The Blue Tower Read online

  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

  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.

  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

  a scorpion? El Alamein! Where is the difference?

  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