new poems (3 page)

 

hell has been dismantled
by theologists
and psychoanalysts

 

has been turned into an allegory
for reasons humanitarian
and educational

 

take heart!
beyond the gateway
there is more of the same
two drunken gravediggers
sit by a hole
they're drinking non-alcoholic beer
snacking on sausage
winking at us
playing soccer
with Adam's skull
beneath the cross

 

the hole waits
for tomorrow's deceased
the stiff is on its way

 

take heart!

 

here we will wait for the final
judgment

 

the pit fills with water
cigarette butts float there

 

take heart!

 

beyond the gateway
there will be no history
no goodness no poetry

 

and what will there be
stranger?
there will be stones

 

stone
upon stone
upon stone a stone
and on that stone
another
stone

 

the days are shorter
the sundial stands
hourless in the rain

 

the sanatorium emerges
from clouds
like a vast passenger liner

 

columns of black trees
drip with water and moonlight

 

the sanatorium sails away
in the November mists

 

it rocks
its windows darkening one after another
plunges into shadow
into sleep

 

while below
underground
the devil has lit the old stove
in “Little Hell”

 

don't be afraid
it's only a late-night spot
a café
the saved and the condemned
cheeks flushed
lap up what's left of life

 

the temperature rises
and everything whirls
in a dance of death
um die dunklen Stellen der Frau

 

the ghost ship
runs aground

once somewhere
long ago
I read a poem
by Eminowicz
whose first name
I subsequently forgot

 

this was before the war

 

then

 

for half a century
I never encountered
his poetry

 

he would come to mind
every few years
then return to oblivion

 

 

yes I read the poem
in “Pion” magazine

 

chess?
not
chess
chess
I think it was
chess
the poem
rattled about in my head
like a death-watch beetle
(that was all I needed!)

 

two years ago
I found myself in Kraków
with Czesław Miłosz
in Ludwik Solski's Dressing Room

 

Mrs. Renata (this was her idea)
was asking us questions
about poetry youth the occupation
and women (laughter)
the topic was our love poetry

 

all at once I digressed and asked
do you remember the poet Eminowicz

 

Miłosz did

 

“Eminowicz? his first name was Ludwik”

 

later we talked about Staff and Fik
Czechowicz Przyboś Ważyk

 

a year passed
I was looking through
Extracts from Useful Books
and on page 207 I found a poem
by Ludwik Eminowicz “At Noon”
strange poet
strange poem neither good nor bad
the vanishing poet
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

 

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

 

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
prays and works
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

 

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

 

 

 

black and white 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

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?