Tomaž Šalamun's "Photograph with a Quote from Yazoo"

Tomaž Šalamun

Photograph with a Quote from Yazoo: Deep in Each Other’s Dream

Christ is my sex object, therefore I am 
not an ethical problem. I lead him to the meadows.
Like a little shepherd, I force him to graze.

I root him out and clean his hands. Shall we
rinse ourselves under the tree? And when
we stretch out on the earth and watch the sky,

what moves? Will we have enough heat
for winter? Will we peel potatoes? Will
we make soldiers out of molten lead? Are we

going to the cows with our arms in their muzzles?
Will we bite the horsetail? Watch Mount Nanos.
We’ll hide in the moss, under sheets of glass.

When you took the picture of the tree, did you
take care of the explosion? What do you mean exactly?
The white milk traveling through the veins

into eternity, glazing the dark? I am a little stone
falling into your flesh. I made you twitch
and tied you up. We crucified you.

Translated from the Slovenian by Christopher Merrill and the author

[from Verse, Volume 13, Numbers 2&3]

Tomaž Šalamun's other "Jonah"

Tomaž Šalamun

Jonah

Pleasure writes history. Bombs resemble

human eggs. You tear them off and throw them

around. They rut. Shepherds wake in the hills.

You see, a grenade falls on your head, it’s landing there.

The ones who were served grew bored. Still I never

saw a whale. Supposedly it swims in the sea. Supposedly

you can stick a mast through its eyes. Yesterday

they killed my darling Jeffrey Dahmer

while he was cleaning a toilet. He had eaten

seventeen young men and ended in blood. Power

is always inherited, never divided. And if a body is raveled

we mend it. Power cannot evaporate. It renews itself

on solemn scaffolds. We, the people who wade in blood,

we’re erotic and fascinating. We write sublime poetry.

Translated by Christopher Merrill and the author

[from Verse, Volume 15.3/16.1]

Tomaž Šalamun poem

Tomaž Šalamun

Fish-Peacock

With juice in my muscles.

I’m not bad, I’m used to it and calm.

I’m dissolving my eyes.

I hear the sail fluttering.

The sun kisses the white linen

thirty times and settles

like a glowing club.

Who cares about refoli!

From the left and the right—the sea!

A quadruped first uses all

four of his legs, he runs over the earth.

The bush scratches, how it tamps down, now this, now

that, but what steps into silk,

a rift in the glue, still on the earth?

Is it still in triumph and juice when it takes off?

No one scratches you softly in heaven. You

can’t roll up your cloven foot,

no granite cube for your

head. Mouldering limbs have meaning.

The air is grayish bronze,

someone is burning linen tablecloths,

the calves are drunk and dazed.

You catch your lungs,

they roll over and uncover

a fresh cherry pie, someone

unwinds it before it was poured

into the piepan. Plants grow

into it and out,

the skin fits like the moon.

Do you remember my blue bathing suit

and the record for the hundred-meter freestyle?

How you stretched above the splits.

And your rested pulse,

a little like a twitching fish,

a little like a fish fanning itself.

Translated by Christopher Merrill and the author

[from Verse, Volume 15, Number 3/Volume 16, Number 1]

RIP, Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014)

In honor of Tomaž and his artistic legacy, Verse will be posting some of his poems that have appeared in the magazine over the past 20 years.