doesn’t lift his head
but sleeps snugly buried
in an old skiing sweater
—how nice
that you didn’t forget me
we never did meet in life
now we can have a chat
about everything—
I should really ask him
what he’s working on
but there’s a buzzing in my ears
a button on my lip
water on my brain
—how have you been doing
the good Trappist inquires
—my eyes are sore
—must be conjunctivitis
we read too much
meditate too little
chamomile’s best for eyes
we got stuck in chamomile
copses of chamomile
meadows of verbena
groves of belladonna
I am consumed
by measurelessness
shot through with black holes
the philosophy of three AM
the philosophy of hangovers
ergo the New Age
a philosophy
of the left leg
as the Russians say naplevat’
the next time
I’ll read the fundamental tome
on the philosophy
of the very Far East
I don’t make a very good
custodian of nothingness
never in my life
have I managed
to produce
a decent abstraction
THOMAS
To His Eminence
Father Józef Zycinski
Here the blade was held to the flesh
Right here
and thrust
and there’s a keepsake
it cries in all the tongues of the fish
—a wound—
The face focused
forehead furled
blue light of dawn
reluctant and cold
Thomas’s index finger
miner’s lamp of touch
is guided from above
by the Master’s hand
so doubt is permitted
we are free to question
so Leonardo da Vinci’s
furrowed forehead
has value after all
IN THE CITY
In the borderland city I’ll never see again
there’s a winged stone light and immense
a winged stone struck by lightning
in the faraway city I’ll never see again
there’s water that’s heavy and nourishes
he who gives you a drink of that water
says—someday I’ll return to this place
in my city which doesn’t exist on any map
of the world there’s bread giving lifelong
nourishment black as an exile’s fate—as
stone water bread towers standing at dawn
HIGH CASTLE
To Leszek Elektorowicz in lasting friendship
1
as a reward
an excursion
to the High Castle
before
we reach its foot
a journey by tram
a great concert
on iron
poured
welded
adored
the viola of the tram’s tracks
both
in a thick grass of confusion
at every corner
the tram burns
in its ecstasy
on the roof
a comet
with a violet tail
an ardent din
of ruddy tin
of hoarse tin
triumphant tin
reflected in the windows
hushed
Lwów
a tranquil
pale
weeping candlestick
2
The High Castle
hides its feet bashfully
under a blanket
of hazel shrubs
deadly nightshade
and nettles
a grove of floozies
she in her sweaty
white blouse
hangs on a shoulder
with an anchor
3
we take a shortcut
along a path quick
as a running stream
Józef and Teofil
were hanged here
for loving freedom
with a hot passion
—do the kids’ crying
the mothers calling
the vendors’ falsetto
not bother you
—may all of them
do as they like
—soon we will
be taken away
on night wings
apricot wings
wings of apple
of light indigo
along the banks
to another
yet higher
castle
THE CAT SAT ON THE MAT IN DEFENSE OF ILLITERACY
From the fact that he managed
to learn the cat sat on the mat
Mr Cogito has drawn
some exaggerated conclusions
does the ability thus acquired
authorize him to pass sentence
to found schools of good taste
opine on projects for mankind’s
reconstruction
after the example of the comical
August Comte
would it not be better
to abandon
that cheap
knowledge
and to stick
with the wisdom
of old mountain folk
devoid of real
progress
it would mean
rising unemployment
a large number of face
openings without a job
the lucid knowledge
that all philosophy
is superfluous
and even harmful
ARTUR
…I won’t sing of Felek Stankiewicz now
or the marching song about the red poppies
so you’re gone Artur this winter was awful
no trace of the battle no trace of the poppies
so you are gone Artur there where others go
with your military step chest thrust forward
and only an echo an inconsolable echo still
playing over strings like a wandering Angel
Now—it’s funny—you sing in an angels’ choir
hidden by radiance vast mysterious radiance
you sing when I open a window or put on tea
yes Julia
Artur
IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN DO FOR YOU SIR
Sure there’s plenty
open the window
adjust the pillow
pour out cold tea
—that’s it
—that’s all
it’s both a lot
and not much
for it should
be done well
considerately
open a window onto the whole spring
adjust a head to the shape of a pillow
TIME
I live in several times like an insect in amber, motionless and so outside of time, for my limbs are motionless and I cast no shadow on the wall, sunk in a cave as in motionless amber and so nonexistent;
I live in several times, motionless but furnished with all motion, for I dwell in space and belong to it and everything that is space lends me its touching, transient form;
I live in several times, nonexistent, painfully motionless and painfully in motion and I truly don’t know what is given to me and what is taken away forever
MR COGITO. A CALLIGRAPHY LESSON
Once in his lifetime
Mr Cogito attained
&nb
sp; the height of mastery
in the first grade
of Saint Anthony’s
elementary school
seventy years ago
in Lwów
the calligraphy competition
Mr Cogito broke the record
he wrote the most beautiful
letter b
he won Petrarchan laurels
with the letter b
history’s storm
sadly devoured
the masterpiece
destroyed
for good
the soaring tower
Renaissance belly
of the b
the grand competition
took place under the eye
of the Polish teacher
(her passport gave
the name Bombowa)
the nursemaid
of Cogito’s mind
history’s whirlwind
wholly devoured
the soaring tower
Renaissance belly
of the b
and in chronic distraction
Bombowa herself as well
she slipped into mythology
and since then she lives
and reigns
over Mr Cogito
and the orphaned letter
b
NAVEL
This is the most endearing spot the body’s city
for nine months a blind telescope on the world
until at the last minute the fire brigade arrives
a sudden caesura
and it’s on its own doomed to love
love’s sequel friendship and service to Conrad a cross of dough
a marshal’s words on an insignia a city-state everything turns
history’s wheel crushes
only it remains faithful
the body’s embroidery rolled up in the navel
the navel the end of a braid
