The Blue Tower

by Tomaz Salamun

  her neck. I’ve stopped making eights with my bike.

  WHERE IS THE LITTLE WALL FROM

  The vehicle is simple. “Beauty sleep every day.”

  Eight kilometers from Lisbon by streetcar, going

  west. Reader, escaping from my baskets, haven’t you noticed? You

  can’t escape from five baskets at once. The baskets

  shift like a juggler’s balls. And we were off.

  We walked and walked, naked, far into the militarized zone. Hey,

  handsome! You’re squinting beneath me. You have to look in my eyes.

  You proclaim a new good and a tank drives into your mouth.

  We didn’t slam huts like these since little Friday’s

  times. You don’t even have a proper terrace here. A duke or a horse.

  Kerry sends me caravans of camels from the

  furthermost parts of the world. My home is Persepolis.

  I accept my gifts in a factory. I lived to see

  Alexander. I kept Alexander alive.

  STRANGE DREAMS

  The Portuguese are bound with butchers and rampage

  through the grass. Ubi, ubi, ubi, ubi, night? I carried

  heaps of sand on the boat with a bucket. An otorhinolaryngologist

  strengthens power. Let’s drop this. I’ll graze over

  pastures. Listen to sounds in a bathtub. Aim my flashlight

  at the stars. Up. At the treetops. Down. At the earth. Down.

  At the ground. And zip, burrow my body into the air between cat

  and bird. Between shotgun and stork. But the hunter doesn’t

  startle and shoots me above the waist, so my

  lower part drops off, pants and all, and catches in

  the bushes, waiting to be picked up and buried.

  Silken lives end with “I wouldn’t wish you a

  splendid breakfast and a wretched supper,” as

  Professor Menaše warned me. God warns me with death.

  AT BARONESS BEATRICE MONTI DELLA CORTE VON REZZORI’S

  An etching, a beautiful white etching, you’re devoid of people,

  devoid of bodies. What if we started flapping, or spinning like a

  propeller, we would invite frogs and plums and sailors’ earrings

  so the air wouldn’t be thin, or the place where we’re going. Will there

  be action? Will lightning flash? Will there be phantasms? Dropping

  trees, just wires quickly twisted in a ball? Frank!

  I eat you, after so long, after, let’s say, Primož’s

  intermediation and what John says about where to plant the stakes.

  John doesn’t put it like that, those are my words,

  John would like to come to Slovenia, but we are in

  the buds, the fringe, the grass, the beech leaves, and I could ram Maximilian

  Dorner into a beech trunk almost, look how pale

  he is, you don’t realize how much you’ve drunk, says Metka,

  she always shows up and saves me, since I’ve had her I’ve been calm,

  I have a home, nothing will blow me apart again, we’ll die, for sure,

  but all of us will die, that’s the nicest part, when it’s time of course,

  not now, hey, the metaphors are all gone, metaphors are

  the prow of a shipwreck, a swollen member, the dissemination

  of Flemings, they really have come up, but where are we, I’m still

  spinning that propeller, summoning the muse,

  obviously, because in the night I got up and retyped

  (saved to disk) what Peter and I had done. Paced

  the rooms like a hawk and whispered, are you coming? are you?

  I was a beast and snatched him from Tanya,

  Tanya listens to Rufus, I also adore him, that time when I

  drove Joshua to Lucca, we listened to him constantly, I

  think we’re off the ground, at least that’s how my I perceives it,

  here I am now, Beatrice, furious for having wasted

  hours and hours with that third-rate professor,

  a really overstuffed reputation, and hardly heard of

  Grischa. Beatrice was the most beautiful woman of her

  time and if I’d been hanging around Milan back then,

  forget Tatjana, forget Nina, not even Monica Vitti, and

  even she dried up, hanging onto Antonioni,

  hey, there are no metaphors here, Jure would be pleased,

  no he wouldn’t, this would be too frivolous for him, we’re left

  where we are, we remain, we’ve had a nice life,

  we have one. I saw a spider while I shaved,

  le matin, le chagrin, I’ve got to get something out,

  so that something is left for people if they call me up

  today. How, the gifted ones constantly ask me,

  how? Hey, Beatrice is bathing, I can hear the water splash.

  “I DON’T LIKE PROUST, HE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH SEX,” DIRAN SAYS

  The mosque is a model of corporate shams,

  Žiga shleps a hernia onto greenery.

  I cattivi pluck hairs out of their nostrils, perché

  i cattivi, perché non i buoni? I buoni e i

  cattivi sono cattolici.

  Sure, sure, Diran explains at dinner,

  all the English boys at Oxford wanted

  to sleep in my bed, and

  we did, as innocent as puppies, but as soon as they grew their

  first peach fuzz, my penis got bored and I changed orientation.

  My mother prayed that I not catch the “English

  disease.” Nigeria is homophobic, and

  you? It’s late, it’s late, my friend, and now it’s too late.

