Table of Contents
Title Page
the professor’s knife
the professor’s knife
Dawn Day and Night with a Red Rose
gateway
Ghost Ship
the mystery of the poem
rain in Kraków
gray zone
cobweb
gray zone
Regression in die Ursuppe
I know nothing about you
Oriole
alarm clock
there’s a monument
conversation with Herr Scardanelli
the poet’s other mystery
The Mystery of the Poetry Reading
Too Bad
Done In
The Philosopher’s Secret
additional uses for books
why do I write?
March 21 2001–World Poetry Day
poet in applesauce
him too
a cold in China
Bad Music
the spilling of blood
Escape of the Two Little Piggies
The Weeping Superpower
building the Tower of Bauble
exit
philosopher’s stone
words
landslide
my old Guardian Angel
golden thoughts against a black background
à la Wyspiański
such is the master
fairy tale
finger to the lips
the last conversation
heart in mouth
poor Stachura the poet
labyrinths
Ashurbanipal killing a wounded lion
eternal return . . .
philosophers
what Aquinas saw
learning to walk
Der Zauberer The Magician
luxury
July 14 2004–in the night
before an unknown woman
in a guesthouse
letter in green ink
tempus fugit
knowledge
searching for keys
conversation between father and son about killing time
we’re building bridges
you can’t scare me
I rub my eyes
mini universe
the wheels are going round
speech conversation dialogue
three erotics
rhinoceros
embarrassment
poetry graveyard
recent poems
so what if it’s a dream
farewell to Raskolnikov
depressions II
depressions VII
The Gates of Death
Notes
Copyright Page
the professor’s knife
the professor’s knife
I
THE TRAINS
a freight train
cattle cars
a long string
passing through fields and woods
green meadows
grasses and wildflowers
so quietly the buzzing of bees can be heard
passing through mists
golden buttercups
marsh marigolds harebells
forget-me-nots
Vergissmeinnicht
this train
will never depart
from my memory
the pen rusts
flies off turning lovely in the light
of awoken spring
Robigus the almost unknown
demon of corrosion–a second-rank god–
consumes tracks rails
locomotives
the pen rusts
flies off sways rises
above the earth like a lark
a rusty
smudge against the blue
crumbles
earthwards
flies off
to warm lands
Robigus
who in antiquity
ate metals
–though he never touched gold–
consumes keys
and locks
swords plowshares knives
guillotine blades axes
rails that run
parallel
never meeting
a young woman
flag in hand
gives a signal
then disappears
into oblivion
toward the end of the war
a gold train left Hungary
left for the unknown
“gold”? the name was given
by American officers
mixed up in the Affair
they knew nothing
had heard nothing
besides they’re dying off
gold trains amber rooms
sunken continents
Noah’s ark
maybe my Hungarian friends
know something about the train
maybe its Kursbuch survived
its last schedule
from besieged Budapest
I stand in the last car
of the Inter Regnum–a train
to Berlin
and I hear a child nearby
exclaiming
“Look, the tree’s running away! . . .
into the woods . . .”
the engine carries the children away
I open my book
a poem by Norwid
I am building
a bridge
to link the past
with the future
The past is today,
but a little further on . . .
Beyond the wheels a village is there
Not just somewhere
Where people have never gone!
freight trains
cattle cars
the color of liver and blood
long strings
crammed with banal Evil
banal fear
despair
banal children women
girls
in the springtime of life
you hear that cry
for a single sip
a single sip of water
all of humanity calls
for a single sip
of banal water
I am building
a bridge to link the past
with the future
the rails run
parallel
the trains fly past
like black birds
they end their flight
in a fiery oven
from which no
song rises
into the empty sky
the train ends
its journey
turns into
a monument
across fields meadows woods
across mountains valleys
it races ever more quietly
the stone train
stands
over the abyss
if it is ever brought to life by cries
of hatred
from racists nationalists
fundamentalists
it will crash like an avalanche
onto humanity
not onto “humanity”!
onto people
II
COLUMBUS’ EGG
years later Mieczysław and I
are sitting at breakfast
the 20th century is ending
I cut bread on a board
spread butter
add a pinch of salt
“Tadzio, you eat too much bread . . .”
I smile I like bread
“you know” I reply
“a slice of fresh bread
a slice a crust
with butter
or lard with crackling
and a little pepper”
Mietek raises his eyes to heaven
I bite the crust
I know! salt is unhealthy
and bread is unhealthy
(white bread!)
and sugar! that’s death . . .
remember “sugar fortifies”?!
