The Collected Poems (14 page)

they will prop it up in a glass display case
and in Latin they will pray before
the little altar made from an
os frontalis

they will reckon the bones and surfaces
they will not forget not overlook

happily I will give my color of eyes
pattern of nails and curve of eyelids
I the perfectly objective
made from white crystals of anatomy

can for thoughts
heart cage
bony pile
and two shins

you my little monument not quite complete

 

It was the loveliest blue sky of my life: dry, hard, and so pure that it took your breath away. Tremendous angels of air were emerging from it slowly.

Until suddenly I saw a nail, rusty and crookedly hammered into the heavens. I tried to forget about it. In vain: the corner of my eye kept catching on the nail.

And what was left of my heavens? A black-eyed blue.

 

A wooden die can be described only from without. We are therefore condemned to eternal ignorance of its essence. Even if it is quickly cut in two, immediately its inside becomes a wall and there occurs the lightning-swift transformation of a mystery into a skin.

For this reason it is impossible to lay foundations for the psychology of a stone ball, of an iron bar, of a wooden cube.

 

A hungry mouse was running along the edge of a gutter. Instead of cheese a church was set before it. It went in not from meekness but by accident.

It did everything you're supposed to: crawled up to the cross, knelt before the altars, dozed in a pew. Not a single grain of manna descended on it. At the time the Lord was busy calming the oceans.

The mouse couldn't find its way out of the church. It became a church mouse. A fundamental distinction. More skittish than its sisters of the field, it feeds on dust and smells of myrrh, so it is easy to track down. It can fast for long stretches.

Up to a limit, of course.

At the bottom of the golden chalice they once found a black drop of thirst.

 

On top of the house grows another house, only without a roof—a chimney. From it drift kitchen smells and my sighs. The chimney is equitable, it doesn't keep them apart. One big plume. Black, very black.

 

Inadvertently I passed the border of her teeth and swallowed her agile tongue. It lives inside me now, like a Japanese fish. It brushes against my heart and my diaphragm as if against the walls of an aquarium. It stirs silt from the bottom.

She whom I deprived of a voice stares at me with big eyes and waits for a word.

Yet I do not know which tongue to use when speaking to her—the stolen one or the one which melts in my mouth from an excess of heavy goodness.

 

At first glance it's the placid face of a miller, full and shiny as an apple. Only one dark hair creeps across it. And if you look inside: a nest of worms, the bowels of an anthill. And this is what's supposed to usher us into eternity.

 

All man's internal organs are bald and smooth. The stomach, intestines, lungs, are bald. Only the heart has hair—reddish, thick, sometimes quite long. This is a problem. The heart's hair inhibits the flow of blood like water plants. The hair is often infested with worms. You have to love very deeply to pick these quick little parasites from your beloved's cardiac hair.

 

He is an utter failure as a devil. Even his tail. Not long and fleshy with a black brush of hair at the end, but short, fluffy, and sticking out comically like a rabbit's. His skin is pink, only under his left shoulder-blade a mark the size of a gold ducat. But his horns are the worst. They don't grow outward like other devils' but inward, into the brain. That's why he suffers so often from headaches.

He is sad. He sleeps for days on end. Neither good nor evil attract him. When he walks down the street, you see distinctly the motion of the rosy wings of his lungs.

 

If after our death they want to transform us into a tiny withered flame that walks along the paths of winds—we have to rebel. What good is an eternal leisure on the bosom of air, in the shade of a yellow halo, amid the murmur of two-dimensional choirs?

One should enter rock, wood, water, the cracks of a gate. Better to be the creaking of a floor than shrilly transparent perfection.

 

We live in the narrow bed of our flesh. Only the inexperienced twist in it without interruption. Rotating around one's own axis is not allowed because then sharp threads wind themselves on to the heart as on to a spool.

It is necessary to fold one's hands behind the neck, half-shut the eyes, and float down that lazy river, from the Fount of the Hair as far as the first Cataract of the Great Toenail.

 

At table you should sit calmly and not daydream. Let us recall what an effort it took for the stormy ocean tides to arrange themselves in quiet rings. A moment of inattention and everything might wash away. It is also forbidden to rub the table legs, as they are very sensitive. Everything at the table must be done coolly and matter-of-factly. You can't sit down here with things not completely thought through. For daydreaming we have been given other objects made of wood: the forest, the bed.

 

Who ever thought a warm neck would become an armrest, or legs eager for flight and joy could stiffen into four simple stilts? Armchairs were once noble flower-eating creatures. However, they allowed themselves too easily to be domesticated and today they are the most wretched species of quadrupeds. They have lost all their stubbornness and courage. They are only meek. They haven't trampled anyone or galloped off with anyone. They are, for certain, conscious of a wasted life.

The despair of armchairs is revealed in their creaking.

 

It happens very rarely. The earth's axis screeches and comes to a stop. Everything stands still then: storms, ships, and clouds grazing in the valleys. Everything. Even horses in a meadow become immobile as if in an unfinished game of chess.

And after a while the world moves on. The ocean swallows and regurgitates, valleys send off steam and the horses pass from the black field into the white field. There is also heard the resounding clash of air against air.

 

In the morning the lumberjack goes into the forest and slams the great oak door behind him. The green hairs of trees stand on end in fear. You hear the muffled whine of a tree stump and the dry scream of a branch.

