5 Gestrinova Street

Before we finally moved into
our new home, the Red House, and fixed
a red letter box with jaws big enough
for the size of foreign magazines, and before              
our neighbour bid us welcome by giving the box
a good whack on its mouth,
we had both seen ten months
slip unnoticed through our fingers,
and an extra two
also wasted in trying to improve the rating
of the bland local intellectual atmosphere;
despite the fact that we believe only in vistas
of independent breakthrough, we watched
years and decades merge into a weaving
of a thick monochrome Caspian rug
we are still thinking of buying
for our sitting room; and we talked about how
every one of their highly praised
solitudes is quantifiable in always the same depleted words,
gestures even, one of which hit
our poor letter box; and
how, as the ethics sing out
their high C, all of them lose ground to stand on and
stammer unintelligible litanies out of manuals and
old Austro-Hungarian or Yugoslav books of manners,
or they conveniently grab hold of the one remaining strategy
before leaping into the gullet of language –
irony and formalism; and
we knew, even before moving into the Red House,
that the ever-readiness for conflict
comes from below: from the ground floor or the cellar,
from where the body and voice split apart, much like                
on our new spiral staircase, where you can
hear the echo to the topmost floors,
yet never see the physical presence
of the person calling.

Gestrinova 5

Gestrinova 5

Preden sva se dokončno preselila v
novi dom, v Rdečo hišo, in montirala
rdeči nabiralnik, ki ima dovolj velike čeljusti za
format tujih periodik, in preden nama je sosed
izrazil dobrodošlico s tem, da je nabiralnik
krepko sunil na gobec,
sva vsak zase opazovala, kako se nama
deset mesecev neopazno lušči med prsti
in dva za rezervo, ki sva ju
tudi zapravila za izboljšanje ratinga
omledne lokalne intelektualne atmosfere,
kljub temu, da verjameva le v pokrajine
samostojnega preboja, sva opazovala,
kako se leta in desetletja spojijo v tkanje
goste, enobarvne buhare, ki jo
bova morda kupila za
dnevno sobo,  in sva se pogovarjala, kako je
vsaka od njihovih opevanih
samot merljiva z istimi odtrajanimi pomeni besed,
celo z istimi gestami in ena od njih je doletela
najin ubogi nabiralnik, in
kako jim, ko etika zapoje svoj
visoki C, vsem po vrsti zmanjka tal pod nogami in
jecljajo nerazumljive litanije iz priročnikov in
starih avstro–ogrskih ali jugoslovanskih bontonov
ali se oprimejo zadnjih udobnih strategij
pred skokom v goltanec jezika,
ironije in formalizma, in
preden sva se zares preselila v Rdečo hišo,
sva vedela, da večna razpoložljivost konflikta
prihaja od spodaj; iz pritličja ali kleti,
od tam, kjer se telo in glas razhajata, kot
v našem novem krožnem stopnišču, kjer
je odmev glasu slišati do vrhnjih nadstropij,
četudi nikdar ne uzreš fizične prisotnosti
naslavljalca.