The Collected Poems
Page 27
liquid spaces
harken to the pounding of the storm
grappling in the cloakroom
O Rapallo republic of treason
the laughter of daggers
city with a rat’s head
DREAM LANGUAGE
when I sleep
like everyone
before dawn rises
I wind the clock
I sink on a white
ship
waves wash me
from the white ship
I look for keys
I kill a dragon
which laughs
I light a lamp
but above all
I chatter
I suspect that
we all dream in images
but I spin
all these crazy yarns
as if sleeping
in a mound
of narrative
but that is what
dream language
should be like
a fine language
with a long arm
airy
it flouts grammar
phonetic principles
a language of mockery
a language I don’t know
when I sleep
in the cat’s place
the bronze body
is pierced by a shudder
we moan like a melody
when I sleep
in the cat’s place
sometimes my body
is pierced by a shudder
a melody like a moan
audible to the ear
at such times
dream language
closes itself off
independent
of weariness
pure
a language of sweet dread
KANT. LAST DAYS
It is truly no evidence of a great soul
—O nature—
and if you are not magnanimous
you may not exist at all
Could you really not treat him to a sudden death
like a candle guttering
like a wig slipping off
like a ring’s short expedition on a smooth tabletop
spinning and turning
at last standing still like a dead
beetle
So why these cruel games
with an old man
loss of memory
dull awakenings
nocturnal terror
wasn’t it he who said
“beware of bad dreams”
he who has a gray glacier on his head
a volcano where a fob watch should be
It is in terrible taste
to condemn a man
learning the trade of apparitions
suddenly to become
a ghost
THE END
And from now on I won’t be there in any group picture (proud proof of my death in the world’s book reviews) when someone says look see—that’s Zbyszek—pointing to a man struggling with a suitcase—it isn’t me no it’s someone who’s not even in the same business as I am I’m not there I’m not there period a perfect emptiness even if I concentrated my will in a single burning point I would not be able even for one moment and in a flash of magnesium to come into existence so I’m not there schluss
airbrushed by a tyrant as if I turned out to be an enemy of the revolution whereas I once stood safely in the sun of the leader
FLOWERS
Flowers armfuls of flowers brought in from the garden
Flowers blushing with color violet dark blue crimson
Taken away from bees they dissipate their fragrance
In the waxlike silence of a room on the edge of winter
For whom are these lavish gifts too lavish for whom
this languorous body the blizzard of scattering petals
A sky stitched with white the house’s bronze silence
Mists are trailing over the fields Ships lift their sails
ON A BOY KILLED BY THE POLICE
So many sleepless nights so many diapers
a whole avalanche of washing detergent
underpants shots kisses on a warm behind
so many spankings
so many hopes so many eyes filled with tears
if all this is ground under a heel so quickly
like a cigarette butt when an attack begins
and still
still so much song still rising
over a place where a grain of emptiness spins
over a grain of nothingness
THE LAST ATTACK. TO KLAUS
Permit me to open by expressing joy and wonder
that we’re marching at the head of our companies
in different uniforms under a different command
but with a single aim—to survive
You say to me—look here we should probably let
these boys go home to their Margot to their Kasia
war is beautiful only in parades
but apart from that as we know—mud and blood
and rats
As you speak comes an avalanche of artillery fire
it’s that bastard Parkinson who is taking so long
he caught up with us at last when we took a walk
on an irregular route our collars loose at the chin
our hands in our pockets we were on leave already
when Parkinson suddenly reminded us that it was
not the end yet that this blasted war isn’t over yet
STAKE
I don’t know who (who the hell)
this storm of pain is attacking
with heavy artillery every inch of air
of ground is torn up turned inside out
leveled by previous attacks why then
this maelstrom of pain if it is a signal
and pain a signal sent to headquarters
when all run dropping last orders for destruction
as they go why then cramps cold shivers nausea
the howling under a low dark sky
why the hammering to the stake
MR COGITO AND THE LITTLE CREATURE
It’s unclear whether anyone knows its personal zoological name, so small is it, so low, near the very bottom, beyond the naked eye. It is something that wavers between existence and absence, insignificant, fleeting as a scrap of print, a particle, the paring of a diacritical mark, the chip of a comma, a speck of lead from the printer’s cabinet.
I open my winter reading and there it is crouching down on the page, a Very Little Creature, motionless at first, but soon it is off on its way, sniffing between the lines, and then it lurches ahead like a horse from the stable, forward at the speed of the Very Little Creature’s light (the creature is blind).
This season (it may be the last season of my life)—everything was as before, the Very Little Creature amused me and warmed my black heart, when one day I decided to give the book to friends in London. I made a parcel of it and sent it off. With the Creature inside.
What does it do during the long sea voyage? It has plenty to read; it doesn’t eat very much; but what does it think of me, its old companion who proved so treacherous?
