Agca — Blackbird Archive

← v14n1, Spring 2015

Farrar, Straus. I opened a henhouse.

Bojan took the network to new heights

then cracked his skull

on the rocks. Farrar, Straus. A fence around

handsome men. The elbows are greasy,

but these are the elbows of stalactites.

A silver curse floats, we are in a winch.

Fig leaves are an overgrown bee.

Do you get them from bronze? Are you tossing them

into the sea? Wilderness grooms the fat

of boats. Every spring, every spring,

every spring. How were you bound

so that you did not rip off the propeller?

A secret of the fifth Fatima. Again

the bowing of the Pope’s head over a Turk.

I wonder who sent you,

tell me something else. A hoof

shakes three numbers, releases two?

politics violence history

Tomaž Šalamun

Tomaž Šalamun has published more than thirty books of poetry in his home country of Slovenia and is recognized as one of the leading poets of Central Europe. His honors include the Prešeren Fund Prize, the Jenko Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a visiting Fulbright to Columbia University, and a fellowship to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Nine collections of his poetry have been published in English: The Book for My Brother (Harcourt, 2005), Row (Arc Publications, 2005), Blackboards (Saturnalia Books, 2004), Poker (Ugly Duckling, 2003), A Ballad for Metka Krasovec (Twisted Spoon, 2001), Feast (Harcourt Brace, 2000), The Selected Poems of Tomaž Šalamun (Ecco, 1988, edited by Charles Simic), The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine, 1997), and The Shepherd, The Hunter (Pedernal, 1992). His poems have been translated into more than twenty languages. Woods and Chalices , translated with Brian Henry, is forthcoming from Harcourt in 2008.