ISSUE 8 FEATURE

[CHOORY MOORY DOWN TOWN]
by Tomaž Šalamun
    translated by Michael Thomas Taren
    and the author

choory moory down town
metaphysics on cheeks, parallel stripes
under chinese lanterns, I fluttered my hands            
I'm dead dry sploodge (marko švabič) brooklyn heights

cowboys out, the belly of the world
white chairs, white armchairs
ace, to go to madrid to buy a black bread brown
a man sees a sage, turns a roulette

christ out of a teflon, frogs of ezra pound
they jump and grab the sky
a wagon glides down the hill, the military police
they fret checks, they talk in the darkness

I caressed beowulf, here hesse reigns
a sleek loaded gun, a leveled palm
crickets, roads on storeys, tree barks on the floors
the fat pig colonel munches and dreams

Tomaž Šalamun was an internationally recognized Slovenian poet, and one of the leaders of the Eastern European avant-garde, and the author of more than forty collections of poetry in Slovenian and English.