new poems (4 page)

 

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 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 nicht

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
for all time

(from a memoir of Monika Żeromska)

 

 

 

 

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
Gałczyński disappeared too one time
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

 

 

. . .

(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

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
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)

 

 

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

 

 

. . .