new poems (8 page)

 

in 1945
in October
I left the resistance

 

I began to breathe

 

word by word
I regained speech

 

it seemed to me
“Everything”
was working out
not only in my mind
but in the world
at home in Poland

 

along with Przyboś I sought
a place on earth
along with Staff I began
the rebuilding
with the smoke from the hearth
along with Professor Kotarbiński
I voted three times yes

 

I took a seminar
with Professor Ingarden
introduction to the theory of cognition
Hume helped me
to organize my ideas

 

the referendum was rigged

 

the rebuilding of the temple
proceeded in accordance with
the plan and the dream
God left me alone
do what you like you're a grown-up
he said
don't hold my hand
don't turn to me
with every little thing
I have two billion people to worry about
in a moment it'll be ten billion
I helped you in 1935
with those algebra problems
said God
from a burning bush
that turned to ash

 

the 21st century was sneaking up like a thief

 

my mind
scattered to the four corners of the earth
on the wall I saw
an inscription Mene Tekel Peres
in Babylon a knife at humanity's throat

near the unclean channel
of the Vistula
a herd of sows and boars were grazing
alongside Apollo's children

 

to this cafeteria
there came from a far country
Janko the musician a lad possessed by poetry
he cast pearls before swine
sang played on a golden comb
till he heard voices
and went mad

 

he was like a butterfly
in a spider web

 

I talked with him
just one time
at a writers' retreat
he stood in the door
of my room
and asked for a sheet
of paper

 

I told him I had
only squared
recycled paper
he gave a polite smile
thanked me
and left
with three sheets

 

sometimes I think he meant
something else

 

that he meant his and my
and our life

 

the leśmianek emerged from the fetal waters
and was entranced by the world

 

through the hollowing out of the afterworld
through excess and inattention
he became a poet and tumbled
into the labyrinth of God

 

he sought a way out in language
but language has no way out

 

he sought more zealously
than any
other Polish poet

 

then he tried to flee from life
seeking shelter in poetry

 

but from the labyrinth of life there is
no way out (except via death)

 

the leśmianek shrank out of despair
and faded away till he died
as an unearthly notary
somewhere in Zamość Hrubieszów
and Częstochowa
as a reward for his unavailing faith
he was transformed
by the radiant god
of poets
into a garden gnome

 

in a cap of invisibility
with a runny nose
beneath a broad viburnum leaf
he waits for the end of the world
the end of history
the end of the end

 

but the world refuses
to end

 

it is an unutterably beautiful
bas-relief
–From the Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh–

 

what dignity and mutual respect there was
in encounters between beasts and humans
before firearms were invented

 

I always stand hushed
before this scene
the king of the beasts
and the king of slaves
in a mortal embrace

 

Calm on the face
of Ashurbanipal

 

a grimace of pain and rage
on the lion's muzzle hidden in its mane

 

the King's beard artfully dressed
his face saying I am the king of the world
king of beasts and humans
king of earth water air
king of kings

 

the sword transfixes the animal
the lion pierced by fletched
arrows
the king clad in a robe
and plates of armor

 

locked in their mortal embrace
they remain distant

 

Their encounter will be won by the side
that wielded the sword
the lance the bow
extensions of the arm
technology
intelligence or in other words
subterfuge

 

perhaps that is why the lion
is condemned
to perish

 

while the human species
has filled the earth

Nietzsche is back in fashion
he's returning to Germany (and Poland)
indirectly
via Paris
in the guise of a French philosopher
of Romanian extraction

 

this Zarathustra of Naumburg
part Polish gentleman
part Übermensch

 

asks himself
his mother
his sister

 

why am I so wise
bold unique crucified

 

don't trouble your head over it
counsels his mother
concentrate on those Greeks of yours
or compose something

 

His sister “liebes Lama”
is just back from South America
she's a little anxious but proud
that her brother stands straight
and looks like a soldier (“fast”)
“auch Magen und Unterlieb in Ordnung”

 

Fritz left for the train station
carrying flowers but without the big sword
that he took to the photographer's
and to the war (as a stretcher bearer)

 

then as befits an eagle
he sought out an eyrie
in Genoa and environs
“sono contento”
he wrote home

 

the good residents of Genoa
call him “il piccolo santo”
“il santo”
has regretfully given up
the notion of eternal return
he makes himself risotto macaroni
(without onion or garlic)
tomatoes artichokes with egg
diet is the essence of philosophy
what one eats is expelled
in the form of thought
“die ewige Wiederkunft”

 

he asked his mother what
“ordinary” “simple” people eat
what our poor eat
“solitary Nietzsche”
did not know “simple” people
had not encountered poverty

 

our people
dear Fritz
from morning to night eat potatoes
fatty meat
pigmeat
wash it down with schnapps
and drink a catlap
they call coffee

 

oh! Mama
just an endless round of pork
potatoes catlap
sauerkraut?

