Šalamun Tomaž:
Nations
Nations that forget their story-telling
die out. Smelling of ointment they
have direct access to the heart of the world.
They don’t bother to recreate circles
anymore, or run in
the snow, barefoot.
Nations that forget their story-telling
don’t tremble anymore under the weight of
incomprehensible
powers, the stars they used to gaze at
are themselves. They become
the stars -
the nations that live in grace and luxury.
When they wake up, there, on their left side
lies a handsome young
Arab. The make love to him day and
night, when he dances or
speaks. They pitch their omnipotent
tent over him, the nations that
forgot their story-telling.
The nations that forget their
story-telling are simply wiped out by
passion, all their elegant and meaningless
life is absorbed in the knife
of the horsemen, of the comrades, of the people, that sent
Hassan.
Tomaž Šalamun
(1941 - ) A poet, and since 1996, a Slovenian cultural attache in New York. He graduated in art history from the University of Ljubljana and worked as a free-lance writer in Ljubljana. Salamun, who was in 1973 honored by the Preseren Foundation Prize/National Book Award was in the 1960's the leading figure of Slovenian poetical avant-garde. He has published extensively since his first two books in samizdat (Poker; The Purpose of the Cloak) appeared in 1966 and 1968, respectively. His work has been included in numerous anthologies, including Child of Europe (Penguin 1991) and East European Poetry (Ardis, 1983, 1985). A former fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program and a Fulbright fellow at Columbia University in New York, Salamun was also in residency at the art colonies of Yaddo and MacDowell. His recent books in English translation include The Selected Poems (Ecco Press 1988; edited by Charles Simic) and The Four Questions of Melancholy (White Pine Press, 1997; edited by Christopher Merrill).By the same author
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