The Blue Tower by Tomaz Salamun Page A

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
    Â 
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
    Â 
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
    Â 
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,
    Â 
they hide them from me in Slovenia.
I wander the world and put on your
slippers, did you plan this?
    Â 
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
    Â 
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
    Â 
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.
    Â 
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,
    Â 
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
    Â 
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
    Â 
pop constantly, destroying the gentle creatures from Renaissance
pictures (disegno), while we, my I (unsettled)
go out, dividing up into beaters,
    Â 
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,
    Â 
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.
    Â 
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
    Â 
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
    Â 
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