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Sloveneback ALEŠ ŠTEGER
translation from Slovene by Brian Henry
Human
1
I heard a human
Praying with a word.
I saw how
A human killed a human
With a word.
2
Human is a hunt.
Human is a voice.
Human is a mensch.
Human is two.
Human is a human who doesn’t know how to know
What it all could be,
What could all become
Human.
3
The human
Goes to hell
And back.
Chasms, monsters, trials.
The place where their trace is lost
Lends them a name.
4
Human č.
That’s what they called them.
Better that than human number.
Human č is satisfied č.
5
Human rarely flies,
Human more often hunts
Flying people.
If a human isn’t free,
If they don’t know what the sky is,
They are easily trapped
In the promise of freedom.
6
Human is a shadow
Thrown by a letter.
The letter goes everywhere.
The shadow doesn’t leave
The cave.
7
A human fearfully protects
Their mysterious self self SELF.
A happy, too happy human.
The self is a closed stone eye.
If a human’s eye opened,
They would fall through it among the stars.
8
A human is a builder of illusions.
In no time in
No name no they are not
A human is at home nowhere,
Least of all in the human.
9
Characteristics of the human’s gods:
Ridicule
Self-destruction
Forgiveness
Inadequacy of their miracles.
10
Milk turns to ash.
History to oblivion.
A deer eats a weed
In the garden
Of the dead mother
Of another human.
11
Death is odd,
The days even,
When a human opens their arms
Ready to embrace one world.
12
A human is not.
A human is.
How much clever nonsense
To make a human think not think
They did not live
Onward onward.
13
There is a crack
In everything (even in this quotation).
The human hopes
To slip through it one day,
Leave the human.
14
The human kisses the sky,
Blesses the water,
Goes through the air through the earth.
There is no end no peace no human
For the human.
15
Can a human be r?
A human cannot be a wound.
But r?
A black crow carries r
Into the black sky.
What about the human?
Revolution. Rut. Republic.
16
The world begins at w.
Something is whelped, it writhes,
Becomes wrathful and wily.
The human loves something.
The human cannot manage without something.
17
I bear the unspeakable.
I’m human.
But why?
But for what?
18
My comrade on the cross,
How I would love
To free you of thoughts of limbs,
Turn you into a pool,
Into the milky carousel
Of the perfect human.
19
War alphabets formed them.
They are a lover of perfect systems,
The opportunist human of ours.
How vapid
How safe
How slight
How sad it is
To love the unattainable
On special cards,
In mocking words.
20
At last, I saw you,
Despite everything,
Hugged and kissed you, my human,
Even accepted you (not without resistance).
After all, I am no more than a human myself.
If I didn’t accept you, I’d still be human,
So now I’m a human who isn’t human,
Because only when abandoned am I truly human.
21
Between masculine and feminine
There is no difference, only rest and pain,
Inhale, exhale,
Sigh again etc. etc. etc.
Until finally,
In time excluded from time,
A blind hope is born,
Human.
22
The only thing
That a human
Nowhere never
No no, they don’t understand,
The only thing is not
The end the beginning
The beginning the end of the human. 
Contributor’s notes: Aleš Šteger
Contributor’s notes: Brian Henry