new poems (5 page)

 

 

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)

(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”

 

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
a sip of red wine
another encounter with Hamlet
I first met him
sixty years ago
he's not changed a bit
I on the other hand

 

midnight
I read Chekhov smile at him
what a kind good man
he must have loved people . . .
“ich sterbe” he said and passed away

 

here I have a letter to
Bujnowski
I'll never finish it
because his wife wrote to say
Józek had died
“it's so hard to bid farewell to life” he said
before dying . . .

 

“Adamaszek” leaves his house
smiles at me
his wife buttons his coat
from his eyes I can tell
he's no idea who I am
though we've known each other fifty years
I can see he doesn't see me
yesterday Mietek called
“Adamaszek died you know”

 

this morning
I met a mongrel
that I know
sometimes I talk to it
it used to bark at me
it lies in the sun ignoring people
its little muzzle
completely gray

 

where are you doggy
I know I know you have your own affairs
by the post by the tree
round the corner

From Aristotle
Omne animal post coitum
triste est
praeter gallum, qui post coitum
cantat

 

at the reading
the poet
rises
and falls with the audience
levitates
drinks water
takes wing

 

after the reading
by candlelight
or without candles
he takes questions
signs books
writes in journals
receives flowers
kisses a beautiful young lady
on the cheek

 

flowers ribbons
tied in hair
murmur of voices
the candles are put out
silence

 

give me your shadow
and your supple neck
no
I don't want shadow

 

alone in the hotel room

 

nur narr
nur dichter

 

throat dry
heart pounding

 

beneath the candelabras of chestnuts
male and female students
laughing shouting kissing
drinking beer from bottles
standing still
in the moonlight

 

he hears footsteps
in the hallway
a woman is coming
he hears
another door
closing
the tap of heels
now everything starts again
from the beginning
in a dream
the door opens
he sees
a dress falling
from shoulders
breasts
knees
he wakes
turns on the light
opens
Faust

 

 

 

after a reading
the poet is sad

 

I never finished reading
the “Paradiso” mea culpa
I got bored in the “Purgatorio”
mea culpa
the “Inferno” alone I read
with flushed face
mea maxima culpa

 

Ezra Pound read not only all of
Dante and Confucius
but also the poet from Predappio
(la Clara a Milano!)
whom he adored

 

Pound was a madman a genius
and a martyr
His favorite student
Possum
wrote beautiful poems about cats
wore tasteful neckties
and was more temperate in speech
than his master
for which he received the Nobel Prize

 

Pound
was right
not to be fond
of capitalists and moneylenders
he sought to drive the merchants
from the temple
he was put
in a straightjacket
in this outfit
he roams Parnassus
conversing with the admirer
of Dante Ariosto Schiller
Klopstock Platen
and Weiblinger . . .
with the poet composer leader
translator and author of the poem
Die Worte vom Brot
with Benito Mussolini himself!
(serves you right! you foolish poet)

 

PS
too bad Pound never finished
Mein Kampf
before he started extolling
the Führer

Done in
by a plank
on a trash heap Pier Paolo
tries to rise from the dead
crawls

 

enclosed in his hands he bears
bloody human
genitals like a chick
in the nest
up to the Lord's throne

 

and this divine earth
with its unearthly beauty
this lesion in the universe
this canker in the loins
of the milky way
spits blood and sperm

 

it was you Pier Paolo
who said
“Far off a person sees someone
who is killing another person.
He's a witness to the act,
he distances himself from it . . .”
someone
saw from far off
another person
who was killing you
La Terra vista dalla Luna
il porcile
a barely fledged youth
giovane di primo pelo
a kitchen boy with the burning eyes
of La Fornarina
clenching his buttocks
the rectum of paradise

 

too young for the noose
for a death sentence an amorino
consuming the shit of the world
one of the heroes
of
Salo or 120 Days of Sodom

 

Created in the image
and likeness of God
Pier Paolo awaits
the day of judgment

 

this confession
came in the private diary
of the philosopher

 

now interpreters publishers
slave traders relatives
have sold
the person

 

it's the revenge of his
famous assertion
(conjecture?)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann
darüber muß man schweigen

 

a saying as common and as hackneyed
as the Mona Lisa's smile
as the tongue Albert Einstein
poked out at the journalists

 

September 5 1914
I lie on straw–on the ground–
I'm reading and writing
on a small wooden trunk
(preis 2,50 kronen)
wrote the philosopher
today once again I mas——

 

things are so tough–wrote the philosopher
Lord take pity on me
I'm a worm
but with God's help I'll become
a person
and he wrote
that he'd have to take his own life

 

I'm going through hell

 

Lord may the cup
pass me by
the mind is asleep in the head
wrote
the philosopher
then he wrote that he was afraid

 

and now bad people
have sold the philosopher
and his great secret
that he mas——
like a boy or a recruit
like a million a hundred million boys
it's all half-scary half-funny
like the tiger in the circus
or the monkey masturbating
in the zoo
in plain sight
of its larger brothers
from the vanishing species
of
Homo sapiens

 

Wittgenstein served as a volunteer
on a ship called the Goplana
it was still sailing
between Kraków and Sandomierz
after the second world war
when I was a student
or maybe I just dreamt it!
the Goplana with its great paddle wheel

 

Der Wachschiff Goplana

 

In Krakau
Trakl vor wenigen Tagen
gestorben ist

large books and small
can be variously utilized

 

in the morning
upon waking
jump briskly out of bed
(don't waste the day!)
take a book
(if you have one at home)
and begin your exercises

 

walk in a straight line
with the book
on your head

 

you ask
“which book”
this isn't about books
it's about balance

 

place one foot
in front of the other
do not move your hips
from side to side

 

set the book
aside
“which book?”
it could be
Quo Vadis
With Fire and Sword
J. R. R. Tolkien
Der Herr der Ringe
(mit Anhängen)
Baudolino
An Ancient Legend
it makes no difference
it could be something shortlisted

 

walk straight
with eyes closed
stretch out your arms
to the sides
walk in a straight line
take a deep breath

 

sometimes “life” conceals
That
which is greater than life

 

Sometimes mountains conceal
That
which is beyond the mountains
so the mountains must be moved
but I lack the necessary
technical means
and the strength
and the faith
to move mountains
so you will not see it
ever
I know
and that is why
I write

around noon the phone rang
“today is poetry day”
said Maria
“I can't hear you!”
“today is World Poetry Day, o poet!
it's been established by Unesco”
Even Ionesco couldn't have thought up
something like this! this is something (something)!

 

“Poet, I send you
best wishes on your own holiday”
said M. imperturbably
tomorrow is world rheumatism day
I replied and
sat for a moment to
put on my boots . . . damn laces
one end always longer than the other
tangled like the black spaghetti
advertised in Malbork
by charming grandma Zosia from Naples

 

How did Leopold Staff put it?
Something must be tied,
something joined,
something resolved.

 

before I'd tied them
the phone rang
“good morning
pardon my boldness
but I'm an old lady
close to death could
I come round right now
and read you my poems?”
no!
I replied gruffly . . .
but I relented . . . (embarrassed)
“how old are you exactly?”
seventy