lived 1880–1946
I rush headlong . . . the roiling water golden
the sky suspended from a burning frame . . .
I rush headlong
Mr. Ludwik Mr. Eminowicz
wait up
don’t hurry so
don’t run away
from us
into a fragile immortality
in some reference book
or anthology
in October 2000
I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair
(Frankfurt am Main)
eight hundred publishers
or maybe eight thousand publishers
were exhibiting a hundred thousand new titles
a million books
“the pope of German literature and criticism”
put in an appearance
five hundred poets (of both sexes)
read their poems
ja ja lesen macht schön
(schreiben macht häßlich)
but the greatest success
was Boris Yeltsin with his bestseller
and with champagne vodka and caviar
I was there too with a small volume
I drank a glass of red wine
with Leszek Kołakowski
I read poems with Miłosz
Nike sprinting before us
suddenly Eminowicz
popped into my head
“I rush headlong . . . the roiling water golden
the sky suspended from a burning frame”
I smiled to myself
Nike running behind us
cheeks unhealthily flushed
and I was thinking about Eminowicz’s poem
in “Pion” (Chess?)
somewhere once
long long ago
I had read that poem
[2000–2001]
rain in Kraków
rain in Kraków
rain
falling on the Wawel dragon
on the bones of giants
on Kościuszko Mound
on the Mickiewicz monument
on Podkowiński’s Frenzy
on Mr. Dulski
on the trumpeter from St. Mary’s tower
rain
rain in Kraków
dripping on the white Skałka church
on the green commons
on the Marshal’s coffin
beneath silver bells
on the gray foot soldiers
the clouds hunker down
settle in over Kraków
rain
rain falling
on Wyspiański’s eyes
on the unseeing stained glass
the mild eye of blue
a thunderbolt from a clear sky
long-legged maidens in high heels
fold colorful umbrellas
it’s growing brighter
the sun
emerges
I walk from one monastery to another
seeking the dance of death
in my hotel room
I attempt to hold on
to a poem that’s drifting away
on a sheet of paper
I have pinned a purple copper
butterfly
a patch of blue
rain rain rain
in Kraków
I read Norwid
it’s sweet to sleep
sweeter to be of stone
goodnight dear friends
goodnight
living and dead poets
goodnight poetry
[July 2000]
gray zone
cobweb
four drab women
Want Hardship Worry Guilt
wait somewhere far away
a person is born
grows
starts a family
builds a home
the four specters
wait
hidden in the foundations
they build for the person
a second home
a labyrinth
in a blind alley
the person lives loves
fills the home with hope
tears laughter
and care
the four drab women
play hide-and-seek with him
they lurk in chests
wardrobes bookcases
they feed on gloves dust
kerosene mud
they eat books
fade drab and quiet
by icy moonlight
they sit on paper flowers
the children clap
trying to kill moths
but the moths turn into silence
the silence into music
the four drab women wait
the person invites
other people
to christenings funerals
weddings and wakes
silver and gold anniversaries
the four drab women
enter the home uninvited
through the keyhole
first to appear is Guilt
behind her looms Worry
slowly there grows Want
baring her teeth comes Hardship
the home becomes a cobweb
in it are heard voices groans
gnashing of teeth
buzzing
the awakened gods
drive off
importunate humans
and yawn
. . .
on the road
of my life
which has been straight
though sometimes
it disappeared
round the bend
of history
there were whirlings
on the road of life
where I walked
flew
limped
losing along the way
the truth
which I sought
in dark places
sometimes on that road
I met
the children of my friends
my own children
I saw them learn to walk
I heard them learn to speak
in their eyes were questions
mysterious children
from the paintings
of Wojtkiewicz
hiding in corners
listening to our conversations
about poetry art music
at times they squealed
smiled were silent
mysterious children
from the paintings of Makowski
flat little clowns
with stuck-on
red noses
with snotty noses
smiling
we gradually lost our self-assurance
(“what are you gawking at?”)
we were so busy
then all at once
we saw that our children
have children
that they have
failures and successes
that they are turning gray
they ask us
“what are you gawking at?”
but we are silent
and hide in corners
[2002]
gray zone
“What makes gray a neutral color? Is it something physiological, or logical?”
“Grayness is situated between two extremes (black and white).”
