for all time
Oriole
(from a memoir of Monika Żeromska)
through the half-open door
I gazed at the deep sleep
of an eleven-year-old
whom I did not wish to wake at any price
who could have guessed the child’s dreams?
Were they in this world (. . .) or a different one
that adults can no longer see
Have you read the short story “The Oriole”
I’m the oriole
it was for me my father wrote it
for me
and by the way the dedication
you wrote for me in that book
is rather . . . uninspired
banal
whenever I visit you Miss Monika
I’ll add
something new
it will be an uncommon dedication
for you I wrote
a poem about a rose
I doubt you read
the last volume of memoirs either Mr. Tadeusz
I confess I’ve not finished
the most recent volume
the poem about the rose
I wrote for you
so why add a dedication
one day I’ll show you poems
and dedications written for me
by the Skamander poets! Tuwim Broniewski Lechoń
even Słonimski
Miss Monika
the Skamandrists were different!
what was it they wrote? my head’s all filled with greenery
and violets grow within?
my head is filled with puzzlement
and nothing grows within
though sometimes there’s a ringing
the Skamandrists were talented grand
somewhat juvenile
they flourished between the two Great Slaughters
cavalry uhlans lances in battle
swords in hand a dream of power
Wieniawa and then Bór-Komorowski
Zawodziński was an uhlan The poems
of Peiper Wat Stern
even Przyboś
seemed suspect to him
Grandfather loved the cavalry
I don’t know what he thought about tanks
he maintained order
interned whomever necessary in the camp at Bereza
left and right
I see you have a photo of Grandfather
a warm intimate picture
he’s wearing a buttoned dressing gown
at home we referred to the Marshal as “Józwa”
They had a mortal falling out
when The Coming Spring appeared
now I’ve reconciled them
I put these photographs
face to face
I know they loved one another
so let them look each other in the eye
it’s February 2002
I’m walking down Stefan Żeromski Street
going to bid farewell to Miss Monika
who has taken her last sleep passed away
I press the button of the intercom
the last name and the first names
Anna Monika written
in green paint
the door opens
an old woman is standing there
she says in a scratchy voice
that no one is in
“and I’ve got the flu” she adds
the gate slams
I stand for a moment taking in
the building the trees
a magpie caws
the roses are buried
the oriole has flown
Miss Monika’s voice
lovely full of life
has faded from the intercom
where are you? come on up
Mr. Tadeusz
I’m at the gate
“I’ll let you in”
Broniewski and Gałczyński
used to wait at that gate
after the war
Mama never knew
what to do with them
she’d be on her way to bed
they were so amusing
effusive and tipsy
they sang serenades
actually Broniewski once
got lost in the rain
what am I to do with them
Mama would ask in alarm
both of them were under the influence
when I went down to meet them
on the other side of the green gate
there was no one
have you read the short story “The Oriole”
the oriole is me do you like artichokes?
me? I prefer black pudding . . .
artichokes remind me of cactus
where am I to look for you
I don’t know where they buried you
I confess
I’ve not yet finished
that last volume of memoirs
I was in Konstancin
in July 2001
I called you
you had returned from the hospital
seriously weakened
. . .
“It’s past and gone [...]
Best would be to go mad”
(TADEUSZ KONWICKI, Afterglows)
And once again
the past begins
best would be to go mad
you’re right Tadzio
but our generation doesn’t go mad
our eyes stay open
to the very end
we don’t need to be blindfolded
we have no use for the paradises
of faiths sects religions
with broken backs
we crawl on
that’s right Tadzio at the end
we have to relive everything
from the beginning
you know that as well as I
at times we whisper
all people will be brothers
in life’s labyrinth
we encounter
distorted faces of friends
enemies
without name
do you hear me
I’m telling you an image from the past
once again I’m running away
from a specter who
wrapped in a gaberdine of sky
stands in a green meadow
and speaks to me in an unknown language
I am the lord thy god
who led thee out of the house of bondage
everything starts from the beginning
once again Mr. Turski
my singing teacher
looks at me with the handsome
gentle eyes
of Omar Sharif
and I sing
the apple tree has blossomed (...)
red apples did it bear ...
I know I’m out of tune
but Mr. Turski has been smiling
at me since 1930
and I get an A
Mr. Turski in a strange
fragrant cloud
exotic and mysterious
for an elementary school
in a provincial town
between Częstochowa and Piotrków Trybunalski
smiles
and takes his mystery
to the grave
when will the past
finally end
alarm clock
how hard it is to be
the shepherd of the dead
at every step
the living ask me
to write “something” “a few words”
about someone who has died
departed passed away
is resting in peace
and I’m the one who is writing living
living and writing again
let the dead bury their dead
I hear a ticking
it’s my old alarm clock
made in the PRC
(Shanghai–China)
when the Great Helmsman was still alive
he let a hundred flowers bloom
and challenged a hundred schools of art
to compete
then came the cultural revolution
my alarm clock is like a tractor
it needs to be “wound up with a rake-handle”
(you remember that expression of primitive
pseudo-educated Polish farm managers
“a peasant needs a watch like a hole in the head
he’ll only try to wind it up with a rake-handle”
the peasants have forgotten . . . but “the poet remembers”)
I wind it up like Gerwazy
the alarm clock wakes me at five
it never fails
it’s an old Chinaman nodding his head
in the window of a colonial goods store
above a tin of tea
the alarm clock wakes me several
times a year
reminding me that I have to
travel somewhere fly somewhere
south north
west east
or that I need to rise at dawn
and finish some “poem”
hundert Blumen blühen
(in Munich I bought
Chairman Mao’s
little red book
with an introduction
by Lin Biao)
I poet–shepherd of life
have become shepherd of the dead
I have labored too long on the pastures
of your cemeteries Depart now
you dead leave me
in peace
this is a matter for the living
there’s a monument
there’s a monument
on Ostrów Tumski
melancholy neglected
the monument of the Good Pope
it stands impassive
imperfect (may
God forgive its “creator”
a slip of the hand . . .)
