Cantina in Querétaro

Tomaž Šalamun translated by Michael Thomas Taren




I see the horse shrieking when meeting the eyes
of another dead horse.
They're brothers, two angels with the apple,
the cataract of the underworld.
The sun on your mane is for you both.
Why are you tearing me apart, jealous colts?
Why do you stamp like janissaries?
Horses are sacred animals, you're both César Vallejo.
For not quantities flow through us, but spirit and
flame.
Is it possible the dead poet's genius
undoes into two rivers and tears in two like a handkerchief?
You're both one image and this is bread for millions.
Both my arms are the same length.
Both my legs are for all nations of the world.
My kiss is not a chain, look:
This is the pneuma breathed by Jakob Boehme,
it's virginal, I carry it in my breast
like a Karst woman carrying water in a pitcher on her head.
And if I have to listen again to these
petit bourgeois problems of Nicaean
councils and witness the liquidations
of our best tested guerilla cadre,
you, colts, will again go back,
route march to darkness. In this cantina
while others might stab you with knives,
I will calmly place small change
por mi copa de alma blanca.