Three Poems by Tomaž Šalamun Translated by Brian Henry

Venuses


I’m groundwater. An enormous fur
brat. Shot behind the fence, they died behind
the fence. Juice comes to the surface from the reeds 
and bark and from the mound of light bulbs. Want
to climb? Here, here, she hissed from
pear to pear like two old English 
women in glass t-shirts. A child
spotted a bee and rushed after it
until the bee spotted the child and stung
him on the eye. Ovid detached 
the grass that the shells brought. I pulled off
my foot. I pulled off my limb. I need
someone here who would climb to the top and
spit into the distance so I can train.







Venere

Jaz sem podtalnica. Ogromen kožušček 
slinavca. Umrli so za ograjo, ustreljeni za 
ograjo. Iz šibja in lubja in iz gomile 
žarnic prihaja na površje sok. Si hotela 
preplezati? Sem, sem, sikala je kot 
dve angleški starki s hruške na 
hruško, imeli sta stekleni majici. Dete 
je zagledalo čebelo in je teklo za njo, 
dokler ni čebela zagledala deteta in ga 
pičila na oko. Ovid je odlepljal 
travo, ki so jo prinesle školjke. Izruval 
sem si foot. Izruval sem si limb. Tu 
rabim nekoga, ki bi splezal do vrha in 
pljuval v daljavo, da bi lahko treniral.

Fires

Words are like sour cherries. Yellow
inside, surrounded by tanks,
geysers and naked to the waist. I, too,
am a well-read dictator with an elephant
and white handkerchiefs who puts his tongue
on gray iron at minus sixteen. Onward
vegetarians, I don’t want you falling behind,
vegetarians. I’d call all flowers
Martinščica. They all expanded their houses.
They all fastened black butterflies to their 
socks. Roe lay in silver 
bowls. Someone got up from the table again.
I pulled a seal from the shards. The Lord
separated the butterfly and the sun shone.






Ognji

Besede so kot višnje. Znotraj 
rumene, okrog obdane z oklepniki, 
gejziri in nagi do pasu. Tudi
jaz sem načitan diktator s sloni in 
belimi robčki, ki da jezik pri minus 
šestnajst na sivo železo. Vegetarijanci 
naprej, nočem, da zaostajate, 
vegetarijanci. Vsem rožam bi rekel 
martinščice. Vsi so si širili hiške. 
Vsi so si na dokolenke pripopali črne 
metulje. Ikre so ležale v srebrnih 
skledah. Zopet je nekdo vstal od mize. 
Iz črepinj sem izvlekel tjulnja. Gospod je 
oddvojil metulja in sonce je posijalo.

Satan is already quite close to the crepes

In the bag there were embers that
burned the stones but didn’t burn
the bag. You write because you’re pure as a flame.
In the bag there were embers being crushed
beneath fingers. Abraham-Lot. Lot stands
on steel cables. The stone is cold because
it’s high in the air. Creases and raspberries.
Creases in fragrant raspberries. Crack! This is
the sound of the first attempt at digging a tunnel.
The back of the hill is soft. The blotted cribs
are soft. Who has a hernia? No one
among us has a hernia. Leaves fly away
if the wind starts to blow. Straw doesn’t fly away
because it’s long, damp, yellow-green.





Satan je že čisto blizu palačink

V vrečki je ležala žerjavica, ki je 
prežigala kamne, ni pa prežigala 
vrečke. Piši, ker si čist kot plamen.
V vrečki je ležala žerjavica, drobila 
se je pod prsti. Ibrahim-Lot. Lot stoji 
na zajlah. Kamen je hladen, ker je 
visoko v zraku. Gube in maline.
Gube v dišečih malinah. Hrsk! To je 
zvok prvega poskusa kopanja tunela. 
Mehek je hrib na začelju. Mehke so 
pivnane jaslice. Kdo ima kilo? Med 
nami nima nihče kile. Listje odleti, 
če zapihlja veter. Slama ne odleti, 
ker je dolga, vlažna, rumenozelena.

Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) published more than 50 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. Kiss the Eyes of Peace: Selected Poems 1964-2014 appeared from Milkweed Editions in 2024 and was shortlisted for the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns, 2020), and the prose book Things Are Completely Simple: Poetry and Translation (Parlor, 2022). He has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008) and Kiss the Eyes of Peace: Selected Poems 1964-2014 (Milkweed, 2024), and six books by Aleš Šteger, most recently Burning Tongues: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2022). His work has received numerous honors, including two NEA fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and the Best Translated Book Award.

15 October 2025