Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
THE BRIDE WINS BOTH TIMES
GRISCHA’S FEZ
HONEY AND HOLOFERNES
TRANS-SIBERIA
SAN PIETRO A CASCIA WITH MASACCIO
DIRAN ADEBAYO
WE BUILD A BARN AND READ READER’S DIGEST
STRANGLING IN DREAMS
ALL THE INSTRUMENTS HAVE COLLAPSED
WAITING ON ŠARANOVIČ STREET
SO WE DON’T LOSE OUR VIRGINITY
WHERE IS THE LITTLE WALL FROM
STRANGE DREAMS
AT BARONESS BEATRICE MONTI DELLA CORTE VON REZZORI’S
“I DON’T LIKE PROUST, HE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH SEX,” DIRAN SAYS
PHARAOHS AND KINGS, KASSEL, PARIS
TAVERNA
BREAKFAST WITH MY HOSTESS IN ALDEBOROUGH
SKATERS
PRADA, MONTEVARCHI, BEFORE CÉZANNE
THAT’S HOW MANY MIGHTY HEAVEN WILL ENDURE
TITLE STILL PENDING
DONNINI
FLORENZA
PERSIA
UNTIL PESSOA NOTHING
SCRUBBED SLAB, DARK SCREEN
A WORD TO THE HUNTERS
THE TIP GROWS ON BEFORE THE STEP
LA TORRE, CELAN
THE SIRENS
IVO ŠTANDEKER
AN HOUR
SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ ROLLED IN THE SNOW
RITES AND THE MEMBRANE
SANTA RITA
SOUNDS NEAR PISTOLETTO
THE GENTLEMAN IS A BIT INCLINED TO DISORDER
MARAIS
LINDOS
WHITE HASH, BLACK WEED
THE SLAVE
LIME TREE
FLIGHT
PTUJ
SUGAR
ATHOS
LETTER FROM KEVIN HOLDEN
THE FLIGHT INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT
THE SOUL MURDERS THE TILE
BROTHER
PLEASURE
THE BLISTER
REMINDING MANKIND OF YOURSELF WITH A WHIP
CHIUNQUE GIUNGE LE MANI
Copyright © 2007 by Tomaž Šalamun
Translation copyright © 2011 by Michael Biggins and Tomaž Šalamun
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.hmhbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Šalamun, Tomaž.
[Poems. English. Selections]
The blue tower / Šalamun, Tomaž ; translated from the Slovenian by Michael Biggins with the author.
p. cm.
isbn 978-0-547-36476-6
1. Šalamun, Tomaž—Translations into English. I. Biggins, Michael. II. Title.
PG1919.29.A5A2 2011
891.8'415—dc22 2010049770
Book design by Melissa Lotfy
Printed in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Blue Tower was published in Slovenia as Sinji stolp (Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2007).
The following poems previously appeared elsewhere: ABZ: At Baroness Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori’s. Almost Island: Marais; Pharaohs and Kings, Kassel, Paris; Grischa’s Fez; So We Don’t Lose Our Virginity; Sounds Near Pistoletto; Diran Adebayo. Bateau: Donnini; Title Still Pending; Florenza; Persia; Until Pessoa Nothing. Descant: Marais; White Hash, Black Weed; Grischa’s Fez. Harvard Review: Where Is the Little Wall From. Heat (Australia): The Slave; Pleasure; Reminding Mankind of Yourself with a Whip; So We Don’t Lose Our Virginity. New American Review: La Torre, Celan; The Sirens; San Juan de la Cruz Rolled in the Snow. Nimrod: Ptuj; Taverna. North American Review: That’s How Many Mighty Heaven Will Endure. PEN America: We Build a Barn and Read Reader’s Digest. Ploughshares: Honey and Holofernes; Trans-Siberia; San Pietro a Cascia with Masaccio.
With thanks to Baroness Beatrice Monti della Corte von Rezzori and the Santa Maddalena Foundation, where this book was written
THE BRIDE WINS BOTH TIMES
To provoke the pasture’s ladder, to wash out the cat’s message,
What you hear through the walls is panic coming here.
In Morocco he whipped slaves. First I open the chest.
The ribs turn gray. I hold tight to the shovels, birds rip them from
my hands. I saw nomads, women on horseback. The dog days will come dressed in a
T-shirt. I’ll show your hand, my hand is your hand.
Who drinks foliage through the silver of trees? A carriage couldn’t
race by here, the brambles would wreck it. A believer
climbs the fence, look at that big little trumpet flaring its
nostrils. Debar clings to terraces, the house is full
of snails. Snow is beautiful. The moon calms his lips.
You flash him signals for cricket, eat chickens at midnight.
Isn’t the wood for bramblebees rowing the river?