 

how little I know our nation
I've always eaten alone

 

but it's all the fault
of the Social Democratic leaders
Mama...
a man ought to be
brought up for a soldier
a woman for a soldier's wife

 

with tears in his eyes
he parted company with the idea
of eternal return
understanding
that eternal returns to Naumburg
are nothing special

 

the climate was “wrong” and the food
and the neighbors
and his sister Lama and his mother
however dear she was . . .
and his aunts!
can an eagle have aunts?
even if they're kind and affectionate

 

“das Meer liegt bleich
und glänzend da
es kann nicht reden”

“Das Wesen der Wahrheit
Ist die Freiheit”
wrote Martin Heidegger
in 1930
then he joined
the Nazi party
“Hampelmann der Nazis”
he was called
by the righteous among philosophers
Karl Jaspers

 

but he too was wrong
when he told Hannah Arendt
who was frightened by Hitler's victory
“Das Ganze ist eine Operette
Ich will kein Held in einer Operette sein”
H. A. emigrated . . .
and he and Gertrude
his Jewish wife
realized
that this was no operetta

 

a crystal night fell
on Germany and on Europe
the starry sky dimmed
the moral law died

a note in the margin
of an article by Father Tadeusz Bartoś
“The Curious World
of Thomas Aquinas”

 

on December 6 1273
during mass he has an experience
that makes him give up writing
“I cannot write any longer,
I have seen things next to which
all my writings are as straw”

 

What did Aquinas see?
“I have seen things” he said
and stopped speaking

 

what things?

 

Aquinas did not understand
women children or art
–so they say–maybe he was afraid
maybe he didn't want to understand

 

“I have seen things”

 

maybe he saw a woman angel
giving birth to a child
a god and redeemer
maybe he saw God
the Father and the Mother

 

maybe he saw
a woman priest
smiling at him
flirtatiously

 

maybe he saw his own
conception and birth

 

and understood that woman
is not a mistake of nature
but is nature itself

 

through Aristotle I feel
a certain indistinct connection
with this Father of the Church

 

I'm impressed by the weight
of his flesh spirit and reason

 

he reminds me physically
of Doctor Martin Luther

 

this breed of hippopotamuses
brought gravity back to the Church

 

I see their huge bodies
immersed
in the living water
of faith hope and love

 

“langgestreckt auf meiner Pritsche
starre ich auf die graue Wand”

 

for the last two years I've been taking lessons
from Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
who was hanged
on April 9 1945

 

at the order of the Führer
Hitler Hiedler Hüttler
Hitler Schickelgruber
or whatever his name was

 

The Führer croaked on April 30
with his faithful dog
(poor dog)

 

in my long life
I've taken lessons not from poets alone

 

from Goethe Hölderlin Heine
Rilke
“Denn das Schöne ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang (...)”

 

Rilke to the end of his life
clung desperately
to women's gowns
hiding in the folds of their skirts
till the day he died
he wore the girl's frock
in which his mother
had dressed him

 

“she was like a gown
ghastly and terrifying”

 

if he had only stayed for a moment
with Heinrich Ziell
Am Pferdefleischwagen!
But Rilke chose the angel's tower
chose the Princess of Thurn und Taxis
so I left him and went to seek
instruction from Brecht
on the way I met Grabbe
(extraordinary fellow!) and Benn

 

Bonhoeffer I met in Wrocław

 

start from the beginning
start again he would say to me
learn to walk
learn to write to read
to think

 

you must accept the fact
that God has gone from this world
he isn't dead!
you have to accept the fact
that you're an adult
that you have to live
without a Father

 

and he also said
that you have to live with dignity
in a godless world
without counting on punishments or rewards

 

did I not sin
comparing the Führer
to a dog? after all he was a man
he had a mother and father
a sister and brother
he was an artist he left
watercolors and drawings
he was a writer he loved Wagner
he left “Mein Kampf”
there are rumors in my country
that “Mein Kampf” has been published
in Polish but no one
has seen or heard anything . . .
alas the Führer croaked
and the Jewish problem still awaits
its final solution
“Endlösung der Judenfrage”

 

Jews Arabs Poles and Germans
are a little oversensitive
everywhere they detect antisemitism
and yet the forest of trees
planted by the hands of the Righteous
grows green thickens
rises to the windows of our
homes
there are excellent comedies
about Auschwitz Majdanek Sobibor
the Passion and the Holocaust are becoming
ever more profitable
four hundred million dollars is serious money
not a mere thirty pieces of silver

 

we sat in the shade of trees
in a small beer garden near
St. Elizabeth's

 

Bonhoeffer read me
the poems he wrote in Tegel

 

“langgestreckt auf meiner Pritsche
starre ich auf die graue Wand”

 

I gazed at the Light at his monument
that has no head no arms

 

what if God has taken fright
and abandoned the Earth?
instead of answering
my question
he put his finger to his lips

 

does it mean
that you won't that you can't
answer my question

 

wrapped in a stinking blanket
his eyes closed
he listened to the gray wall of his cell
with the eyes of his imagination
he painted it in wildflowers
cornflowers marigolds chamomiles
poppies and more cornflowers
the eyes and lips of his betrothed