Tomaž Šalamun

Four poems from Otrok in Jelen (The Child and the Deer)

Blue Citroën Visa

The fullness whispers, fragrant. It spreads the nose
and rolls up the skin. My fins grow and flutter—flags—,
with my finger I touch an elbow, to test if it hears

them. There’s no resistance. Only the sketched line
in the sonorous zone of my aura gets a bit milkier.
As with fungi, gathering white-gray frills

and roundish caps smelling of deep woods.
I feel the colored air caressing me. There’s no resistance
beneath my finger. As the elbow moves. I drive

to let you lean your head on my shoulder. You sigh
a little. The contour of your metallic timberwork. A bit
of fine sweet sand in the house, a rebate, beasts

pounce. I feel what the lion’s roar does to his throat.
How the windpipe and vocal chords roll up and bubble.
And when you change a tape (I watch! I watch!),

I need nothing. All acids, all compounds,
all is godly. The steering wheel, the seat belt, the ticket, how
I’m rolling down the window, shifting gears. Belts of light curdle

when the sun spurts into the sky above Nice.
Don’t look back, don’t think, drive, grab. Like a peasant
who must turn over all the hay before the night falls.

Translated by Brian Henry and the author

 

Silhouette and Eternity

Union with death. Fish with cancer.
White mouth. The ring, the ring smolders.
Tips. Stakes. A plunger.
The crowd moans. A quiet run in silence.

Grains fall in a gush and carry away the weeds.
The crib is watered. The crib is watered.
The soft stretched edge is watered.
Paints that include dense form.

That stroke, stroke, soften and subdue.
Every joint is poured out, every wood.
The past booms hollow, darts

to the granary. The corn is home. The work
is stroking. Quivering. The gift.
Honey. And not a drop more is flowing.

Translated by Brian Henry