The Blue Tower

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 Å TANDEKER

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

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.

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.

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

 

on the shoals. I shove Diran's head away from
the table. This clump is a tombolo. And that
pigeon on the plate. Mother of pearl. Gray head.

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.

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.

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.

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
a scorpion? El Alamein! Where is the difference?