They think nothing of closing the eyebrows of someone like you.
GRISCHA’S FEZ
To chop up cotton and read through a cookbook.
To be running behind and hang from your lower jaw.
I’m free to drink bottoms up. Ganymede
gets stuck in a summerhouse. And oh how flowers grew by the
pathways. Do you see how I lopped off their heads?
Do you see how I step on his scalp as an officer?
They poured streams of hot water on me to harden my
mustache. They peeled the enamel off Cassandra’s tooth.
By god, she marches over purple plums. She salutes and
keeps marching on the purple plums. A washed pot, if
you shine a deer in it, vomits craquelures back in your
mouth and eyes. King of the news, hitch up your sleigh, trample the taffeta
and yarrow. There are petals in the cups. They beckon to a feast
of the moon. Elongated horses are the hairstyle around
the moon. Giants fight over cards. Giants rake
leaves. The rakes may go, the sand remains, the rakes
may go, the earth remains. Bang! goes a rake handle, and hits
a giant in the head, because somebody stepped on the
rake tines. Doves are the tiles between cathedrals. Woodsmen
bend down, get up, bend down, the town hall is split on its
peak. A peacock takes pity on a lake. Replace
tooth with fake gemstone, woodsman with wooden
boat. Mists rampage in the comics. The horse is fond
of white. A beggar banging with a stick on the edge of
a bell has sand and rain pouring from his hat.
Gums are a cozy nest. Draw little jugs out of the clay. The Turks
made off with Srebrna while she drank at a well.
HONEY AND HOLOFERNES
I’ve invented a machine that, as soon as a goldfinch opens
its throat, starts dumping bags of concrete inside. Who licked the candies
into concrete, we don’t know. Who then brought
the concrete to life, we don’t know. The goldfinch sails. The goldfinch
sings. Where are you, Eugenijus? Racing across, opening
a hollow with your fingernails. You the pain of the contour, me
that of the train. Linda Bierds drives a car that comes
from the Tatras. The condor ripens the bird. My trousers smell like
gasoline. Do you see the pool? Do you see the pool? Do you see
the angel’s elbow? It led me
to those cliffs arrayed
like Vikings. Zebras have scraped eyes.
Ibrahim, Drago and Miklavž are great guys.
Iodine boils a bird’s head. It dies in the mud. I
swallow bread. What did you see in the inner
darkness to earn it? A bifurcation for
both and the bent, silver-plated head of a
walking stick? Boxes of honey delivered
by parachute, which deer antlers
provided? Pythagoras is plunder. A cat licks
his ears all summer and winter. Pins directed
the bloodflow of saints. Stones erode
the table. This clump is a tombolo. And that
pigeon on the plate. Mother of pearl. Gray head.
TRANS-SIBERIA
Every ball is a bloody, beautiful mask of powerful people.
We make up pretzels.
I always did like chickens.
O, slender fez, mildew perching on its fur.
The poet is an oafish celeb on a hood.
Of every wondrous power. On a hood.
I glance over my right shoulder and see
a lake with the canon bathing in it.
The marmots that shot past me weren’t
marmots. Come on, god, sail off to abstraction.
Stepfather! Your mouthful eats soup, you only see it.
Nem Keckeget arrives in Japan and jumps down.
Us Us darns stockings. Here are the teeth of the
iron comb that still remembers the station
and steam, but for Cendrars no longer matters.
The only thing now is that you can’t just
pleasantly say, “if you’d take off that shirt,
too,” the way Marci and Hudi said it to me.
SAN PIETRO A CASCIA WITH MASACCIO
Radiant white pipe laughing deep down
in Jesus’s eyes, the glow is astonished, returns. Wet
bandage wrapped around your head, does it hurt? Fra Angelico’s
tongue is tin. The ants on it are the hills of
Tuscany. What was it that soaked Fra Angelico, nobody
before him had got so soaked. Lily pads grow out of the water.
Goat legs erase the copy. To flip, to stop, to drench
violence. To insert. To back up. To set down the toes, then the
heel. Not to look. To observe. To love the sun. Where is
the green from? Isn’t the light from the windows? Fra Angelico had
suede shoes, a suede arm. A butterfly swimming from the blueness of the sky,
a flower doesn’t tuck in its legs, only people
tuck in their legs. People sink into my heart
and are free. Fra Angelico spilled the bucket for us.
DIRAN ADEBAYO
Crete is valvoline. When the pony shuffled off.
I lie on a carpet. A German shepherd is a tulip.
