new poems (6 page)

 

well I'm eighty
I'm sick
(and I was “half-dead”)
but you look so well on the television
your neighbor the lady who runs the steam press
saw you . . . I'm ill too . . .
the voice unwound softly
like a ball of yarn in a dream
sweet painless
“I live round the corner”

 

I can't
I repeated more quietly
feeling like a killer of old ladies
a butcher (or baker) from the Old Town
a murderer Jack the Ripper Jacques the Fatalist
“my grandson persuaded me to write
and my daughter-in-law to paint” said the old lady
actually old ladies can hardly be blamed
for painting writing poems making cutouts
if ladies in high heels
write novels
compose music
to their own words release records
a golden mask a handprint in Między
zdroje a Fryderyk Prize
after all these women in (or past) the prime
of life could be doing so many other
things...

 

One is in Paris
one is in Naples
the third: Hans Metaphysikus
“in seinem Schreibgemache”
and for me an old lady is waiting
round the corner

 

my leg hurts
my eye hurts
grauer Star
Geschwulst am linken fuß
gestörter venöser Zirkulation
Ulcus cruris varicosum
gichtischen Schmerzen nehmen zu

 

In Toledo I bought
Spanische Fliege
eine Tasse Fliegertee
didn't help!
forgive these ostentations
these linguistic flirtations
(I'm doing it for my critics)
Spanish fly is just a compress
or a tincture
from the beetle Lytta vesicatoria
maybe I'll manage
to make my deepest self possessed
by some philosopher
because I make myself depressed
by being too shallow

on an endlessly
long
golden honeysweet
strip of
flypaper

 

in a little blue tux I see
a great medium
small
poet

 

I see a fly
on the strip
blowing into its blocked proboscis
stretching out a leg
cleaning its sticky
wings
its legs flailing
piping a song:
Root-toot-toot–
warming up for battle

 

rubbing its hands

 

in an empty vodka bottle
it deposits its suffering
(for posterity)
on the milky way I see
a black spitfly
(spitting and apologizing
apologizing and spitting)

 

after a thunderous flight
a soft landing
on a rubbish bag
in some radical
porno-rag

 

you hear the heroic buzzing
in space (that's our
Root-toot-toot
making a face)

him too he writes
poems
Adam!

 

the spoon raised to his lips
Adam froze

 

you hear? I'm talking to you
Adam . . . he's not listening!
so then dear friends
Mr. Onufry Mr. Teofil's neighbor
writes too
and he's pretty good
dashing off
all kinds of stuff and nonsense
fairy tales idylls bucolics pastorals
ballads limericks dactyls iambs
historical songs elegies
rhapsodies chivalrous legends
epics comic sagas
hexameters trochees
eat up Adam
or your beet soup
will get cold!

 

Adam frozen
gave Mr. Onufry
a piercing look
while the latter
thinking that our Bard
had a dumpling from his soup
stuck in his throat
gave Adam such a whack
on the back with his hand . . .
the table grew jollier
right away . . .
Only Mr. Antoni was upset
turning red as a poppy
then the blood drained
from his face and he too froze
the lady of the house swooned
and salts infusions and fans
were set in motion

 

PS
I'm letting you know, my good Mr. Władysław,
since you asked me to write to you
about your late father, to tell you what I remember
and what I saw with my own eyes, I send this to you
with blessings and greetings . . . and since
you yourself apparently dabble
in writing, perhaps you can explain
the mystery of why the word “too” sometimes
makes such a dramatic impression
on bards . . . because we ordinary mortals
though we scribble our own stuff and nonsense
and little poems, lose neither
our good humor nor our appetite,
something I also wish for you.

I was in China in autumn 1958
a billion Chinese (or maybe half a billion?)
were preparing for the “great leap forward”

 

in the hallway of the Shanghai hotel
I met a man
with a scarf round his throat
he held a handkerchief to his mouth
indicating with his eyes that he could not speak
his traveling companion
explained to us that the painter Nacht (Samborski)
had a cold a sore throat that he apologized
worried he'd get the flu
afraid of conversation of bacteria
he was steering clear of drafts he apologized
he had a cough and a temperature of 99
he was avoiding all contact was afraid of amoebas
was keeping his mouth closed . . . living on crackers and tea
he intended to interrupt his journey he wasn't
flying to Canton but would return home
he would go to the sanatorium at Laski
afraid to speak
the great artist
and gifted storyteller
took off quickly
without a handshake

 

Witold Z. stood with gaping
mouth and eyes (still blue
then) wide open
he looked at me
on his
face
there appeared a wordless question
half a billion Chinese were taking
the “great leap forward”
and one little fellow from Warsaw
had a cold and so
was paying no attention
to this minor event
because his cold because his nose because he'd sneezed
bless you
how could this be explained

 

I smiled toward the painter's back

 

and right then I look a liking
to Witek Z.
because of his capacity
for surprise

 

because of his openness

 

and though in the dining car
from Peking to Shanghai
he was hungry . . .
and was most upset
that I got my lunch first
we're fond of each other
and admire one another
to this day

 

along the tracks there could be seen
people defecating
facing the train and smiling

 

in the morning mists the figure
of someone exercising
faded away

 

every few years
we reminisce not only about the stumbling
“great leap” and the great wall
the black chrysanthemum and the painter
but also
the thoroughly frightened
Polish journalist
the brave and wise
Polish student
the opera and the circus

 

and also the throng of children around us
laughing and shouting

 

when asked
what the children were shouting
our interpreter and guide
answered that the children
were exclaiming “long live Chinese-Polish friendship”
but a few days later in a whisper
he explained that they had been saying
“long noses long noses”
we took a closer look at our noses
they were neither long nor short
noses can be funny
and two buttons (behind)? what was it Norwid wrote?
I'll add that when they see us, Chinamen
Are struck above all else by buttons two
Behind–“what are those things,” they ask; “explain
Their purpose . . .”

