Sanja Pregl is participating in the International Literary Creation Competition, 7th Edition, from Ljubljana, Slovenia and is 55 years old. We thank her for her participation and wish her success.

Dancing with Goddesses in the Land of the Gods

1 (2)
The landscape’s ostensible stillness is harmonious with my presence.
All is eternal, motionless, complete.
There is no beginning, no end. There is everything, and there is nothing. 

It is an image that the inattentive observer glances, only to erase from memory,
convinced of its nonexistence. 

Below the apparentness of oblivion, everything is bursting with bustle.

…

A white expanse.  
A thriving silence.

Thoughts gather beneath the surface.
Heat unites droplets and enhances the pain.
A blue eye enters the whiteness.
Beauty cuts into the heart.

A bang resonates.
The droplets disperse.
The ostensible stillness returns.

Changed I walk in the Land of the Gods.


 13 (52)
Frigga  saw my tears before I knew of them,
before I had even shed them. 
She whispered no warning, and I dove into your embrace. 
The Queen of the Gods came to me when I cried. 

You could have saved me from tears, I complained. 
I never reveal my visions to anyone, explained Odin’s wife calmly.
Why then do you observe the future, I inquired. 
Us goddesses, we cry with you, she replied. 

…

You saw the uniqueness of our unity,
which you placed on a pedestal of exclusivity,
only in the inimitability
of our human impermanence.

You wanted to clone the unique relationship, which we had supposedly built,
from the relationships of others.
Other men and their women.
A father, an uncle. A brother. A friend. An acquaintance. A god.

I did not fit into such a relationship,
and I did not follow your idea.
You brought me before a tribunal of like-minded people,
who would instil in me a guilt that would clip my wings.

You turned the pain of knowing that innocence did not exist into accusations.
You placed your beliefs into the mouths of gods.
Did the gods invent our story?
Were we even given the chance to flourish in parallel?

I should have been the fertiliser of your blossoming, and not the flower,
which robbed you of the admiration intended for you.
My colourfulness should not have competed
with the blooming of your colours.

You summoned everyone to come to your defence, to prove the only right way to coexist.
Odin , Tyr  and Thor  were not enough.
You opened the door for Zeus to use his disguises and tricks,
as he had mastered them fully to conquer the unconquerable.
Neither images nor words seduced me.
The wrath of the gods began to merge with yours.


 60 (61)
Each morning that I woke up next to you,
I was waking up to the horror of Sif 
on the day Loki  cut her hair.
Thor found her ugly hairless,
so he ordered new hair to be made.

When she no longer lived up to his expectations,
the world fell apart for both of them.

While the gnomes were forging her hair,
Sif, with the help of the tears she cried, paved her way out of the dungeon of limitation, where Thor, burdened by the weight of his views on ugliness, had locked her in.
She had barely emerged from the darkness glowing,
when they fitted her with new golden hair. 

Thor found her more beautiful than ever.
He instantly forgot what she looked like hairless.
The forged golden hair took on her light
and caged Sif once again.

… 

Even a divine bed is no safe haven,
let alone the one I shared with you.