The Collected Poems
Page 18
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
the light on a wall the splendor of the sky
they do not need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
Keep watch—when a light on a hill gives a sign—rise and go
as long as the blood is still turning the dark star in your breast
repeat humanity’s old incantations fairy tales and legends
for that is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those who crossed a desert and perished in the sand
for this they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go for only thus will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your forefathers: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without bounds and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
REPORT FROM A BESIEGED CITY
1983
FOR KASIA
WHAT I SAW
In memory of Kazimierz Moczarski
I saw prophets tearing their false beards
I saw frauds joining sects of flagellants
executioners in sheep’s clothing
who fled the people’s wrath
playing shepherd’s pipes
I saw it I saw it
I saw a man subjected to torture
he sat safely now with his family
telling jokes eating soup
I looked at his parted lips
his gums—two blackthorn twigs stripped of bark
it was shameless beyond all words
I saw the whole nakedness
the whole humiliation
then
the academy
a lot of people flowers
a stuffy room
a man went on about distortions
I thought of his distorted mouth
is this the final act
of a play by Anonymous
spread out flat as a shroud
filled with muffled sobs
and the giggles of those
who heaving a sigh of relief
that they pulled it off again
after dead props are cleared
slowly
lift
the bloody curtain
FROM THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
Obviously
they who stand at the top of the stairs
they know
they know everything
we on the other hand
sweepers of city squares
hostages of a better future
to whom they at the top of the stairs
appear only rarely
always with a finger held to their lips
we are patient
our wives mend our Sunday shirts
we talk about food rationing
about football the price of shoes
on Saturday we put our feet up
and we drink
we aren’t the sort
who make a fist
clank their chains
talk and question
incite to rebellion
seized by a fever
always talking and questioning
here’s what they’re trying to sell us—
we throw ourselves on the stairs
and take them by force
the heads of those at the top
will tumble down the steps
and finally we will behold
the view from the heights
what future
what void
we don’t want the sight
of rolling heads
we know how quickly the heads grow back
and at the top there’s always
one man left or three of them
and at the foot a heap of brooms and shovels
at times we dream
those at the top of the stairs
come down
down to us
where we are chewing bread reading the paper
and say unto us
—let’s talk
man to man
it isn’t true what the posters proclaim
we carry truth in our tight mouths
it’s cruel and burdensome
so we’ll bear it on our own
we are not happy
we’d like to stay
down here
sure they’re dreams
they may come true
or not come true
so we will go on
cultivating
our square of earth
our square of stone
with light heads
a cigarette tucked behind an ear
not a drop of hope in our hearts
1956
MR COGITO’S SOUL
In former times
as we know from history
it left the body
when the heart stood still
with the final breath
it quietly withdrew
to celestial meadows
Mr Cogito’s soul
behaves differently
it leaves his living body
without a parting word
for months years it cavorts
on other continents
beyond Mr Cogito’s borders
its address is hard to come by
it doesn’t really stay in touch
it avoids contact
writes no letters
no one knows when it will be back
perhaps it has gone away to stay
Mr Cogito tries to vanquish
his base feeling of jealousy
he thinks well of his soul
he thinks of it tenderly
it must have a life
in other bodies too
there are not enough souls
for the whole of humanity
Mr Cogito accepts his fate
he has no other alternative
he even tries to say
—my soul my own—
he thinks of his soul fondly
he thinks of it with tenderness
so when it turns up
quite unexpectedly
he doesn’t greet it by saying
—good thing you came back
he merely looks askance
when it sits at the mirror
and brushes its hair
tangled and gray
LAMENT
In memory of my mother
And now she has brown clouds of roots overhead
a rank lily of salt on her temples a rosary of sand
and sails on the bottom of a boat in a foamy mist
a mile away where there is a bend in the river
—visible—invisible—like the light on a wave
she is truly no different—abandoned like us all
TO THE RIVER
O river—hourglass of water figure of eternity
I step in your stream more and more changed
so that I might be a cloud a fish or stone cliff
and you are changeless like a clock measuring
the body’s metamorphoses and the spirit’s fall
the gradual disintegration of tissues and love
I born of clay
want to be your pupil
to know the heart Olympian spring
cool procession murmuring column
bedrock of my faith and my despair
teach me stubbornness and endurance
so that I shall deserve in the last hour
to repose in the shade of a great delta
in a holy triangle of beginning and end
OLD MASTERS
The Old Masters
did without names
atheir signatures were
the whit
e fingers of the Madonna
or the pink towers
di città sul mare
also scenes from the life
della Beata Umiltà
they dissolved
in sogno
miracolo
crocifissione
they found shelter
under angels’ eyelids
behind hillocks of cloud
in the thick grass of paradise
drowned completely
in golden firmaments
without a cry of terror
or clamor for memory
their paintings’ surfaces
are smooth as a mirror
they are not mirrors for us
but mirrors for the chosen
I invoke you Old Masters
in hard moments of doubt
let pride’s serpent scales
fall from me by your aid
let me remain unmoved
by temptations of fame
I invoke you Old Masters
Painter of the Rain of Manna
Painter of the Embroidered Trees
Painter of the Visitation
Painter of the Sacred Blood
PRAYER OF THE TRAVELER MR COGITO
Lord
I thank You for creating the world beautiful and various
and for allowing me in Your fathomless goodness to visit places which were not the sites of my daily torments
—that at night in Tarquinia I lay in the square by the well and a gunmetal pendulum rang out from the tower Your wrath or forgiveness
and that a little donkey on the island Corkyra sang to me from the unfathomable bellows of its lungs the melancholy of the landscape