(marginal notes on a music festival)

 

 

bad music is the gas
of a defecating demon
Cacophony Caca-making
bad music is sh . . .
on which an idol
in the latest Love Parade
in Berlin its motto
“music is the key”
slipped and broke his leg
participants in the parade
left several tons of trash condoms
and one corpse

 

producers of bad
music
ought to be
castrated
have their ears cut off
they'll sing small
in hell

 

retired bearded “idols”
leap about
at funereal festivals
festooned with me-loud-ious
woeful bacchantes
the old jerk recalls
jazz in the catacombs of communist Poland
martyrs in red socks
with tears in his eyes
and hair like St. Genevieve
he bawls
Ilur Ilurv Iluryou

 

he's accompanied
by an utterly humorless
presenter
the “emcee” who
vomits what he said years back

 

while the public poor saps
buy the whole ball of wax
with ovations
standing
sitting
and excreting

blood
the young blood
of “those years”

 

diluted by dishwater
and the hatred
of old people
who survived

 

blood spilled once
for freedom equality independence
for God Honor and Homeland
is now spilled emptily
by two hundred organizations
fighting among themselves
for monuments plaques
awards and cash

 

old men bearing arrogant
expressions in caps with four
corners like horns
and outsized pants
fighting among themselves
an eye for an eye
a tooth for a tooth

 

when I listen
to my comrades in arms
as they salute empty foreheads
and
instead of sharing a bowl
of wartime pea soup
drinking a glass
and having a sing (and a fart)
snarl and spit
at one another

 

when I listen to these hellish squabbles
my own blood boils

(from the slaughterhouse death camp)

 

 

today someone told me
an amusing and most curious
story . . . it took place
on the isle where the tribe of the Britons
clone sheep where the cow's milk
has the nutritional value of a woman's milk
where people and even dogs
go mad
after consuming meal made of lamb's brain

 

so these little piggies escaped from the slaughterhouse
they dug a hole under the fence
fled across a field through a wood
swam a stream and a river

 

guard dogs and helicopters
gave chase on land and sky
while flocks of cloned sheep
stood bleating nearby

 

till at last the fugitives were caught

 

now “humanity” came to the rescue
moved by the fate
of God's creatures
and instead of turning the piggies
into hams and pork roasts
the authorities gave them a lifelong
pension The heir to the throne himself
extended his protection to the piggies
upon hearing this news
my dwindling faith in the Prince
returned
newly reborn

 

PS
three days later I read
that the piggies' lives are in jeopardy
as the slaughterhouse owner has sued
seeking to get his piggies back and make 'em
into trotters and hams
ribs sausage and bacon
(the law is on his side . . . the property laws . . .
and in foggy Albion the law
is a sacred thing) . . .
how the story ended I do not know
as the previous century departed
and the age of Harry Potter started

(Saturday January 20 2001)

 

 

I'm reading Norwid

 

 

 

I'm at a writers' retreat in Konstancin
I'm talking with Kapuściński
about Franek Gil
about globalization
we drink wine
I speak of population growth
he of water shortages
not oil but water
not water
but water shortages will be the cause
of future wars says Ryszard
blood will be spilled for water
not for homeland honor and god

 

it's gotten late

 

I hear that far away
in Washington sleet is falling
it's cold lousy weather
the 43rd president of the Superpower
is being sworn in
there's a 21-gun salute at the Capitol

 

The superpower is sentimental
tender-hearted sensitive
(“mitfühlender Konservatismus”)
tearful
the “compassionate conservative”
places his hand on the bible
he's the son of the 41st president

 

Abraham Lincoln watches and listens

 

even the sleet was unable
to conceal Bush's tears of emotion
the superpower was weeping

 

the president's wife Laura wept
his twin daughters wept
the president's parents
former president George Bush
and his wife–Grandma Barbara–were weeping
those who voted for Gore wept
after making sloppy holes
in their ballot papers
so the holes had to be recounted
the outgoing president Bill Clinton
wept his wife Hillary wept
(she wept but she took chairs
and an armchair she wept but she took a table
and curtains and some other things
. . . though she gave them back) their daughter
Chelsea was weeping Madeleine wiped her eyes
as she stood there in her miniskirt
with a rose pinned to her bosom
Bronek wept too
(though for different reasons)
the former national
security advisor
Sandy Berger
“kept reaching for his handkerchief ”
the sky was weeping
vice-president Dick Cheney
wept as the 43rd president
put his own overcoat round him
to protect him from the rain . . .
(the “compassionate conservative”)
then raised his own collar
(to keep the rain from trickling down his neck)

 

a small unknown intern
wept as did her mother
who was left with a stained dress
in the closet
“my daughter, my little girl”. . .
what have you done?!
then there was a grand ball
made of a hundred balls
oh! what a ball it was
the gentlemen were required (?) to wear tails
and cowboy boots
or a tuxedo
and cowboy boots