Torturing the Slave

Tomaž Šalamun translated by Michael Thomas Taren




Slave, will your breathing stop?
Or will Slavs ruin their vulva of cabbage.
In the doe's throat is a lacquered ball
eaten by my mom.
Only on it Jerusalem is etched, only on it.
My blotting paper lies in a crystal marsh,
you are guilty, slave!
Look at my optic garganta.
Knives gurgling as a water of occult races
untie with the gauze on my finger.
What are you waiting for?
Why can't you stop the weather like
the old highlanders?
They cut down what averted the wind,
snapped at brambles and ground them,
rolling down oak trees.
Wood chutes appeared only later
when gravitation already won.
You whine 'cause you're soaked, my son,
your calendar is not the spirit of the Maya,
your hips look stolen from my mountains on
Crete, and when barbarians turn
soil with their boots, you will leave
the revolving door, so
white-hot from loneliness that
the stags will rush into the woods
still smelling of the other burned doe
and sing the last pious chord of their
suicide.