But the lumberjack doesn't stop at trees. He chases the sun. He catches up with it at the edge of the forest. In the evening a cloven stump lights up the horizon. Over it the cooling ax.

 

In the sky's envelope there is a letter for us. A vast stretch of air in wide orange and white strips. The gentle giant goes in front of us: he is rocking back and forth. He carries a shining ball attached to a thick club.

IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER

 

To whom do I play? Closed shutters
and doorknobs gleaming haughtily
Bassoons of rain—mournful gutters
and the rats that dance amid debris

A final drumroll played by shells
in the courtyard simple obsequies
two crossed planks a riddled helmet
and a great rose of fire in the skies

The calf turns on the spit.
In the oven brown bread swells.
Fires die out. Only a reprieved flame is eternal.

And a coarse inscription on the cross
names as short as salvos of a gun
“Griffin,” “Wolf,” “Bullet”—who knows
them now Red paint ran in the rain

Afterward we washed bandages
for years. Now no one sheds a tear
Clinking in a box of matches—
the buttons from a soldier's gear

Throw out keepsakes. Burn memories and step into life's new stream. There is only earth. One earth and over it pass the seasons of the year. Wars of insects and of people then quick death over a honey flower. Grain will ripen. Oaks will blossom. Rivers go from mountain to sea.

I swim upstream and they with me
implacably they return my stare
stubbornly whisper ancient words
we eat our bitter bread of despair

I must bring them to a dry place
and pile the sand into a heap
before spring scattering blossoms
puts them into a deep green sleep

The city—

The city is gone
under the earth

It still glows

As wood decays in a forest

A desolate place
but overhead the air still trembles
with their voices

• • •

The trench where a turbid river runs
I call the Vistula. Hard to confess:
this is the love that we are doomed to
this is the homeland that pierces us

 

There's a sudden island Sea sculpture cradle graves between ether and salt the mists of its paths wind around the rock and over the noise and silence voices rising Here seasons wind directions have a home and shade is good night is good sun is good the ocean would be glad to lay its bones here leaves are dressing the weary arm of the sky Its frailness amid the tumult of the elements when at night in the hills human fire chatters and in the morning before Aurora shines out the first light of the sources rises in the ferns

 

As if downstairs though there were no stairs for he was carrying stones too drunk on light from the distant mountains on his shoulders like the contours of wings O azure morning Bell of air with your warm tongue of dew The road leads across the bridge near a mill and the motionless grove of verdant clouds as far as the bay where an exuberant crowd of birds and people drowns the heavy clock

 

When the horror subsided the floodlights went out
we discovered that we were on a rubbish-heap in very strange poses
some with outstretched necks
others with open mouths from which still trickled my native land
still others with fists pressed to eyes
cramped emphatically pathetically taut
in our hands we held pieces of sheet iron and bones
(the floodlights had transformed them into symbols)
but now they were no more than sheet iron and bones
We had nowhere to go we stayed on the rubbish-heap

we tidied things up
the bones and sheet iron we deposited in an archive

We listened to the chirping of streetcars to a swallow-like voice of factories and a new life was unrolling at our feet

 

I returned years later
perhaps too well-fed

I wanted to check the place

the hills were smaller
and brown water ran
in the rescue trenches

grass mostly the same
angelica remembered

the view contracted
was merely normal
for so much fear
for so much hope

birds were flitting
from lower branches
to higher branches

so even they could not
offer me confirmation

 

We halted in a town the host
ordered the table to be moved to the garden the first star
shone out and faded we were breaking bread
crickets were heard in the twilight loosestrife
a cry but a cry of a child otherwise the bustle
of insects of men a thick scent of earth
those who were sitting with their backs to the wall
saw violet now—the gallows hill
on the wall the dense ivy of executions

we were eating much
as is usual when nobody pays

it's fresh
could be today's
covered in thick blood
big as a sea fish

he carries it around squares
sprinkles it with salt
praises it with a loud voice

it's fresh
could be today's
those violet veins
don't actually mean anything

they go up to him
prod with fingers
shake their heads

when he holds it to his chest
he can really feel
it's fresh
still warm

it's fresh
as if today's
it's a shameless size

who will buy a wound

 

chimneys salute this departure with smoke

a barge sails downriver panes jolt and wail
plaster lays a gray wreath on the pavement
the hair of dust fans out almost into infinity

on an island in a stir of lights in black cables
the crab of a blind cathedral is dripping soot

the stone mouths of choirs
heads of prophets shells and a rattling of bones
souvenir of a psalm to a star a rose and a chalice

through the city center hasty as a pauper's funeral
a barge sails downriver heavy-laden with rubble

 

It wasn't the path of truth it was simply a path
red roots cut across it pine needles alongside
and the forest full of berries and flitting spirits

it wasn't the path of truth for all of a sudden
it lost its unity and from then onward in life
our aims have been unclear

   On the right was a source

if you chose the source you went on dark rungs
into ever-deepening darkness groping blindly
toward the mother of elements honored by Thales
in order to merge with the moist heart of things
with the dark kernel of the cause

   On the left was a hill

the hill offered peace and a general view
the border of the forest its shadowy mass
no separate leaves trunks or strawberries
soothing knowledge the forest is one of many

Is it truly not possible to have them together
the source and the hill the idea and the leaves
and pour out plurality without satanic ovens
of dark alchemy of a too bright abstraction