for these be the days of vengeance,
that all things which are written
may be fulfilled”
now the time is nigh
of abandoned homes
trampling in jungles
frenzied seafarings
erring in the darkness
crawling in the dust
the time of the hunted
the time of the Great Beast
TALE OF A NAIL
For lack of a nail the kingdom fell
—our nannies’ wisdom teaches us—but in our kingdom
there haven’t been nails for a long time nor will there be
neither those handy little ones used for hanging pictures
on a wall nor the big ones with which coffins are sealed
but in spite of this and perhaps precisely because of it
the kingdom endures and even gains others’ admiration
how is it possible to live without nails paper and string
bricks oxygen freedom and whatever else you like
evidently it is possible because it endures and endures
people in this country live in houses not in caves
factories smoke in the steppe trains cross the tundra
and on the cold ocean a ship blows its bleating horn
there is an army and police a seal an anthem a flag
on the surface it’s just like the rest of the world
it is only on the surface because this kingdom of ours
is not a creation of nature or a creation of humanity
seemingly enduring built on the bones of mammoths
in reality it is weak as if suspended between
the act and the thought existence and nonexistence
a leaf and a stone fall so do all things real
but ghosts live a long time stubbornly despite
sunrise and sunset revolutions of celestial bodies
on the disgraced earth tears and things fall
ELEGY FOR THE DEPARTURE OF PEN INK AND LAMP
1
Truly my infidelity is great and hard to forgive
for I do not even remember the day or the hour
at which I abandoned you my childhood friends
first I address you humbly
pen with a wooden holder
painted or finely laquered
in a Jewish shop
—creaking steps a bell over the glass door—
I picked you out
in the shade of indolence
and before long you bore
on your body
my pensive teethmarks
traces of school’s angst
O silver nib
outlet of the critical mind
courier of consoling knowledge
—of the fact the earth is round
—of straight and parallel lines
in the shopkeeper’s box
you were a fish waiting for me
amid a school of other fish
—I was amazed there were so many
objects ownerless and completely
mute—
then
forever mine
I put you piously in my mouth
and felt on my tongue
the long taste
of sorrel
and the moon
O ink
honorable Sir Encaustum
of a distinguished lineage
highborn
as the evening sky
slow to dry
deliberate
and very patient
we turned you
into a Sargasso Sea
drowning blotting paper
hairs flies and curses
in your wise depths
to mask the odor
of a gentle volcano
the call of the abyss
who remembers you now
my fond fellows
you disappeared quietly
behind time’s last cataract
who remembers you gratefully
in an era of harebrain ballpoints
of arrogant objects
without grace
name
or past
if I speak of you
I’d like to speak
as if I were hanging an ex voto
on a shattered altar
2
Light of my childhood
blessed lamp
sometimes I come upon
your dishonored body
in a secondhand store
yet once you were
a shining allegory
spirit stubbornly battling
against gnostic demons
given over to the eye
open
transparently plain
at the bottom of your reservoir
kerosene—elixir of primeval forests
a wick’s slippery snake
with a head of flames
slim maidenlike glass
and a silvery tin shield
like Selene at full moon
your princessy moods
O beautiful and cruel
hysterics of a prima donna
not sufficiently applauded
hark
a cheerful aria
summer’s honey glow
above the glass mouth
a fair braid of sunlight
and suddenly
dark basses
ravens and crows alight
invective and swearing
prophecies of destruction
a fury of smoke bombs
like a great playwright you knew the tides of passion
and the swamps of melancholy black towers of pride
blazing glow of fires rainbows the unleashed oceans
effortlessly you summoned out of nothingness
landscapes cities gone wild mirrored in water
at a sign from you the crazy prince of the island
and the balcony in Verona appeared obediently
I was devoted to you
O luminous initiation
lever of knowledge
under night’s hammers
and my other
flat head cast on the ceiling
looked down menacingly
as if from a box of angels
at the theater of the world
knotted
evil
cruel
I thought then
I should save
one
small
warm
true
thing
from the flood
yes so it might go on living
