Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2016 v15n1
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 Slovene
back TOMAŽ ŠALAMUN
translation from Slovene by Brian Henry

Pasolini

If a poem is a rainbow,
only a few degrees

are translatable. The sun must endure.
There’s darkness before, there’s darkness

after. The dog hears only
a certain sound. We don’t talk about

the oaks, they hear with their eyes. But
there are no eyes. No trees. There was

a stream in the moss. When the corpse
burned, my jaw

twitched. I imagined
frayed ropes rushing

through a pulley in Damascus. A basket
full of dates and figs, and soapwort.  


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