PAVOL JANIK

PAVOL JANIK

Into The Blue

From morning we tirelessly squander ourselves into the blue,

which falls short of the border between water and sky.

Into the blue in which the swimming routes of fish cross

with the flight lines of birds.

Into the blue in which the slow movement of ships

cross the glittering fuselages of aeroplanes.

Into the blue

which though the power of its will

casts us back on to a sandy beach

together with other things over and above,

together with the dead bodies of fish, crabs and medusas,

together with fragments of seaweed,

tiny pebbles,

tops of Coca-Cola bottles,

together with scraps of paper

closed in bottles of sweet drinks.

We always read from the beginning

and on each side

these letters without lettering

completely whitened by the life-giving sun,

which knows very well whom to give a chance to and whom to not.

We read letters without lettering

and understand them frozenly.

We read letters without lettering

wept over by foaming waves

from which life comes,

sound, color and the divine.

The descendants of goddesses today dwell

in the endless rivieras of the whole world.

they declare nakedness

and godlike motor boats, cars, beaches, apartments,

music, films

and above all godlike men.

At an ice-cream kiosk

I fell head over heels with one for the hundredth time.

It’s of no account

but it was her

with whom I shared a few experiences, memories,

children.

I fell in love with her completely

without reservation.

From the ice-cream stands

naked poster girls smiled at us

and the portrait of a statesman

wearing a admiral’s white uniform

in the blue background,

which could represent water as well as sky

and in which could move

atomic submarines as well as jet planes

and neon fish as well as rainbow birds.

Molto Adagio

The old move in.

Slowly and clumsily,

not of their own volition

and without somebody else’s help.

Tiresomely they move their old-fashioned furniture,

their antediluvian opinions

and dogged pains in their joints.

With shaking limbs

they look in vain for switches

on the unfamiliar walls

of their new living space.

They can’t manage to switch on the light

in a twilight of loneliness and unknowing.

Pointlessly they utter all the words,

which they now remember with difficulty.

Their own words

no longer mean anything to them.

They don’t understand them.

They’ve forgotten what they were for.

They remind them of nothing.

For them. For honoured and precious persons,

to whom respect and gratitude are due.

The old move in.

Tediously and maladroitly,

unintentionally

and completely alone.

Sluggishly they move their old-fashioned furniture,

out-of-date opinions

and importunate pains in their joints.

Persistently and unpleasantly

they touch us

with their trembling extremities.

Dejectedly they catch us by the throat.

The old move in

on us.

Little by little and inexpertly,

willy-nilly

and under their own steam.

Strenuously we move our obsolete furniture,

used-up opinions

and painful joints.

And other things

which have already served their purpose.

Inconspicuously and unavoidably

we become honoured and precious persons

to whom respect and gratitude are due.

Tenaciously and depressingly

we continue in the persistence of our actions,

fluently sliding into the punch lines of stories

of course like the hands of a clock.

With our head we direct

all the way down

ready to strike the precise time.

And above us

a blue sky

yawns incomprehensibly

into which the wind flings the glittering mirrors of memory.

Pedestrian With

Absolute Right Of Way

Live life

without a car.

Be slower than a trolley bus.

Be tired.

Be late.

Be unable to get out of the city.

Be unable to arrive at yourself.

Be a pedestrian.

Entire and without impediments.

To subvert the rules

regardless of anything.

PAVOL JANIK

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). Member of the Board of the International Writers Association (IWA BOGDANI) (from 2019). 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 People's Republic of China, 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.