  Both of us are writers, neither one’s a doctor, he also says.

  PHARAOHS AND KINGS, KASSEL, PARIS

  We had pretty girls and were excellent dancers,

  Andro and I. The dual number is disappearing. We slid

  over Karst mountains and drove to the sea. Do you remember

  Cabiria? The skirts were long and people stared.

  Everywhere people made way for you. But in Paris

  at your Biennale des jeunes, it was me who prowled the night.

  It’s nice when young people cry with pleasure and you float and

  listen to their sobbing. Robert became gay in the

  sacristy, when a bear pounced on him. I reminded him

  of that holy man. And who counts the souls that are

  grateful to him? Tomaž Brejc said, what have you

  been up to, you’re so refreshed, and we’re all rundown and

  tired. It’s true. I should have stood by Andraž back then

  and trimmed his wings. Brothers can’t sleep with each other.

  TAVERNA

  My bow of little rags doesn’t symbolize

  black ones. Bow of little rags?

  “What do you mean by that?” Let’s say a

  lasso, let’s say a net, that catches you and

  makes you ask that question. As if you lit a smoke,

  tunk, tunk, tunk, see how nicely it

  burns. “That’s cheap, dude,”

  you don’t need to invite anyone out to eat. Tak, tak,

  yes, those are tiny little billfolds for communication.

  A fishing pole for catching ones like you. Oops,

  they fly off in the air and drop in the sea.

  They smell of milk and of mother’s gel

  and when you grow up, you’ll also be a famous writer.

  BREAKFAST WITH MY HOSTESS IN ALDEBOROUGH

  A pig went to a trough,

  ate three silent birches, and that’s supposed to be kind?

  It is. It’s how we summon the muse

  on the farm. I eat the monkey’s militias.

  Kandahar is for appetite. In Moscow Vallejo

  jumped into a fountain and burbled in the Neva, which he’d

  brought to
Moscow to honor himself for the occasion.

  No water, no life. My husband was vice governor

  of Hong Kong, that’s why we’re drawn there to this

  day. And who’s sitting at the table?

  Chris Reid! That’s right, Beletrina’s slippers, here in

  Aldeborough, just like the ones Peter has in Somerville,

  they hide them from me in Slovenia.

  I wander the world and put on your

  slippers, did you plan this?

  The lady’s plan: to sail into St. Petersburg on her

  yacht. She likes the way a city

  opens itself to view from the sea. In Venice I met

  Arne. He had also sailed into Venice with his

  boat. I only saw mine once I’d

  sold it and so managed to cling by my claws

  above the abyss of poverty. My helpers in that

  were Arne and both Japec brothers and here I declare

  my gratitude, and let this all be recorded.

  The boat’s name was Nike and it was a sleek

  Jeanneau. My kids have sailed in it several

  times, knowing nothing about its owner.

  SKATERS

  I have no idea, some seventeen colors will

  flood me, seventeen lego blocks of lime, shots.

  Just listen and you see the smoke, you don’t see the smoke,

  the smoke is in your head (classic terra cotta)

  the influence of my panna cotta for supper, I mean

  you don’t see the smoke, we’ve been here and I wanted

  to mention the hunters, for lo their shooting (the Bible),

  verily their shooting (the Bible) can be heard here

  even now, while I type, and there really are too many, they

  pop constantly, destroying the gentle creatures from Renaissance

  pictures (disegno), while we, my I (unsettled)

  go out, dividing up into beaters,

  some of us following grandpa and then he fritters

  it all (Brueghel), but back then I didn’t know him,

  what did I know, Ločje, Šentvid on Pesnica,

  Ščavnica, the terrace that supported a bull and how

  you weren’t allowed to eat a single

  grape if it wasn’t served with a cup of water.

  Where did all those fishponds go, they were flooded

  for power plants and wigwams and ducks that swam around

  the People’s Park, all those clerics dining at

  liberal tables (they got everything back, doppio),

  and I’ve gone nowhere, slid no place, just that

  lime that brought it up. Gundula stayed on the

  surface, scarves flapped while we, whoosh, whoosh,

  played on the frozen Rinza. That pheasant on Sovre’s

  table wasn’t shot in winter. Never.

  PRADA, MONTEVARCHI, BEFORE CÉZANNE

  Plunge into the Drava, braggart. Your dainty gooselike fingers

  will describe the arcs of living bodies falling from the bridge.

  He crunches on the gravel. He swims and swims, can’t swim across.

  His shorts were torn off by a branch, he’s bashful and won’t get out here,

  drowns. He swims and swims, can’t swim across. Three paces

  south with a pistol to his head. There is no decent water.