and we inside it as in a shell
3
I have never believed in the spirit of history
a puffed-up monster with a murderous eye
a dialectical beast kept on a torturer’s leash
or in you—four horsemen of the Apocalypse
Huns of progress galloping across the steppes of heaven and earth
destroying on your way everything honorable old and defenseless
I wasted years learning history’s simplistic workings
the monotonous procession and the unequal struggle
between the thugs at the head of addled crowds
and a handful of the righteous and reasonable
not much is left
not much at all
objects
and compassion
lightly we leave the gardens of childhood the gardens of things
scattering manuscripts oil lamps dignity and pens on our flight
such is our deluded journey along the cliff side of nothingness
forgive me for my ingratitude O pen with your archaic nib
and you inkwell—you still contained so many good ideas
forgive me oil lamp—you die out like a deserted campsite
I paid for my betrayal
but then I didn’t know
you were gone forever
and that it would be
dark
ROVIGO
1992
TO HENRYK ELZENBERG ON THE CENTENNIAL OF HIS BIRTH
What would have become of me had I not met you—Master Henryk
whom I address for the first time by your first name
With the reverence and respect due to—Tall Shades
I’d have been a silly boy to the end of my life
Searching
Stifled tacitum ashamed of my own existence
An unknowing boy
The times we lived in were truly a tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and cruelty
Your severe gentleness delicate strength
Taught me to weather the world like a thinking stone
Patient indifferent and tender all at once
You were surrounded by sophists and those who think with a hammer
Dialectical frauds parishioners of nothingness—you looked at them
Through spectacles slightly streaked with tears
With an eye that forgives and shouldn’t forgive
All my life I failed to wring from myself a word of thanksgiving
On your deathbed—I’m told—you waited for the voice of a pupil
Who in the city of fake lights on the Seine
was being finished off by cruel nursemaids
But the Law Tablets Brotherhood—endure
Praise be to your forefathers
To those few who loved you
Praise be to your Books
Slender
Spacious
More lasting than bronze
Praise be to your cradle
THE BOOK
To Ryszard Przybylski
This book is a gentle reminder it does not permit me
to run too rapidly in the rhythm of a coursing phrase
it bids me return to the beginning forever begin again
I’ve been up to my ears in Book One chapter three verse VII
half a century and a voice says: you’ll never master the Book
I go over it letter by letter—but my ardor often expires
The book’s patient voice instructs:
the worst thing in matters of the spirit is haste
and then consoles me: you have years ahead of you
It says: forget that there are many pages waiting for you
many volumes tears libraries read chapter three closely
it contains the key the abyss the beginning and the end
It says: don’t spare your eyes candles ink copy assiduously
verse by verse and copy precisely as if reflecting
in a mirror unintelligible faded words with triple meanings
I think in despair—I’m neither sufficiently able nor patient
my brothers are more fluent in the art
I hear their mockeries overhead and see the sneering looks
at a late dawn in winter—when I am beginning again
ORWELL’S ALBUM
He didn’t manage his life very well a certain Eric Blair
on every picture his face is extraordinarily melancholy
A top student at Eton—Oxford—then colonial service
during which he cut the sum total of elephants by one.
He was witness to the hanging of some unruly Burmese
and described it in detail. War in Spain with the anarchs.
There’s a picture: fighters in front of the Lenin barracks
in the background he stands too tall and entirely alone.
Sadly there’s no photo of his period of poverty studies
in Paris and London. A gap allowing for speculation.
And then finally late fame—more than that—wealth:
we see him with dog and grandson. Two pretty wives
a country house in Banhil where he lies under a stone.
Not one holiday snapshot—tennis shoes a sunlit yacht
the courting of amusement. Good. Luckily no photo
of him in hospital. The bed. The white flag of a towel
held to a bleeding mouth. But he will never surrender.
And he goes off like a pendulum patient and suffering
to a certain encounter.
