Tomaž Šalamun

Snow and Minerals
July 21, 2021 Salamun Tomaz

SNOW

Rouge. It’s not a rose, it’s rouge.
It’s a smile. It’s a seal.
 
They are eyes. It’s the forehead.
It’s the kouros. Naxos.
 
They are hair. It is a gas village.
It’s winter. It’s spring.
 
It’s an arm broken off.
It’s vomiting.
 
It’s hot.
It’s not a ticket.
 
It’s waiting.
It’s a ticket. Map.
 
It’s Europe.
Zeus abducts the Americas.

 
 

SNEG

Ruž. Ni ruža, ampak je ruž.
Je smehljaj. Je plomba.
 
So oči. Je čelo.
Je kouros. Naxos.
 
So lasje. Je Gas Village.
Je zima. Je pomlad.
 
Je odlomljena roka.
Je bruhanje.
 
Je vročina.
Ni listka.
 
Je čakanje.
Je listek. Karta.
 
Je Evropa.
Zevs ugrabi Ameriko.

 
 

MINERALS

In the village on the Caspian Sea,
five spun tops
 
yearn. There’s smuggling. There
is ore. I wash
 
myself out of a hundred
pastes. I study
 
the crystal and the board.
There are silk
 
lilies in the crystals. We
use spoons to
 
mill bread. Black pudding
rose and died.
 
Nature pulled pure
 
nothing out of him.

 
 

RUDNINE

Na vasi, ob Kaspijskem
jezeru, hrepeni
 
pet vrtavk. Tu je tihota. Tu
je ruda. Umil
 
sem se od sto paštet.
Poračunal sem
 
kristal in deščico. V
kristalih so
 
lila svile. Z žličniki
meljemo kruh.
 
Umrl je črn
narastek.
 
Narava ni iz njega ven
zvlekla čisto nič.

Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) published more than 55 books of poetry in Slovenia. Translated into over 25 languages, his poetry received numerous awards, including the Jenko Prize, the Prešeren Prize, the European Prize for Poetry, and the Mladost Prize. In the 1990s, he served for several years as the Cultural Attaché for the Slovenian Embassy in New York, and later held visiting professorships at various universities in the U.S.