he was so nice—she says weeping
he understood everything
and when I said to him—
her voice is lost in the general noise
even a lumberjack
whom one would never suspect of such things
an old bowed fellow
catches to his breast an axe
—all my life she was mine
she will be mine here too
she nourished me there
she will nourish me here
nobody has the right
—he says—
I won’t give her up
those who as it seems
have obeyed the orders without pain
go lowering their heads as a sign of consent
but in their clenched fists they hide
fragments of letters ribbons clippings of hair
and photographs
which they naively think
won’t be taken from them
so they appear
a moment before
the final division
of those gnashing their teeth
from those singing psalms
TOUCH
The double truth of all the senses—
a convoy of images passes the eye
they are like a vision under water
and between the black and white
filters the uncertainty of colors
it wavers slightly in the pure air
our seeing is a mirror or a sieve—
a wavering wisdom of moist eyes
seeps through it drop by drop
under sweetness bitterness dozes
so the deranged tongue cries out
in hearing’s shell where an ocean
is like a ball of yarn where a white
shadow’s silence attracts a stone
just a muddle of stars and leaves
from earth’s center a tangled smell
a world between smell and surprise
and touch in its certainty comes
to return to things their stillness
over the ear’s lie the eye’s chaos
there grows a dam of ten fingers
a hard and faithless mistrust lays
its fingers in the world’s wound
to divide thing from appearance
O you most true you alone
can give utterance to love
you alone offer consolation
we are both blind and deaf
—touch grows on the edge of truth
I WOULD LIKE TO DESCRIBE
I would like to describe the simplest emotion
joy or sadness
but not as others do
reaching for shafts of rain or sun
I would like to describe a light
which is being born in me
but I know it does not resemble
any star
for it is not so bright
not so pure
and is uncertain
I would like to describe courage
without dragging behind me a dusty lion
and also anxiety
without shaking a glass full of water
to put it another way
I would give all metaphors
in return for one word
drawn out of my breast like a rib
for one word
contained within the boundaries
of my skin
but apparently this is not possible
and just to say—I love
I run around like mad
picking up handfuls of birds
and my tenderness
which after all is not made of water
asks the water for a face
and anger
different from fire
borrows from it
a loquacious tongue
so is blurred
so is blurred
in me
what white-haired gentlemen
separated once and for all
and said
this is the subject
and this is the object
we fall asleep
with one hand under our head
and with the other in a mound of planets
our feet abandon us
and taste the earth
with their tiny roots
which next morning
we tear out painfully
VOICE
I walk on the sea-shore
to catch that voice
between the breaking of one wave
and another
but there is no voice
only the senile garrulity of water
salty nothing
a white bird’s wing
stuck dry to a stone
I walk to the forest
where persists the continuous
hum of an immense hour-glass
sifting leaves into humus
humus into leaves
powerful jaws of insects
consume the silence of the earth
I walk into the fields
green and yellow sheets
fastened with pins of insect beings
sing at every touch of the wind
where is that voice
it should speak up
when for a moment there is a pause
in the unrelenting monologue of the earth
nothing but whispers
clappings explosions
I come home
and my experience takes on
the shape of an alternative
either the world is dumb
or I am deaf
but perhaps
we are both
doomed to our afflictions
therefore we must
arm in arm
go blindly on
toward new horizons
toward contracted throats
from which rises
an unintelligible gurgle
AKHENATON
INSCRIPTION
Akhenaton’s soul, in the shape of a bird, alighted on the forehead’s verge, to rest before its long journey. But instead of looking off to the horizon, it peered into the dead man’s face. That face was as a mirror for the gods.
ATTEMPT AT A RECONSTRUCTION
Why must I make my way
—the soul thought—
through tangled questions
toward barking divinities
why go down dark corridors
across rough-skinned palms
toward scales snakes beetles
I will stay here
I will learn the secret of ears
folded back against the head
flat as dogs
I will hold the boats
of the sweet eyelids
lest they float away
to sunken temples
I’ll enter the nostrils
right up to the spot
where a last smell
of the earth dried
I’ll remove the trace
I’ll weave two nests
at the corners of lips
which are speechless
and swell with tears
I will work
to reconcile
Akhenaton and his shadow
so the soul said
but we
who hold Akhenaton’s
stone head on our knees
we feel
how it scents
how it cracks
how it shrieks
NEFERTITI
What has become of the soul
after so many loves
ah it is no longer a great bird
beating its white wings
every night until dawn
a butterfly
flew from the mouth
of the dead Nefertiti
a butterfly
like an iridescent
exhalation
how far is the journey
from an ultimate sigh
&nbs
p; to the nearest eternity
a butterfly flies over
dead Nefertiti’s head
spinning it a cocoon
of silk
Nefertiti
O larva
how long the wait
for your departure
for the wing-beat
which lifts you
into—one day
into—one night
over all the gates and abysses
over all of heaven’s precipices
JOURNEY TO KRAKÓW
As soon as the train got going
the tall dark type begins
and he speaks like this to the boy
—with a book on his knees
—you like to read boy
—I like it—replies the latter
it makes the time go by
always plenty of work at home
here it doesn’t bother people
—Well there you’re certainly right
what is it you’re reading
—The Peasants—replies the latter
very true to life
only a little too long
it’s the right length for winter
I’ve also read The Folk Wedding
that’s actually a play
very hard to follow
too many people
The Deluge is something else again
you read and it’s like you’d seen it
really—he says—great
almost as good as a movie
Hamlet—by a foreign writer
also very interesting
