I remember a thorn in my heel.

Sheaves of wheat lay in a field. 

When I climbed up on my father’s shoulders,

I didn’t know he would die. 

Blue towels terrify me.

The pictures of naked women keep moving

to higher shelves as I grow up.

When father works, the clocks stand still.

s n o w m a n

Suffering joins fear and disgust.

I see enormous snowballs. I SEE

ENORMOUS SNOWBALLS. People

think they contain the hidden horror

of the world. But I know. They’re the finished

work of slaves, waiting for me.

I can build the little guy

half asleep. When I take a red root

from the bin and stick it in the smallest

ball, I’m more relaxed than a

king who’s planted a tree. The photos

of my gestures go to the center.

Immortality is always nihilistic.

s a n  j u a n  d e  l a  c r u z  a n d  j o h n  d i l g

My god is a cruel yellow bug,

it settles wherever it wants.

Clown! I don’t fall for your tricks

anymore! My god is a thousand flashes in a

single cube of sugar. Now I dip it into

coffee in your castle, just as

fate dealt with your two children, Katrina Trask.

The sugar vanishes, I vanish. I wipe

my forehead. The guests stare and ask

if I’m insane. I come unstuck. And again

it transports me into the fire in the eyes of others.

Into the steely velvet irises of John

Dilg. Every bite in his bread is a

tempest. I bend like a bridge. I’ll

endure this joke. Where are you,

grass? I’ll wall you up in a bee.

Insects, insects! Striped, smelling

machines! Stay where you

were, friend. Don’t stroll over the

abyss of my rights – human fibers.

Endure your crime.

To the nun who fixed

real hair onto the doll of Christ –

what did you pierce the head with?

Young ladies in far-off lands wear high heels.

Man strokes

a copper sphere.

If it weren’t for Descartes, they’d have

found the golden flower!

Horses in the steppes would have their hooves wrapped

in a layer of nylon. The nylon would be in my

mothers’ flesh.

I lifted the eastern edge

of the table, to let the

crumbs

of bread roll toward the

door.

With my tongue,

like a faithful, devoted

dog, I lick Your

golden head,

reader.

Horrible is my

love.

g o d ’ s  s t r a w

May 22, 9:30, listen

Metka,

wretched creature, lurking from your ambush across

the ocean on my holy mouth with warm, dangling

members, affixed to that infamous

hen-house, dripping with oil and melon.

Into your blind alley, march!

Long live Agatha Christie and all tranquil

fossils! Disgusting

zipper!

Absurdly soldered flour-box, consuming

miles of my paper, even in my

sleep! Where did you get the right

to wiggle beneath me,

paramecium,

to quiver and yelp like the orgasm of some alpine

tour?

Your ears are flat! At every

throb I pray for an avalanche to

bury you. Hey, Saint

Bernards! I want your liquor for my wife. For

her sake I’ve neglected the

insects that have stopped

fluttering around my silk. Watch yourself,

cannibal, wanting to imprint

my face into your live

flesh.

I won’t take the bait.

I’m not some Slovene peasant.

I’m Angelica da Foligno.

I remain god’s straw.

Andra and Toma  alamun,

sitting in green armchairs,

two awesome salesmen from the least.

(I meant to write from the east,

but mistyped.)

He with his madness,

I with my Christ.

Both of us stare at the smoke.

Yeah, I fuck his brain.

He loves my cries.

(I meant to write Christ,

but mistyped,

word of honor in both

cases.)

The same, mum!

t h e  o e u v r e  a n d  i t s  b r a c k e t s

Let various Marxists and the herd still

shuffling outside my door gnash their

teeth, but I’m living

now. All I

do is slightly

rearrange the struggle for the seed flowing

in the universe.

Remember how Maruska

went around dressed!

A fatter rope around

her waist – three years later it appeared in

Vogue – than

the kind they use to dock

a steamship. One day Metka will

show up at the Academy in

sackcloth, tongues of flame shooting from

her eyes. My wives

vie with the Lord

for disguises.

Right at the edge they scream.

They excise me from the head of the world. That’s why

this time the muses dictate practical

instructions to me, because they want me to be

fine, even when I’m old and

dottering. With everything cooked

and laundered just right, young poets and lovers

met nicely at the door.

And not a day’s delay with correspondence.

In short, my wives must leap into

the Void, but

not with their eyes

closed, or holding their noses from violent

love.

Clearly, that technique only leads to an awful

kerplunk!

Not just me.

Everyone I touch becomes

the food of this flame.

d o u b t i n g  g r a n d s o n

Don’t nod off on

the train from Venice to

Vienna, dear

reader.

Slovenia is so

tiny you could

miss it. Tinier than my

ranch east of the

Sierras!

Instead, get up,

stick you head out the window, though it says

FORBIDDEN!

Listen to my

golden voice!

p r o l o g u e  I

God is made of wood and doused in gasoline.

I take a cigarette to burn a spider’s leg.

The gentle swaying of grasses in the wind.

Heaven’s vault is cruel.

p r o l o g u e  I I

I write this to you, whom till now I’ve only

warned.

I can scarcely control my

servants, who threaten me with

revolt.

The smell of your burnt

flesh is my

life, they whisper.

We’re too old to

change masters.

So I warn you, your fate is

not clear.

If I weary in

this battle, you’ll

burn up.

j e r u s a l e m

The crime has been written:

you will never

meet a person that you

love as much as

me.

g r a i n

In America Rose Kennedy goes to mass twice

each morning. Along the way she eats a sandwich

to save money. Three sons, three hero’s medals

jingle on her blue blouse.

The woman even eats through the exaltation of the host.

All other women who don’t eat through the

exaltation drown at

Chappaquidick, or go to hospitals

for electroshock. The third generation of Kennedys

numbers roughly a billion. They’re sweeter than the

kitchiest picture postcards. Teddy

sails. He hasn’t yet made up his mind. If America

fails, it will be because Teddy gets

mad at some prankster who breaks his sail’s

frame. Meanwhile, in California my friend

Jerry Brown is sleeping sweetly. No

wonder he’s rested. I make love to him night and day.

And somewhere, in America’s heart, lost

amid the corn, an ordinary farmer says:

I’ve had it with this Boston quasi-elite

and their provincial Catholic bullshit.

To hell with Teddy and his health care

mafia! In green fields and in the

blue sky my most secret flower

opens. That’s also how every young

Slovenian poet should behave,

and if not, then in this century they simply

do not have a chance.

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