no one lays wreaths here
at times the wind brings
newspapers trash
someone has left an empty
beer can
it rolls across the cobblestones
like metallic
techno music
the wind blows
in the Good Pope’s eyes
in his stone ears
across his large nose
no one remembers
who raised it consecrated it
left it
April is the month of remembrance?
on the anniversary of the encyclical
Pacem in terris
I saw a dry stalk
in a bottle
poor Roncalli
poor John XXIII
my pope
he looks like a barrel
like an elephant
they did a number on you
aren’t you sad
Holy Father
my dear father
you should rebel
interrupt your sleep
head for Rome
for Sotto il Monte
sleep dream God
and faith alone
stand in Wrocław
a horror in stone
but in my heart
you have
the most lovely monument in the world
I recite for you
poems by Norwid
(according to Michelangelo
Buonarroti)
It’s sweet to sleep, but sweeter still to be of stone
In days that shame and calumny have made their own
you smile
you see John you’re neglected
because your monument is “wrong”
it was put up by some suspect
organization like Pax or
Caritas with a party affiliation
such were the dark wheelings and dealings
in our country
in yesteryear
you remained yourself you lost none
of your good humor and with your stone
hand jutting from your stomach
as if from a stone cask
you bless me
Tadeusz Juda of Radomsko
of whom it’s said
he is an “atheist”
but my Good Pope
what sort of atheist am I
they keep asking me
what I think about God
and I answer
what matters isn’t what I think about God
but what God thinks about me
. . .
Master Jakob Böhme
(not my master)
so then
a Silesian shoemaker
by the name of Jakob Böhme
“philosophus teutonicus”
as he was called
who lived by the bridge
in Görlitz
told me how
he saw the gleam of the divine light
in a tin pitcher
or maybe a beer mug
I walked from Zgorzelec to Görlitz
to buy shoes or maybe brandy
armies of ants were marching
over the bridge carrying
Garden Gnomes Gartenzwerge
wicker baskets strong liquor
I’ve forgotten the details
of the story told by that modest man
and capable artisan
who saw in his kitchen
in some container
the gleam of the absolute
see you descendants in what
modest form God appeared
to the shoemaker of Zgorzelec
(though he was a good shoemaker)
conversation with Herr Scardanelli
(an apocryphal story)
“sehen Sie gnädiger Herr kein Komma”
sehen Sie gnädiger Herr Scardanelli
kein Komma kein Punkt
Doppelpunkt Strichpunkt Gedanken-Strich
and just between ourselves
you were no ordinary madman
you were sometimes the mad Eure Excellenz
sometimes you pretended to be Greek
Leb wohl, Hyperion . . .
Gute Nacht, Diotima . . .
Diotima you dreamed up
from a white glacier
she did not sweat did not eat
lacked that which every maid
and every woman possesses
hadn’t a drop of blood in her body
she was a copy of a Greek sculpture
her colors had faded
she was a death mask
poor
poor Scardanelli
the Nazis exploited you
but in Mein Kampf
there’s not a word about you
Hitler adored Wagner
was himself a character from Kotzebue
Pity you never read
Heidegger’s comments
on your poetry
they’re brilliant
the professor was a scribbler
wrote indifferent poems
to his Jewish lover
the “lump in pumps”
–as Thomas Bernhard called him–
wanted to be führer to the Führer
I last saw you in Valhalla
near Regensburg
though I didn’t see Heine there
you were a thoroughly German
genius and that was why you went mad
later you played the madman
and wrote extraordinary poems from the Tower
Eure Heiligkeit
when you were asked about Goethe
you shrugged
when you were asked about poetry
you shrugged
or you said: “Sehen Sie gnädiger Herr
kein Komma”
[2002]
the poet’s other mystery
the poet is 90
and he is 9
and 900
or he is 80
is 8
and is 800
make room for youth
I say to myself
I see
a cat
lying by the fence
its sharp teeth bared
to the sky
little flowers by the stream gazing
with their eyes agleam
the fragrant acacia
I mean I’m not going to start
waking people at night to tell them
that I had good intentions
and I oughtn’t to wake my wife
to tell her
I’m afraid of death
it’s time to die
but I somehow don’t want to
there’s one more poem by Leśmian
one more painting by Nowosielski