WITTGENSTEIN
my gray zone
is starting to include poetry
here white is not absolute white
black is not absolute black
the edges of these non-colors
adjoin
Wittgenstein’s question is answered by Kępiński
The world of depression is a monochromatic world
dominated by grayness or total darkness
in the darkness of depression many things look
differently than in normal light
black and wh
ite flowers
grew only in Norwid’s poetry
Mickiewicz and Słowacki
were colorists
the world we live in
reels with color
but I don’t live in that world
I was only impolitely awakened
can one wake someone politely
I see
a ginger cat
in green grass
hunting a gray mouse
the artist Get
tells me he cannot see colors
he distinguishes them by the labels
on the tubes and tins
he reads and knows that this is
yellow red blue
but his palette is gray
he sees a gray cat
in gray grass
hunting a gray mouse
he has impaired vision
(he doesn’t suffer from depression)
maybe he’s pretending
so as to provoke his students
and enliven our discussion
we go on talking about Bemerkugen über
die Farben
W. talks of a red circle
a red square a green circle
I say to G. it would seem
that the square is merely filled
with red or green
the square is square
not red or green
according to Lichtenberg few
people have ever seen pure white
drawing may be the purest
form of art
drawing is filled
with pure emptiness
thus a drawing
is by its nature
closer to the absolute
than a Renoir painting
the Germans say
weiße rose and rote rose
for one who doesn’t know German
a rose
is neither rote nor weiße
it’s just a rose
but someone else has never heard the word
rose and what he holds in his hand
is a flower or a pipe
Regression in die Ursuppe
in the beginning was a thick
soup which under the influence
of light (and heat)
produced life
from the soup emerged a creature
or rather something
that transformed itself into yeast
into a chimpanzee
eventually god came along
and created humans
man and woman
sun cat and tick
humans invented the wheel
wrote Faust
and began printing
paper money
all sorts of things appeared
doughnuts Fat Thursday
platonic love pedophilia
national poetry day (sic!)
national rheumatism day (sic!)
national illness day–it’s today!
finally I too entered the world
in 1921 and suddenly . . .
atishoo! I’m old I forget my glasses
I forget that history
happened Caesar Hitler Mata Hari
Stalin capitalism communism
Einstein Picasso Al Capone
Al Qaida and Al Kaseltzer
during my eighty years
I’ve noticed that “everything”
turns into a strange soup
–but a soup of death not life
I’m drowning in this soup of death
I cry out in English
help me help me
(no one understands Polish any more)
I clutch at straws
(someone else has seized the day)
once long ago
the St. Francis of Polish poetry
Józef Wittlin
wrote an anthem on a spoonful of soup
but I forget what kind of soup it was
all at once my wife
comes out of the kitchen
she’s more and more beautiful
“will you have supper with me?”
“I’ve already eaten” she replies
if I were Solomon
I’d create for you
the song of songs
but even Solomon can’t pour
from an empty vessel let alone
a poet from Radomsko!
(not Florence or Paris
but
Radomsko . . .) Radomka
my homely little river
little creek or creeklet
creaklet? After turning
eighty I’m no longer bound
by the rules of spelling
. . . Tadeusz my friend
why exert yourself so?
I’ve lived to see
chat rooms columns
at-signs portals
I stare at the big dipper
above me
and don’t know what to make of it
I stare at the little dipper
and think dipper or shipper
Goethe’s grandson was magnificent
what was it he said?
. . . ich stehe vorm Kapitol
und weiss nicht was ich soll!
while his grandaddy had to write
dichtung und wahrheit
and add the entire italian journey
bravo! bravo! for the grandson
it’s time to return to the primordial soup
brother poets (and sister
poetesses too!)
let’s return to the anal phase
therein lies the source of all
fine arts and coarse arts
tertium non datur?
oh but yes! datur datur
the tertium is arising
before our very eyes
I know nothing about you
I don’t know who you have loved
I don’t know what kind of child you were
you’re a young woman
with a beautiful face
alluring eyes
and a mouth that denies it
I don’t know what you dreamt in the night
where you were this morning
running late
your cheeks rosy
breathless
you sat at the table
a third person came along
a young man
in a garish sweater
you were enjoying your żurek soup
or maybe it was barszcz
I had finished dinner
and was having a tea
with my finger I drew hearts
on the white napkin
Madame Maria
turned 92 today
she told me yesterday that
once in a train she met
Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy
she saw Tsar Nikolai and Rasputin
she’s still not sure
if the October Revolution
made any sense
after all the Russian intelligentsia was
the most progressive in Europe
–“between you and me, Mr. Tadeusz”–
yet it was consumed
by the Revolution
“–don’t forget
the newspaper and the toffees–
I wrote an article about White Marriage
‘Who’s Afraid of Tadeusz Różewicz’”
snow was falling
I thought you’d say goodbye to me
but you were on the steps
talking with the guy
I had a rough night
a bad black day
my son heard voices
he was abducted
god came to him in the form of light
a good quiet lad
he found himself in the middle
of the burning bush
bleeding
I walked through a wall of snow
heard a voice:
mein Vater, mein Vater,
und hörest du nich
t
was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind!
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind . . .
in this city
where a polar bear roams
where I hear Kiepura singing
la donna é mobile
where polar bears live
drink vodka and say “fuck it!”
and when they raise their heads
we see the faces
of our compatriots
purple as methylated spirit
Lacking a sense of reality
spattered with wet snow
I walked forward
walked in the four directions
of the world
and that is all
you who are distant close
and alien to me