Mathias Svalina

TOMA Ž ŠALAMUN IS DYING

• in a country I only understand 
• through poems written 
• by Tomaž Šalamun. 
• And again the wonder of art
• makes me wonder why 
• we wonder at the power 
• to kill that each thing has, 
• why we resist joy, 
• & why this resistance 
• can feel like a face. 
•  
• A metaphor is a figure of speech 
• in which a battery is cut in half.
• A simile is a figure of speech 
• comparing injury to scar.
• The theme of a poem is a cube.
• Fuck poems, poetry. 
• I want to dance with you 
• until the seams decay. 
• I want to follow your blue voice 
• that lives in my mouth 
• & hold a plastic tarp 
• outstretched in my arms over you 
• so the falling songbirds 
• become a balcony.
•  
• Tomaž: Do you like American music?
• Me: Yeah, I like American music. 
• Tomaž: Are you terrified?
• Me: I am terrified—
• it is December Eighth 
• & I feel no such thing as change.
•  
• Being alive confuses me, 
• exiled from a center 
• to a triumphal arch
• & each time I see my face
• it reminds me of me. 
•  
• Fuck poetry & everything 
• makes the day a magician
• of white noise & cotton.
• Tomaž, I never knew you, 
• but I want to read all your poems,
• everything, forever,
• to never stop, like a train, 
• like skin, like a throat,
•  
• to believe in love & fill 
• each house of each breath
• with the hips of the ocean,
• in a room filled with preachers 
• with the hills growing human hair 
• with the very thing 
• our muscles need 
• to hold the dirt we are
• to be buried in
• inside. 

MATHIAS SVALINA is the author of five books, most recently The Wine-Dark Sea from Sidebrow Books. He is an editor for Octopus Books and runs a dream delivery service (www.dreamdeliveryservice.com).