap crumbles a cookie brand-named
"Leibnitz"
as if newly separating a monad from monad
and smiles, staring into the darkness
of the world which is stili
the best of aH worlds ...
Sodobnost 2001 I 326
Ana   Ristović
She who knows harmony -Maruška, Blažka, Mojca maybe.
In my lap, in a bad light,
on a bad road, I crumble poetry,
page by page, word by word and I hear:
Srečko Kosovel renounces happiness
because every beauty is part of pain.
In his verses
there is no excuse for God
and the monads He sends
never reach the Earth:
like a deceptive snow they evaporate
in the first layer of the sky.
In my lap, the book of the poet whose name has in advance renounced harmony with his heart and soul.
Day and night, night and day
we travel to Slovenia,
she and I, stili unknovra to each other ...
And the whole universe rocks
on our knees
as if wanting to separate from sleepy God
and find complicity
gently whispering into our ears:
"We're brothers, bom of the same father ..."
/
Sodobnost 2001 I 327
Ana   Ristović
Face to Face
Days for last testaments, days for confessions: the first poem
in which I said "F,
entering words as if sewing a button on my breast pocket
with my eyes closed.
On my left side, above my very heart.
I guard it by stitching with čare
because I read somewhere that
sincere poetry is tailored
when you convince your heart that you have left it.
When you have no more words
about love, trembling, punishment,
not even about things that gave your memory
a wide berth,
then the unspoken
expresses itself; and only then
do I become responsible for
what I am not,
and what I may yet become.
Each word descends slowly
like the point of the needle,
looking for the right distance from skin and heart.
For the measure of stili bearable sincerity.
For the skill of a tailor who does not hide his face behind
cloth. For the moral of the story whispered for centuries by old Hassidic men close to a warm wall:
About the Earth which is only God's thimble -
a way of protecting His hand
from pain
when the needle slips.
Sodobnost 2001 I 328
ANA RISTOVIČ Lepa mrtva mora
Iz dana u dan dajem ti samo isparljive stvari: maglu nad asfaltom, maglu u džepovima i polja koje su pojele strvine od reči. Umesto karte za put u dvoje nudim ti prolaze kroz iglene uši. Iz dana u dan, prosipam ti pred noge lepa mrtva mora.
Živimo od krivotvorenja hronične slobode: adresa je znana. Izmedju glavnog zatvora i stare šečerane gde nekad završavahu pesnici, a sad drugi klošari skupljaju iščezlu strast.
A mislim, dovoljan mi je samo jedan grad:
splet ulica koji čine tvoje vene.
Sator i zaklonište od kože.
I da je tvoja kosa, birnamska šuma
što če mi priči i onda
kada stojim ukopana, poput sveče:
prejako sagorevanje ponekad me prilepi za tle.
Varam samu sebe da je dovoljna voda
koja se presipa sa usta na usta,
čak i onda kad se pretvori u led.
U tvojoj zemlji mladih sa prezrelim umom sam nedorasla cura koju treba voditi za ruku. U mojoj, gde je vreme odavno več stalo nosim dušu starca i nazore mudre kuje.
Sodobnost 2001 I 329
Ana   Ristovič
Govoriš mi, da se moram naviči na novo agregatno stanje: ono što isparava na uzavrelom jugu ovde radom ruku pretvaraš u vodu koju možeš prodati za blago.
Saginješ se,
na dlan spuštaš otežalu glavu:
tvoj uzdah poveča daljinu
izmedju naše dve poluprazne čase;
moj ih potera do ruba zajedničkog stola.
"Kupujem odmah, ali plačem s telom," kažem i poližem ti kap znoja sa čela: učinilo mi se da svetli kao žar cigarete.
"Od previse poredjenja, bankrotira i pesma," čujem te i vidim, u plamenu su ti več cela kosa i lice: no ne znam, da li od ushičenosti ili od očajanja.
Lajbnic
Dan ni noč, noč i dan
putujemo ka Sloveniji:
u malom autobusu, medju nama
tišina raste
kao grad otcepljen od zemlje i sveta.
Još uvek neznanke, kao dve lenje muve, sklupčane svaka uz svoj prozor -
Ona, mala starica, Maruška možda -
u krilu drobi keks, marke
"Lajbnic"
kao da monadu od monade iznova deli
i smeši se, zureči u mrak
svetu što je još uvek
najbolji od svih...
Sodobnost 2001 I 330
Ana   Ristovič
Ona, što poznaje harmoniju -Maruška, Blažka, Mojca možda.
U svom krilu drobim poeziju pod slabim svetlom, na lošem drumu list po list, reč po reč i čujem: Srečko Kosovel odriče se sreče jer svaka lepota deo je bola.
Nad stihovima nema opravdanja za Boga i monade što ih šalje nikad ne stižu do zemlje: kao varljiv sneg ispare u prvom sloju neba.
U mom krilu, knjiga pesnika čije ime unapred se odreklo harmonije sa srcem i dušom. Dan i noč, noč i dan putujemo ka Sloveniji, ona i ja, još uvek neznanke ...
I čitav svemir ljulja nam se
na kolenima
kao da bi da se odvoji od usnulog Boga
i traži saučesništvo
šapučuči nam nežno, na uho:
"Brača smo, po ocu ..."
/
Sodobnost 2001 I 331