  Heat eats his fiancée’s breastbone. Greasy paper is left,

  sausages, train cars. What sort of veil has been drawn across

  you? What did Irina’s two hundred dogs do in

  Odessa? Where do you have your little fingers, on the buds or on the

  canon? All it takes is for the strut to get worn and the

  sail will burst. Death seems. It sags, hides

  its spraying equipment, and beckons. Here I am,

  great golden hen. I’m yours, great golden hen.

  THAT’S HOW MANY MIGHTY HEAVEN WILL ENDURE

  Janjica, Janjica, how do I get close to you?

  How do I hear your bent paw? Tomatito plays

  Spain. Pupae crawl onto people.

  The angle is photographed from branches. Anne is coming

  by train. Shall we go? Shall we go? Are the roads

  crossed out? From the brooder to quiet workshops

  where the clocks creak. Will the cypress fade? The coupon is servus.

  Will the stone drink strychnine for people?

  Why aren’t you shaken? I lie in the bathtub

  until after sunset one hundred stars

  light up in the sky. Droplets of sweat that

  drip down my arms in the sauna. Nothing. Slowly.

  With a drawing. As many droplets as I

  can endure, that’s how many mankind will endure.

  TITLE STILL PENDING

  I palaksh around like a little Gypsy. I scrub three ribs

  and get stuck. You’ll scrub quite a few ribs

  yet, just relax, with switches. With your eyes, with a fly, with leaves.

  My complexion hums. A linden leaps into a new moon. It lifts up pamphlets.

  The hollow ball of the earth falls to pieces. Whatever you water isn’t drunk.

  A panel board dewy head, leather head. Billions of pieces of

  birds cast a spell. Will the shah absorb grain? Will

  Robert Minhinnick ever publish Poetry of Wales?

  Chamois will overgrow the transversal and freeze like a statue.

  No one will be able to get past its fur.

  Eyes come falling from the joints like some tiny

  grape turds. Will lime ever comfort the

  bristling wood? Brown, yellow, shoes with rubber. And at

  the end, a haystack, a waterstack, Pont Mirabeau.

  DONNINI

  In San Pietro di Cascia.

  To look at Masaccio.

  In the butter of a huge linen hall

  a hen kindles

  Andersen’s red shoe.

  It thinks of brooding.

  Be on my commanding hill and shut down my knitteries.

  Let them keep watch. Let the tulip give meat.

  Where did that sultan live, who lived near

  the upper part of the red tulip’s frayed

  flag?

  Bless you, cube.

  If a unicorn stopped to the right,

  the car couldn’t get around it.

  FLORENZA

  Il gnoco. The upper dishwashing shift. Laure is sad

  from the fluff. Juan moves around like a shadow.

  Rocks dust Lipica. We fall with Ludwig’s head.

  Dry land. Sarah. I wake up in my T-shirt. They lifted

  me up on a pulley, in silk. Do you sway when you slam

  into the cliff walls? What does that do to your

  bone prints? They put ointment on the little skins. Stored,

  bound, cropped them. Chiama mi. I’ll ride forth at

  the fox hunt, from under the hide. Here’s the spot where

  Browning signed. I’m fond of Procacci. Pathway, pathway, Bello

  Sguardo. Ho mangiato il farro. Mi ha piaciuto

  molto. You, made of fresh moving body parts, the sun’s

  shining again. We folded up the buttonhole.

  We gave, and gave, and gave, and gave, not there, and gave.

  PERSIA

  When I jumped on the sieve, the sieve

  got sick. The word departed from the flesh and

  became the fruit of Nicodemus. No one is free

  of gentle bonds, buttons and ribbons

  excepted. We dug them in pearlike flutters.

  From there a short jump to a branch. Johnny Weissmuller,

  such a well-stitched tarp, where do you see these now? We turned

  gristle into myriads. Into mush. Into pharaohs.

  Into Isfahan, where the square had no water. Into: let the

  moon bang its knees or bang the stairs.

  Do you hear how it’s emptied enormous fields with chisels
/>   and introduced acqua alta? Beatrice, Pascali,

  Nono, speakers, wrapped in green and yellow, the

  throat of the ship owner, where have I been that we’ve never met?

  UNTIL PESSOA NOTHING

  Leopard, droplet, leopard, why do you roll around

  a lathe? Shiraz was the name of Pepi’s cat. A violet

  hoop, jostling in the whiteness if the sun drips,

  thank you, if the rain drips, if it shines. Are killed

  animals softer than unkilled ones? Covered with dirt,

  what can you see? Lockets and octaves. An evergreen

  spruce. A deep well and a shallow one, see how they

  kiss. In-lining fox furs. Birds and flesh,

  pierced with a wooden tip. You lick your lips

  and ride on a lateral lift called an

  iron horse. You put his hand in front of the lamp

  to make figures. Bodies have feelers.

  The roads are laid on a ventricle: mulatiera,

  in the mountains, with windows, with steamships, Lilliput

  is on water, tickles the earth’s crust, protects it from