Žene

Žene

Žene su s Venere bića, što žive kod nas.

Pretražujemo ih prstima, želeći ih proučiti.

Čini se, da one znaju nešto bolje od nas,

nešto, što mi ne želimo dokučiti.

Kad ih prstima izbodemo,

mi tvrdimo, da ih znamo i odemo.

One ostaju i nikad im ne možemo sve otet.

To nas ljuti i mi kušamo opet.

Ali kroza sve dane one nam ostaju strane,

I – možda će se jednom natrag na Veneru popet.

© 1956, Ivan Slamnig

From: Aleja poslije svecanosti

Women

Women are creatures from Venus, except that we live together.

In order to become acquainted with them, we search them in and out.

There are some things they seem to know better,

some things that we don’t really care to think about.

After we had fingered them for no other reason than to make a test,

we run off claiming we had already got to know their best.

They stay. All efforts to take everything from them seem to be in vain.

That’s what really makes us cross, and so we try again.

Time passes but they are still alien and bizarre.

Maybe they’ll go back to that planet, very far.

© Translation: 2003, Sibila Petlevski