Tomaž Šalamun


The Circle And The Circle's Argument

I

Flower, yellow
flower,
who gave you milk?
II

The night is violet,
thorns are white, blood not blood.
Now it flows toward the sneaker,
it lies on the ground,
I sit.
Where is the turning point, where is
the law that binds blood, that drips
to blood, that lies on the parquet?
Blood, are you on the floor?
Wood, do you feel?
III

I bite you, all of you, dust.

A stone comes flying into the chestnut tree.

These human hands cut the wheat,
caress and beat the cows.

Millions and millions and millions
of rivers for a white circle
no bigger than my finger.

The Alsatian's house collapses.
The bell's skirt curls up.
Red! How?
Are you on the way? Are you on the way
by foot into the eye?
Does the sun send you? Does it
give you a push?
IV

I do not forget your name,
windhover.
I do not know you.
Among birds
I would not recognize you.

Nature digs into
my mirror's metal.

Laugh!
Through the Thousand and One
Nights I see cabbage.
The cold comes down from the clouds.
V

Mama!
Down there, in the ditch
a man sleeps on his back.

Strangle God so he can sleep in peace.
Get some rest.

Air enters the skin.
Doesn't stop until it dies.
Air squeezes through.
Doesn't stop until razor
sharp.
VI

I am a woman.
With a pencil I draw on thin
sheets of paper.
I pierce the paper's soul.
Only the oak chests I coat with lacquer.

Little ants from my back are now in my fist.
They buzz inside my fist.
Warm here, cold there.
Who uprooted them?

The tunnel is a whistle.
Grow, become a giant,
two giants.
Your body will cover the shepherd's soul.
VII

Good wishes invent only trains.
Only on the first day does the Lord travel inside them.
Only if the Lord stands up, if he
expands, if the windows and the metal casing
blend with grass (the unwounded), can memory
persist. Memory is touch. Touch is
eternity.

Geniuses are kilos of pain inside the earth's bosom.
It screams with joy. It hugs. Through it
the real music is heard.

Let us kill the peacock that is not guilty.
To kill the guilty one, the wolf, would mean
to miss a chance.

This is how I see the blossom, to give us resin.
The tree trunks will take revenge on me, all the tree trunks.
Ever since I've been on this earth, they've bled
for nothing.
VIII

Stop, drop it!
Who gives the seed the right to grow?

I do.
This is why I shiver.

I am an animal.
I lie on my back.
Tongues of flame exit my head.
You should say if I am the sacred cow.
I am mute as a sphere.

Of all things, death is the mildest.
Water captures it.
I am the water.
IX

To be God is first class.

Those who don't know me by heart will be erased.

I breathe the same air you breathe.
Green for me is green for you.
My throat constricts.
I don't understand why I was chosen.

Brothers, come help me.
Snails, titmice, crickets, cicadas,
flies, woodpeckers, sparrows.
Come help me, water, which you, blackbird,
carry in your beak.
I saw you when you drank.
I saw you when you drank.
It did not make you burst.
The water made me explode. I exploded.
I am the x ray of the white magnolia.
X

Leave the ladder, you'll never catch up with me.
I would like to give you everything, really everything.
Grease, skin, hair, eyes, tongue,
nails, juice, blood. I would like for us to go
together, I really would.
Believe me.
I do not understand, why me.

Only for Nijinski was it also this way.
Lion, how are you? They put you in a cage!
The madman's a vapor.
The madman's a vapor.
Kill me, I circle your madness!
I take everything from everyone because I'm God.

To be God is first class.

Do you understand the title now?

It's provisional.
The real one is
MURDER.

Translation Peter Richards and Ana Jelnikar
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