From OPERA BUFFA

Tomaž Šalamun, Matthew Moore

07.05.21

ANGELINA, ANGELINA, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU NOW?

With night come the bees that do not
retreat. Knead your shoulder,

and the bread, held by your shoulder.
The jumper you lubricate can

never forget. Ben-Hur! You are so
willing to gobble hairpins, so

gobble hairpins! To eat grass with
Griboyedov could not mean

forgiveness. The frog is a failure. You
wash with piss but know it right away.

I wish I had the wind. I’d like to have spirits.
I would like wind and spirits.

The rowers gnaw a silver belt.
I see at least two of them here.


IN NEW YORK JAILS

Here’s your summons! The owl
stamps it. Stable hands

post at stalls, jockeys at docket.
They hope, a hush tone,

Mr. Groznik might stop along.
And, could you recall

Mr. Groznik? He got busted
in the Bahamas. I ran

the underwear in here
he sent for his brother.

We splashed in great white milk.
From one continent, to the other.

In the tower, Karlica was hot.
In that time, Karlica was drunk.

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.

Matthew Moore is a poet, translator, and editor. His poems appear in journals and magazines including Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, The Carolina Quarterly, Fence, Guesthouse, Lana Turner, and Second Stutter. From 2012 to 2020, he co-edited the online poetry journal Flag + Void. He is the translator of Tomaž Šalamun’s Opera Buffa, forthcoming from Black Ocean in September 2021.

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