only this Danish prince
is a bit too much of a sissy
tunnel
dark in the train
the conversation suddenly breaks off
the authoritative commentary ceases
in the white margins
the prints of fingers and the soil
have marked with rough thumb-nail
rapture and condemnation
THORNS AND ROSES
Saint Ignatius
pale and fiery
passing by a rose
flung himself on the bush
mutilating his flesh
with the bell of his black frock
he wished to stifle
the beauty of the world
which gushed from earth as from a wound
and lying at the bottom
of the cradle of thorns
he saw
that the blood flowing from his brow
was clotting on his lashes
in the shape of a rose
and the blind hand
seeking out thorns
was pierced through
by petals’ soft touch
the defrauded saint wept
amid flowers’ mockeries
thorns and roses
roses and thorns
we seek happiness
WHAT OUR DEAD DO
Jan came by this morning
—I dreamed of my father
he says
he rode in an oak coffin
I was near the procession
and father says to me:
how fine you’ve got me up
and this funeral is splendid
flowers at this time of year
it must have cost a fortune
don’t worry about it dad
I say—let the people see
that we truly loved you
we’re doing you proud
six men in black livery
go grandly alongside
father ponders a moment
and says—the desk key
is in the silver inkwell
in the second drawer on the left
there’s still a little money
we’ll use the money—I say—
to buy you a gravestone dad
big and made of black marble
no need son—says father—
rather give it to the poor
six men in black livery
go grandly alongside
carrying lit lanterns
again as if pondering
—watch the flowers in the garden
cover them properly in the winter
I wouldn’t want them to go to ruin
you are the eldest—he says—
take the genuine pearl cuff links
in the pouch behind the picture
may they bring you good luck
I was given them by my mother
when I graduated from school
he didn’t say anything else
but fell into a deeper sleep
so this is how our dead
look after us
admonishing us in dreams
returning our lost money
trying to finagle us jobs
mumbling lottery numbers
or when they can’t do that
tapping fingers on the pane
and we in infinite gratitude
invent them an immortality
snug as a mouse’s burrow
A TALE
The poet imitates the voices of birds
he cranes his long neck
his protruding Adam’s apple
is like a clumsy finger on a wing of melody
when singing he deeply believes
that he advances the sunrise
the warmth of his song depends on this
as does the purity of his high notes
the poet imitates the sleep of stones
his head withdrawn into his shoulders
he is like a piece of sculpture
breathing rarely and painfully
when asleep he believes that he alone
will penetrate the mystery of existence
and take without the help of theologians
eternity into his avid mouth
what would the world be
were it not filled with
the incessant bustling of the poet
among the birds and stones
A KNOCKER
There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities
it’s easy for them to write
they close their eyes
immediately schools of images
stream down from their foreheads
my imagination
is a piece of board
my sole instrument
is a wooden stick
I strike the board
it answers me
yes—yes
no—no
for others the green bell of a tree
the blue bell of water
I have a knocker
from unprotected gardens
I thump on the board
and it prompts me
with the moralist’s dry poem
yes—yes
no—no
THE STARS’ CHOSEN ONES
That’s a poet
not an angel
he has no wings
just a plumed
right hand
the hand beats the air
he flies up three feet
and falls back down
when he’s all the way down
he pushes off with his feet
and floats up for a moment
fluttering his plumed hand
Ah if he could fight free of clay’s attraction
he could take up residence in a nest of stars
he could gallop from light ray to light ray
he could—
but the stars
at the very thought
they would be his earth
fall in fright
the poet covers his eyes
with his feathered hand
he no longer dreams of flight
but of a fall
marking like a lightning flash
the silhouette of infinity
THREE STUDIES ON THE
SUBJECT OF REALISM
1
Those who paint small mirrors of lakes
clouds and swans scenes by a stream
those who like no one else manage to convey the sweetness of sleep
a naked arm under one’s head an open leaf and the sky
and if they ever dare to recount the sea
easily they contain that word in rose-coasted lips
they bear us in little baskets made of osiers
and deposit us on the breast from which we drank long ago
let us not blame them because their world without storms
will wither like a flower plucked at sunset
their small round warm reality
is like the cheek of a shepherd when he plays a flute
they thought that we would find happiness
in the tranquil heart of a landscape with a rainbow
2
those who paint interiors of old barber-shops
slovenly old women donkeys and vegetables
drunken scenes brutal mercenaries
everything in heavy and dull brown ochre
and a ray of light which pushes through
between the rafters of a sooty hovel
sinks to the table on which are scattered
juicy yellows and foggy blues
the ray is there so that on it can be stropped
the severe brush of the hunched master
so they penetrate the interiors of tenement houses
and peer into the heart as into a bag of silver
and see only a blind man who is counting pearls
a dishonoured girl beaten deceived people
dark weeping below and clothes-lines in the attic
the clear water of fresh floods
is requested by the brush
3
finally they
the authors of canvases divided into the right side and the left side
who know only two colors
color yes and color no
the inventors of simple symbols
open palms and clenched fists
singing and weeping
birds and projectiles
smiles and grinning teeth
who say
later when we get installed in the fruits of our labor
we will use the subtle color “perhaps”
and “on one condition” with pearly lustre
but right now we are drilling two choruses
and on to the empty stage
under a blinding light
we throw you
with a shout: choose while there’s time
choose what you’re waiting for
choose
And to help you we imperceptibly give a nudge to the balance
NEVER OF YOU
The Collected Poems Page 5