WEATHER
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.
INSCRIPTION
1969
IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER
PROLOGUE
HE
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
CHORUS
The calf turns on the spit.
In the oven brown bread swells.
Fires die out. Only a reprieved flame is eternal.
HE
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
CHORUS
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.
HE
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—
CHORUS
The city is gone
under the earth
HE
It still glows
CHORUS
As wood decays in a forest
HE
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
ISLAND
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
DESCENT
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
AWAKENING
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
PLACE
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
A HALT
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
FAREWELL TO THE CITY
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
PATH
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
COMMON DEATH
To Tadeusz Żebrowski
what was the death that lay ahead:
the defenseless whitish eggs of ants
lost in the forest in the young forest
under the lungs’ oak in the heart’s burrow
through which a flood runs thudding
a spring wells up and a mouth drinks
delicate whiteness swims inward
and falls to the bottom of the chest
inner touch withdraws its tentacles
the lantern of consciousness falters
sight turns away and hearing fails
you carry me in illuminated fingers
a candle of love with tears of wax
the flame stiffens when the candle
sinks like a knife beneath the skin
and knocks a blind beak against ribs
to bestow a moment’s immortality
if you turn your eye from the shelf
from mirror candle a sleeping head
and guide them toward the aorta
you see the work in the heart’s pit
the little weightless whiteness now
bursts open its cocoon and is a bee
I know well the touch of six legs
climbing up to reach the honey
and a sudden sting when it sleeps
dreaming of a flower other than
a sticky flower on a stem of veins
not fate not lightning but an insect
will discover it like a pine needle
and carry away in its chitin tongs
—the heart’s empty hive
WINTER GARDEN
Frost’s claw tapped on a window
the eye opens onto the garden
trees motionless to the senses
are whirling inside light glass
and only a reckless claw explains
their flight as loosened hoarfrost
gone is the earth of sticky paws
digging in the remains of flowers
carried behind a cloud of snow
on the light lines of gravitation
and only black stumps a branch
as deaf as a bass reminded us
a moment of the voice of earth
before frost’s flame stifled them
from rhomboids triangles pyramids
despite the quivering line of hair
through which blood is dripping
despite the silks in mindless folds
and a green coffin for a butterfly—
from rhomboids triangles pyramids
the wise garden was reconstructed
a plane spans a net with diamond
it will no longer summon insects
to a banquet of honey and poison
greet the frost when its agile beak
takes out your heart and the birds’
ruins the road’s track like a nest
and orders you to cross the river
from a black stump a heavy body
a branch will sprout a white breath
to bring an atom of all our dreams
back into communion with the air
IN THE MARGIN OF A TRIAL
The Sanhedrin did not judge at night
the blackness the imagination requires
is in flagrant conflict with custom
it’s quite implausible
that Passover should have been violated
all on account of some harmless Galilean
it’s fishy how accounts of traditional foes—
the Sadducees and the Pharisees—tally
it fell to Caiaphas to carry out the inquiry
ius gladii was in the hands of the Romans
why then summon a host of shadows
and the rabble howling give us Barabbas
it seems it was all played out between clerks
between pale Pilate and the tetrarch Herod
a peerless feat of administrative prowess
but who could whip up a drama out of that
hence the scenario of frightened bearded men
and the mob gathering on the mountain named
skull
it may have been colorless
void of passion
PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF AN ANGEL
When he stands before them
in the shadow of a suspicion
he is still all
composed of light
the aeons of his hair
are pinned up in a bun
of innocence
after the first question
his cheeks flush with blood
the blood is helped on
with instruments and interrogations
with an iron ferrule
a slow fire
the limits of his body
are defined
a blow on his back
fixes his spine
between cloud and mudpuddle
after a few nights
the job is finished
the leather throat of the angel
is full of gluey agreement
how beautiful is the moment
when he falls on his knees
incarnate into guilt
saturated with contents
his tongue hesitates
between knocked-out teeth
and confession
they hang him head downwards
from the hair of the angel
drops of wax run down
and shape on the floor
a simple prophecy
REPORT FROM PARADISE
In paradise the work week is fixed at thirty hours
salaries are higher prices steadily go down
manual labour is not tiring (because of reduced gravity)
chopping wood is no harder than typing
the social system is stable and the rulers are wise
really in paradise one is better off than in whatever country
At first it was to have been different
luminous circles choirs and degrees of abstraction
but they were not able to separate exactly
the soul from the flesh and so it would come here
with a drop of fat a thread of muscle
it was necessary to face the consequences
to mix a grain of the absolute with a grain of clay
one more departure from doctrine the last departure
only John foresaw it: you will be resurrected in the flesh
not many behold God
he is only for those of 100 per cent pneuma
the rest listen to communiqués about miracles and floods
some day God will be seen by all
when it will happen nobody knows
As it is now every Saturday at noon
sirens sweetly bellow
and from the factories go the heavenly proletarians
awkwardly under their arms they carry their wings like violins
THE LONGOBARDS
An immense coldness from the Longobards
They sit tightly in the saddle of a pass as in abrupt chairs
In their left hand they hold auroras
In their right hand a whip and they lash glaciers beasts of burden
The crackling of fire the ash of stars the swing of a stirrup
Under their nails under eyelids
Clots of alien blood are black and hard like flint
The burning of firs the barking of a horse ashes
On the crags they hang a snake beside a shield
Upright they march from the north sleepless
Nearly blind the women by the fires are rocking red children
An immense coldness from the Longobards
Their shadow sears the grass when they flock into the valley
S
houting their protracted nothing nothing nothing
EPISODE FROM SAINT-BENOÎT
In an old abbey overlooking the Loire
(sap of every tree has run in this river)
In front of the entrance to the basilica
(it’s not a narthex but a stone allegory)
on one of the capitals
a naked Max Jacob
is being torn apart
by a Satan and a four-winged archangel
the outcome of this skirmish
was never announced
unless you take into account
the capital next to it
Satan is clutching
Jacob’s torn arm
allowing the rest
to bleed to death
amid four invisible wings
A DESCRIPTION OF THE KING
The king’s beard on which sauces and ovations
fell until it became heavy as an axe
appears suddenly in a dream to a man condemned to die
and on a candlestick of flesh shines alone in the dusk
One hand for tearing meat is huge as a whole province
through which a ploughman inches forward a corvette lingers
The hand wielding the sceptre has withered from distinction
has grown gray from old age like an ancient coin
In the hour-glass of the heart sand trickles lazily
Feet taken off with boots stand in a corner
on guard when at night stiffening on the throne
the king heirlessly forfeits his third dimension
THE POET’S HOUSE
Once there was breath on the windowpanes here, the smell of baking, the same face in the mirror. Now it’s a museum. The floor’s flora has been exterminated, the suitcases have been emptied, the rooms have been covered in wax. The windows have been left open for days and nights on end. Mice shun this air-locked house.
The Collected Poems Page 13