Tomaž Šalamun Poems

Cats have set themselves on wings.
Buttons have buttercups. Hares are soft meat,
hares are soft meat, they quiver and throng.
...

No one rides on
the crest. No one stops Rembrandt.
Trousers worn down on parmesan.
...

Is it cold?
Are you snowed in?
The tent, does it still creak?
...

Leather without history. Strength without
rickets. From a drawer. On the hand a wire. Blood
is silk. Walk silently. Blood is like
...

Precious copper mouth.
I hide, hide my head in you.
I have only one white sense.
...

All this blinking, gurgling, sweet stinking
decadent soul-racked sorrel,
the love of decanting,
snails put into the mouth, glued to the heart,
...

Destiny rolls over me. Sometimes like an egg. Sometimes
with its paws, slamming me into the slope. I shout.
I take my stand. I pledge all my juices. I shouldn't
do this. Destiny can snuff me out. I feel it now.
...

Red flowers grow in the sky, there's a shadow in the garden.
The light penetrates, there's no light to be seen.
How then can the shadow be seen, there's a shadow in the garden,
all around big white stones lie scattered, we can sit on them.
...

Awe-inspiring cliff, white desire,
water springing forth from blood,
let my form narrow, let it crush my body,
so that everything is one: slag and skeletons, fistful of earth.
...

my brother strides naked
beautiful as a virgin spring
through the hall, kills the lamb
with love
...