and that in the ugly city of Manchester I discovered kindhearted and sensible people
nature repeated its wise tautologies: the forest was a forest the sea the sea a cliff a cliff
stars revolved and it was as it ought to be—Iovis omnia plena
—forgive me—that I thought only of myself while the lives of others cruel and inexorable turned around me like the great astrological clock of St Pierre in Beauvais
that I was lazy distracted too timid in labyrinths and caves
and forgive me also that I did not fight like Lord Byron for the happiness of oppressed peoples and studied only the rising moon and museums
—I thank You that works created for Your greater glory yielded to me particles of their mystery and that with great presumption I thought that Duccio Van Eyck and Bellini painted for me also
and also that the Acropolis which I never fully understood patiently revealed to me its mutilated body
—I ask You to reward the gray old woman who unbidden brought me fruit from her garden on the sunburned native island of the son of Laertes
and Miss Helen of the foggy island of Mull in the Hebrides for offering Greek hospitality and asking me to leave a lamp lit at night in the window facing Holy Iona so that the lights of earth would greet each other
and also all those who gave me directions and said kato kyrie kato
and take under Your protection Mama from Spoleto Spiridion from Paxos the good student from Berlin who saved me from oppression and then when met unexpectedly in Arizona drove me to the Grand Canyon which is like a hundred throusand cathedrals standing on their heads
—Lord let me not think of my moist-eyed gray deluded persecutors when the sun sets on the truly indescribable Ionian Sea
let me understand other people other languages other sufferings and above all let me be humble that is to say one who longs for the source
I thank You Lord for creating the world beautiful and various and if this is Your seduction I am seduced for good and past all forgiveness
MR COGITO—THE RETURN
1
Mr Cogito
decided to return
to the stony lap
of his fatherland
the decision is dramatic
he will regret it greatly
he can however no longer
stand the colloquial turns
—comment allez-vous
—wie geht’s
—how are you
questions apparently simple
require convoluted answers
Mr Cogito will rip off
bandages of kind indifference
he has lost all faith in progress
he cares about his own wound
displays of abundance
fill him with boredom
he grew fond only
of a Doric column
a church in San Clemente
a portrait of a certain lady
a book he never finished
and a few other little items
so he returns
he now sees
the border
a plowed field
murderous watchtowers
a thicket of barbed wire
without a whisper
a bulletproof door
closes slowly behind him
now
he is
alone
in the treasure house
of all misfortune
2
so why does he return
he is asked by friends
from the better world
he might stay here
somehow settle in
entrust his wound
to the dry cleaner
leave it in the lounge
of an enormous airport
so why does he return
—to childhood waters
—to his tangled roots
—to memory’s embrace
—to the hand the face
burned on time’s grate
questions apparently simple
require convoluted answers
perhaps Mr Cogito returns
to give an answer
to promptings of terror
to impossible happiness
to a blow out of the blue
to a treacherous question
MR COGITO AND THE IMAGINATION
1
Mr Cogito has never trusted
the tricks of the imagination
the piano at the top of the Alps
played concerts false to his ear
he had no regard for labyrinths
the Sphinx filled him with disgust
he lived in a cellarless house
without mirrors or dialectics
jungles of tangled images
were never his homeland
he rarely got carried away
on the wings of a metaphor
he then plunged like Icarus
into the arms of the Great Mother
he adored tautologies
explanations
idem per idem
a bird is a bird
slavery slavery
a knife a knife
death is death
he loved
a flat horizon
a straight line
earth’s gravity
2
Mr Cogito
will be counted
among the species minores
he will receive indifferently
the verdict of men of letters
he employed the imagination
for wholly different purposes
he wanted to make of it
an instrument of compassion
he longed to understand fully
—Pascal’s night
—the nature of a diamond
—the prophets’ melancholy
—the wrath of Achilles
—the fury of mass murderers
—the dreams of Mary Stuart
—the fear of Neanderthals
—the last Aztecs’ despair
—Nietzsche’s long dying
—the Lascaux painter’s joy
—the rise and fall of an oak
—the rise and fall of Rome
in order to revive the dead
>
and maintain the covenant
Mr Cogito’s imagination
moves like a pendulum
it runs with great precision
from suffering to suffering
there is no place in it
for poetry’s artifical fires
he wants to be true
to uncertain clarity
IN MEMORIAM NAGY LÁSZLÓ
Romana said you just passed away
as is said of those who stay forever
I envy you your marble face
between us things were pure no letters
no memories nothing to catch the eye
no rings or pitchers
or women’s laments
it makes it easier to trust my sudden joy
that you are now just like Attila József
Mickiewicz Lord Byron the handsome ghosts
who always turn up for an appointed meeting
my widower’s touch could not get used to it
a predatory love of the concrete demanded tribute
we never filled a dead room with laughter
we never leaned our elbows on a table’s rustling oak
we never shared a bottle of wine or the bread of fate
even though we dwelled together
in the hospice of Cross and Rose
the space dividing us is like a shroud
the evening’s darkness disperses falls
the noble have faces of water and earth
our further life together will no doubt take shape
more geometrico—two unbending parallel lines
unearthly patience and inhuman fidelity
TO RYSZARD KRYNICKI—A LETTER
Not much will remain Ryszard in truth not much
of the poetry of our mad century Rilke Eliot sure
a few other worthy shamans who knew the secret
of word spells time-resistant forms without which
no phrase deserves memory and speech is like sand
our school notebooks subjected to earnest torture
with their traces of sweat tears and blood will be
to the eternal proofreader a song without a score
nobly righteous and all too self-evident
we came too easily to believe beauty does not save
that it leads wantons from dream to dream to death
none of us was able to wake the dryad of a poplar
or to decipher the handwriting of the clouds
that is why no unicorn will stray across our tracks
we’ll raise up no ship in the bay no peacock no rose