Diran! A flower blooms for itself. You don’t remind me
of him, you remind me of yourself. For Péru you point to a
bow for cricket and you pump, and pump, and rise. I am your
African lumpul. Diran! The earth has been trampled
here. Then Beatrice arrived. The sheep died
off. Their masters crawl into
dreams. Schloendorf has left. I’ve done my homework,
that vent, and now Laure, Péru and Juan
are the hosts here. Péru calls us outside to look at
the moon. Bella morena bianca. Enough to enrapture
the Nubians. A window, a traveler, a sail that drinks
up flashes. Kisses of light through the leaves of the trees, where
two birds are billing. A sweater lies dead across
the chain near the left headboard, that’s wrong, near the white sheet,
that’s right. You hear the birds sing, Diran,
you know that I’ve forgotten you. Hunters carry rifles
and stand up. Winter’s coming. The rails will ice over
and those complaining now in their dreams—even
sheep trampled them—dissolve with a wave of a hand.
WE BUILD A BARN AND READ READER’S DIGEST
Quick ostrich. Quick ostrich. Quick sand. Quick sand.
Quick lime. Quick grass. The white juice from celeste Aïda,
and forgot-to-take-it dries up. The one
trampled by sheep (down below), Grischa and Beatrice
(up above) converse. They’d recognize each other in
a cover, a box, a jacket, a picture, in moss and trampled
dirt. At this angle of the sky
no pictures are allowed. Corpses are wrapped up like
sheaves. Dismiss the footprint. Wipe your eyes.
Stop pilfering. Grapeshot gets tangled up.
I go paying visits with my lives.
Here I just romped and touched the rug
with a yellow shoulder. I don’t know what a word is.
To cry out moth! when on your white towel you see
Rommel was kissing heaven’s dainty hands, and yet
from his airplane above the Sahara, my uncle
Rafko Perhauc still blew him to bits.
STRANGLING IN DREAMS
Via vaya, contolino.
The bench claps shut.
Canicula, canicula, my chest, my hat.
Canicula.
Masaccio was discovered in the next village over.
A bushel cuts the throat’s angle.
It won’t give me away.
Skull and crypt
Phallus—radish.
ALL THE INSTRUMENTS HAVE COLLAPSED
My bench goes to confirmation and hosts pistachios.
I remember Milenko wrapped in a toga.
Tearing out an accordion’s guts means a lot.
Vanitas rotates the full moon smoking out of it.
Milenko preached at St. John the Divine, you don’t
know if you can’t see the cabin in the mirror. If you see yourself with
your fingers, wave. Stupica was finally ruined by his ambition
to paint a group portrait, a fresco, a monumental
work. Svetozar was in the chair at Dr. Rode’s,
I waited outside with the fallen palate. I knocked
a cupboard out of the wall. I won, but nearly died. Barry
Watten told Miško Šuvakovič horrible things
about me. In my taxes a rabbit jumps
into the bull’s eye of a cornea. Are you wet, white bird? What are you like?
WAITING ON ŠARANOVIČ STREET
Drawn moths don’t penetrate the papers
or even get them wet. Goo-doo-lee, goo-doo-lah
rocks in my drinking cup. Death starts growing
in the sap. Short sticks fall in them. My grass,
frothy rouge, my grass, frothy rouge.
Flax intanats and then we’re back at the velvet
munchkins. Knock on a door that’s not there,
and the figs have red pits. Here’s where the captain
with the dry skin swam. Exactly the same green
boot between the dark and the light Stradivarii.
When the Govic builds. When Cirila goes for milk.
I was father’s driver. We rowed
like lightning. I wanted to be alone in the sand and
roll in it as the waves came. Lakes don’t have any
plankton. Wire isn’t wrapped inside the abdominal
cavity. It’s an earthquake. Fruit touches the ground like
a lightbulb. The Ciudad floats on water and on the corner
a dog awaits me. Death is a ceramic. A Montesquiourous dog shits in it.
SO WE DON’T LOSE OUR VIRGINITY
Clay of silent diasporas, is water yellow
when the oar hits it flat? Where does
all the wool on the cliffs come from? Does the
moon
send a compass? The color of feathers, of fur,
of skin and the heart’s rumbling under volcanoes
all depend on the place where its point is
set in. The court imitates the river. Terry
had a sixty-foot-long tapeworm inside her.
That time the court won. We cut the tapeworm to pieces.
The pumpkin, the vessel, or more coarsely put, the body
was put together like a babushka—one cell
inside the other. The points of the seams smelled of
lemon. Then a hand began to stroke
the nipple. And side passages were opened
for the cavalries underground. That’s how
we discovered the field of torches, which
began mating with sagas. There was no more Captain
Bada. Suddenly we had the word
anitra. The innocents made themselves a necklace.
And so we lived. Once again the cooking
was done by Cassandras, lovely
apelike monsters from the Carpathians. A horse
kissed me in vitro. Giudita offers me