MR COGITO. THE SOUL’S CURRENT POSITION
For some time now
Mr Cogito has been
wearing his soul
on his arm
this signifies
a state of readiness
placing
the soul on the arm
is a delicate operation
it should be carried out
without feverish haste
or scenes familiar
from wars
evacuations
cities under siege
the soul likes to assume
various forms
now it’s a rock
it has sunk its claws
into Mr Cogito’s left arm
and it’s waiting
it may abandon
Mr Cogito’s body
when he sleeps
or the parting may be
in broad daylight
in full consciousness
short as the whistling
of a fractured mirror
for the time being
it sits on his arm
ready for flight
MR COGITO. ARS LONGA
To Krzysztof Karasek
1
Pompous manifestos
civil wars
decisive battles
campaigns
filled Mr Cogito
with boredom
in every generation
there are those who
with stubbornness worthy of a better cause
wish to rip poetry
from the claws
of the everyday
at an early age
they enter the order
of Most Holy Subtlety
and Ascension
they strain minds and bodies
to express that which is
beyond—
that which is
above—
they don’t even feel
how much promise
charm
surprise
lie hidden in the language
everyone
gabs in
hoodlums and Horace
2
many years ago
Mr Cogito took part
in the Festival of Two Hemispheres
the event location—Yugoslavia
in the vicinity of Lake Ohrid
on the banks of the river Struga
on either side
more than thirty thousand
poetry lovers
set up camp
a warbler from Paris
Le Bon Mot
half-mad with rapture
(at home his audience
consisted of his wife
and cowed offspring)
ascetics
flagellants
anchorites
of pure poetry
wallowed in the abundance
of thirsty souls
after dusk
had fallen
shooting broke out
artificial fires
exploded in the air
it seemed like
another Balkan war
the next day
they fished from the river
four peasants
a woman
an infant
countless empty bottles
a barn door
a piano leg
an ownerless prosthesis
a chain
about twenty meters long
3
the Wunderlich family quartet
provided brisk accompaniment
father Hansi—book-keeping for cello
mother Truda—tin and violin accounts
son Rudi—he of many talents
and the natural daughter of old Wunderlich
ergo Hansi’s sister
Rudi’s daughter
she who awakes sweet terror—
the terrifying
Maria Chaos
PICA PICA L.
in the mornings
of early spring
to late autumn
the magpie
flies by
my bedroom window
in annals
chronicles
genealogical tables
it’s called Pica pica
from the family of insidious
and bloodthirsty condottieri
let us not be led astray
by the purity of colors
the sky’s vivid foliage
the snow’s chaste white
its song alone
a rattler’s song
betrays
the true nature
of a baby killer
we ought to
curb our joy
urge caution
stigmatize it
anathemize it
tear asunder
the cloud of rapture
it uses to cover its crimes
and throw frivolous souls
into a dither
what action to take
what would be best
—aha
I know what I’ll do
I’ll hire
father Jan Twardowski
the bard of Polish birds
to be Nature’s Exorcist
for special assignments
when the priest
pops out of a thicket’s
obscure confessional
our feathered friend
might suffer a stroke
and croak on the spot
and anyway a priest can
do with a bit of exercise
in the fresh air
SONG
In memory of Zbigniew “Bynio” Kuźmiak
More rain with snow is being woven
on these great looms of early winter
a string of farm carts and pine coffins
brings the fallen to the forest’s center
let a shroud of mist be given to them
and for light hard sparks of hoarfrost
let our remembrance stay with them
in their furnace of eternal darkness
more rain with snow a stormy wind
of boundless plains and arid thistles
that fills the world expands the world
a wind from off the stars and glaciers
IT CAME TO MIND
One
winter morning
it came to Mr Cogito’s mind
it stood still
in the middle of his mind
didn’t want to budge
either to the right
or to the left
it was big
panting
smelled like a mailman
and a mystery of humble means
If only
Mr Cogito knew
why it had come
there was
no contact
Mr Cogito didn’t dare to ask
“sorry but what is this about”
he was wrestling
with its speechless stillness
this went on
an unbearably long time
an embarassing situation
more than that humiliating
because the longer it hung
in the middle of his mind
the more it was subject
to metamorphosis
from an intruder
—into a guest
—a subtenant
—a coowner
of his mind
it was
and was
and was once more
unyielding
virulent
fortunately
Mr Cogito
fell ill with pneumonia
the fever ignited a fire
his mind burned out
and with it
what had come to mind
on that winter morning
these days
Mr Cogito
is cautious
carefully
he checks
doors and windows and locks
even the flues of the chimney
even the flues of imagination
STUCK IN THE MIND
in common parlance
stuck in the mind
means a fixation
on a single unmoving object
stuck in the mind
can be represented
by a powerful peasant
in a furry winter coat
appearing in the midst
of objects all too mobile
he steams like a horse
has a thick oaken eye
—easy to have something
stick in the mind all it takes
is a moment of distraction
but t
o get it out is harder
another thing altogether
big inept stuck-in-the-mind
simply stands cap in hand
panting like a stable of studs
—not clear how to address it
“Sir” would be too much
“beat it Jack”—would be
too familiar
so stuck means stuck
stocky and apathetic
a medium quake might help
say 4.6 on the Richter scale
but no it’s glorious weather
he’s like a rock
a general sense of fatal
paralysis
stuck in the mind
a bear of a guy
LYRICAL ZONE
A view of a park and a wall in the early evening light
as in Corot—lemon peel skin of a powdered cheek after a ball
air cast in gold and you don’t hear anything here no whispers
or stifled cries no touch sweaty hands clatter of hooves
only the soul becomes a painfully fragile spiderweb
and it hangs in the air like the Gioconda’s smile
the smile of Etruscan girls
the Sphinx’s smile
CHESS
the tensely
anticipated
tournament of man
whose special mark is a knife in his teeth
against monster machine
whose special mark is Olympian serenity
has ended in victory
for the dragon
in vain
the epics that matured
in Andalusian gardens
the parvenu
Deep Blue
elbows across a board
sewn from a harlequin’s coat
this sneering philistine
stuffed
with all openings
attacks defenses
and finally the gleeful
hallali over the corpse
of the opponent
so this is how
a kingly game
passes into the hands
of automatons
we must break it out of
the prison camp at night
when mind drowses
machines are roused
the quest for the imagination
must be begun all over again
PHONE CALL
in the night
well after twelve
the telephone rings
through outlandish tangles
of mist and barbed wire
Thomas Merton the monk
to whom I owe so much
makes his way
ringing so softly
that even my
vigilant cat Shu-shu