I think that was Waṅkowicz’s
Waṅkowicz . . . Waṅkowicz
we were a “world power”
sugar no longer fortifies . . .
do you fancy a soft-boiled egg
asks Mieczysław
if you’re having one I will
an egg for breakfast sets you up
Mieczysław is standing at the stove
Tadzio! don’t talk to me
while I’m boiling the eggs
why not . . .
just because! . . . now I’ve gone and forgotten
how many minutes they’ve been boiling
don’t you have a watch or clock or something
a timepiece I mean we’re entering
the 21st century there are supermarkets internets
there are egg timers
or whatever they’re called
in modern households
in Germany
they have all kinds of gadgets clocks
that chime send signals give warnings!
they have these special devices
in which you can boil a whole egg
without the shell
in the kitchen they have microwaves or maybe it’s
short waves it’s all a mystery
to me one day Mietek we’ll be eating
virtual eggs with no yolk
because yolks are unhealthy
not us but our grandchildren
Tadzio! you have to understand that boiling
an egg requires attention
concentration even
it’ll probably be overdone
the Germans now the Germans are mechanized
mechanical eggs
mechanical or metal
music not something for us
so then?!
what?
what do you mean what
how’s your egg
let’s see
you taught me
how to open an egg
I used to tap the shell with a spoon
but you cut the top off
with a single decisive
slice of the knife
of course with the egg in the shell
you won’t make a mess with spoons and fingernails
how’s yours?
mine’s good
not too hard not too soft
what was it you did . . . before you put the egg
in the water
I saw you pricking it
with something sharp . . . a needle?
I’d never seen that method
before . . .
I knew it! mine’s hard-boiled
I think you’re using too much salt
well you know a soft-boiled egg
without pepper or salt . . .
there are certain principles . . . and as for
the matter of timing my aunt had
a way of measuring it a soft-boiled egg is done
in the time it takes to say three hail marys
but that’s not a good method for atheists
says the atheist?
what atheist . . . have you ever met a real atheist
or a real nihilist in Poland
there’ve been plenty
freethinkers atheists
materialists communists activists
marxists even trotskyists
what do you say to that?!
I say they were all jumping with impatience
to join the pilgrimage
of the cultured and the artistic
from Warsaw to Częstochowa
that was always the way here
everyone had their own Jew or their priest
everyone contained a Father Robak
a Jankiel or a Konrad Wallrenrod
where did Konrad Wallenrod come from?
I don’t want to worry you but you’ve over-salted it . . .
you know there are blanks in the memory I know
listen I cannot for the life of me
remember how it was with Columbus’ egg
Columbus stood the egg upright? how did it go
was it that he stood the egg on the table “on end”
we should check in Kopaliński
scrambled egg with sausage or bacon
is out of the question now
I remember now what Norwid said
at the Matejko exhibition in Paris
in 1876 (I think it was) you know for the last two
years I’ve been immersed in Norwid I intend
to write a little book
learning Norwid or learning from Norwid
Norwid said about one of Matejko’s paintings
–I’d missed this though I know
almost all there is to know about Matejko–
Norwid called it “the scrambled egg of the nation”
it was Zygmunt’s Bell
I don’t know where the painting is now
from the Palais de l’Industrie (in 1873)
Scrambled egg of the nation! between
ourselves neither Europe nor America knows
what real scrambled egg is like
that’s the truth . . . but how’s it going with Norwid
it’s not going . . . or rather it’s going ploddingly
Art is like a flag on the tower of human labor
he’s extraordinary . . .
III
SHADES
in the afternoon we visited
Hania’s grave
Hania passed away five years ago
Mieczysław was left on his own
Robigus the rust demon
covers the past with rust
covers words and eyes
the smiles
of the dead
the pen
we walk further to the tomb
of Bronia Przybosiowa
her funeral was attended
by daughters and grandchildren
from Paris New York
Julian wanted the elder daughter
to be a gardener an orchard-keeper
he probably dreamed that in his old
age he’d have his own little apple tree
and would write
avant-garde poems
in the shade of the apple
in the shade of the tree
that he would continue
his profession–the profession of Czarnolas
but
metropolis mass machine
brought the avant-garde
an unpleasant surprise
turned into a trap
the transports set off
freight cars and cattle cars
laden with banalized evil
set off from the east
west
south and north
freight trains
crammed with banal fear
banal despair
to this day the faces
of old women
are streaked with banal tears
after the war miraculous images wept
and so did living
women
figures wept people wept
IV
THE DISCOVERY OF THE KNIFE
Mieczysław in a letter to me
from 1998
after I’d asked him
where the knife came from
whether he’d made it himself
found it
stolen it
dug it up
(the iron age)
whether it fell from the sky
(miracles do happen)
Mieczysław:
I thought some more
about that knife of mine
made from the hoop of a barrel.
It was kept in the hem
of your striped prison uniform,
because they confiscated things
and it could cost you dearly . . .
And so its function
was not only practical
but much more complex
(we should talk about it some more) . . .
Robigus coats the short iron knife
with rust
and slowly consumes it
I saw it for the first time
on the Professor’s desk
in the middle of the 20th century
strange knife–I thought
neither a paper knife
nor a potato peeler
nor a knife for fish or meat
it lay between Matejko and Rodakowski
between Kantor Jaremianka and Stern