A LIFE
I was a quiet boy a little sleepy and—amazingly—
unlike my peers—who were fond of adventures—
I didn’t expect much—didn’t look out the window
At school more diligent than able—docile stable
Then a normal life at the level of a regular clerk
up early street tram office again tram home sleep
I truly don’t know why I’m tired uneasy in torment
perpetually even now—when I have a right to rest
I know I never rose high—I have no achievements
I collected stamps medicinal herbs was OK at chess
I went abroad once—on a holiday to the Black Sea
in the photo a straw hat tanned face—almost happy
I read what came to hand: about scientific socialism
about flights into space and machines that can think
and the thing I liked most: books on the life of bees
Like others I wanted to know what I’d be after death
whether I’d get a new apartment if life had meaning
And above all how to tell the good from what’s evil
to know for sure what is white and what’s all black
Someone recommended a classic work—as he said
it changed his life and the lives of millions of others
I read it—I didn’t change—and I’m ashamed to admit
for the life of me I don’t remember the classic’s name
Maybe I didn’t live but endured—cast against my will
into something hard to govern and impossible to grasp
a shadow on a wall
so it was not a life
a life up to the hilt
How could I explain to my wife or to anyone else
that I summoned all my strength
so as not to commit stupidities cede to insinuation
not to fraternize with the strongest
It’s true—I was always pale. Average. At school
in the army in the office at home and at parties
Now I’m in the hospital dying of old age.
Here is the same uneasiness and torment.
Born a second time perhaps I’d be better.
I wake at night in a sweat. Stare at the ceiling. Silence.
And again—one more time—with a bone-weary arm
I chase off the bad spirits and summon the good ones.
PACIFIC III (ON THE PEACE CONFERENCE)
In the caves of night
on branches
fat as armored limbs
a fruit ripens
which will be pulped
by the sleep
of those sleeping quietly under trees
the sleep of the fair and defenseless
The fruit rocks and swells
sounding its metal alarm
turns blue as hatred’s face
The fat branch will wither
and the ripe fruit will roll
onto the fair unripe heads
The poet guardian of the sleepers
enchanted by the menacing night
clasps tight in his trembling hands
the little trumpet of St. Eustace
on which one can play so nicely
the dawn reveille for mosquitos
MADEMOISELLE CORDAY
Charlotte in a dress blue-gray as a rock—a straw hat
two ribbons tight under the chin—bends over Marat
and swifter than a falling star—administers justice
Behind the wall a city’s rumblings Drums of Revolution
Farther off—a wood—fields—a stream—downy clouds
—slopes of air—wild lupine—mallows
And everything was as always
&
nbsp; on that irrevocable day
Sitting stiffly upright Miss Corday rode
wearing—as the court ordered—the dress of patricides
amid yowling crowds pelting her face with apple cores
she rode across Paris to her execution on a stifling day
amid maledictions but as if wearing a crown
of cropped hair
She deserves a monument or at the least an obelisk
because she belonged wholly to the mythical times
when Greek or Roman authors
and readers at gas lamp or candle
made a pact and believed fiercely
that the defense of freedom is a praiseworthy thing
Miss Corday read Plutarch at night
books were taken seriously
MY ANCESTORS’ HANDS
Tirelessly they work in me my ancestors’ hands
narrow strong bony hands used to riding hacks
handling swords and sabers
—Oh how sublime the peace of a fatal blow
What do my ancestors’ hands have to say
olive-colored hands from the other world
Surely I would never surrender
so they work in me as in dough
which goes to make dark bread
And what exceeds my imagination—
they plant me roughly in the saddle
and my feet in the stirrups
WOLVES
To Maria Oberc
Because they lived by a wolfish law
history will grant them no place
they left behind them in piling snow
a yellowish moisture a wolfish trace
vengeful despair reached their hearts
before a traitor’s shot hit their napes
they drank home brew ate dire straits
and so attempted to meet their fates
“Dawn” will never make an accountant
“Dark” will not be an agronomist now
“Marusia” a mother or “Thunder” a poet
their young heads will whiten with snow
they didn’t leave an Electra sighing
nor were they buried by Antigone
and now they will be forever dying
deep in snow through all eternity
they lost their homes in birch forests
where the snow drifts in a whitish blur
to grieve for them is not a labor for us
nor for us to stroke their ruffled fur
because they lived by a wolfish law
history will grant them no place
they left behind them in a goodly snow
The Collected Poems Page 24