SEASON
O season everything is locked in heaven’s vaults
shape sound and colors spread lightly over them
there’s only the rose’s petal rusty along the edges
sweet doing nothing do not ask when dusk falls
Boreas sculptures clouds and the Cirruses the rest
black and white Norwid and pangs of conscience
OLD AGE
I knew all this considerably earlier
and so better the threads have been tied more logically
which is to say better
the same cat Shu-shu warms up between thigh and shin
the same dream—a mouse hunt the capture of a tower
I don’t need any keepsakes
reality circulates slowly in the veins
before closed eyes
I know he was the one who betrayed
I don’t need exposition of the theme
because everything repeats itself
it is better now
I’m not curious
BEDLAM
Before departure
it’s a madhouse
papers objects
flying around
as if they feel
they will lose
a right to gravity
when Mr Cogito
flies off
unpaid bills
unsettled debts
incurred on a word of honor
unwritten poems
futureless contracts
colorless flirtations
beer left unopened
all of it flies around
in Mr Cogito’s head
the mess is growing
what will happen
if he doesn’t manage
to tame the elements
after all you can’t
put off going away
on holiday forever
so one day
or night
when it’s all ending
Mr Cogito
will prop himself up
on the pillows
of an express train
covering
his chilly knees
with a blanket
and conclude
it will all go on
as before the holidays
surely it will be worse
than in Mr Cogito’s time
but it will always go on
MR COGITO’S OTHER WORLD
not everything
in Mr Cogito’s opinion
can be seen from this world’s perspective
this world
is really the other world
if you buy the theory of relativity
what’s here
is there
what’s in the other world
is here
so not everything
is as it should be
didn’t Mr Cogito
explain patiently
that one oughtn’t
to sign the treaty
with the villain
nor expect that
good intentions
necessarily end
in happy results
nor a myriad other
general principles
and their special applications
so he continues
to prompt the world’s rulers
with his advice
as ever
as ever
in vain
PORTRAIT OF THE FIN DE SIÈCLE
Ravaged by drugs stifled by a mantle of fumes
the supernova smolders burned to a fiery star
of three evenings—of chaos desire and torment
steps onto the trampoline begins all over again
dwarf of our time star of evenings long extinct
you goat-footed artist mimicking the demiurge
apocalyptic funfair O prince of somnambulists
hide your loathsome face
while there’s time call the Lamb cleansing waters
let the true star ascend and Mozart’s Lacrimoso
call the true star the realm of the hundred leaves
let the Epiphany be fulfilled the New Page open
TENDERNESS
In the end what can I do with you—tenderness
tenderness for birds and for people for a stone
you should sleep in a palm in the eye’s depths
that’s your place may you be woken by no one
You spoil everything you get it back to front
you contract a tragedy into a pocket romance
you change the high-toned flight of a thought
into sobbing and exclamations into moaning
To describe is to murder because it’s your role
to sit in the darkness of a cold and empty hall
to sit solitary where reason blithely rattles on
with mist in a marble eye tears running down
HEAD
Theseus is passing through a sea
of bloody columns leaves restored
in a clenched fist he holds a trophy
—the scalped head of the Minotaur
Bitterness of victory An owl’s shriek
measures dawn with a coppery stick
so that he will feel the sweet defeat
to the end a warm breath in his neck
FABRIC
Forest of threads thin fingers loom of fidelity
expectation’s shadowy bier
so then frail memory be near
lend me your infinity
Dim light of conscience a monotonous thud
measures the island’s years in scores
and carries at last to a nearby shore
bark and weft warp and shroud
ZBIGNIEW HERBERT: A CHRONOLOGY
1924 Born on October 29, in Lwów, Poland, to Maria Kaniak and Boleslaw Herbert, director of a commercial bank as well as the Lwów branch of an insurance company.
According to family legend, the Herberts were originally of English descent; however, Herbert’s paternal gr
eat-grandfather arrived in Lwów from Vienna, and his grandmother on his father’s side, Maria Balaban, descended from a polonized Armenian family; Herbert’s maternal grandmother, born into a wealthy Austrian family in Graz, married Józef Kaniak, a civil servant in Lwów. Herbert’s sister, Halina, was born in 1923 and a brother, Boleslaw Janusz, was born in 1931.
1934 Receives first communion with other children from his class at St. Anthony’s elementary school in Lwów—a state school attended by Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews. Later, attends the prestigious King Kazimierz Wielki gymnasium.
1939 In the latter half of September, eastern Poland is occupied by the Soviets; many of Herbert’s Lwów gymnasium instructors perish in the fighting or are taken captive. In the following year, there are massive deportations of Poles and others to Soviet camps in the east.
1941 Hitler’s forces attack the Soviet Union, occupying Lwów and other cities in eastern Poland. Herbert continues his studies in clandestine university classes, concentrating on Polish literature; he also becomes involved with the underground resistance.
1943 Herbert’s younger brother, Janusz, dies as a result of acute appendicitis.
1944 In March, a few months before Lwów is reoccupied by the Soviets, the Herbert family leaves the city, first traveling west by train and settling in Kraków.
1945–1947 Attends Trade Academy in Kraków; also attends lectures at the Jagiellonian University and drawing classes at the Academy of Fine Arts.
1949–1950 Attends University of Toru?, receiving title of master of law in 1949. Also attends lectures by the philosopher Henryk Elzenberg; later participates in Elzenberg’s private seminars.
1949–1950 Works as office manager of Gda?sk branch of Writers’ Union. Romance with Halina Misio?ek, a married woman who works as a secretary in the same office—a relationship that lasts intermittently until 1959. A collection of Herbert’s letters to H. M. were later published in Poland as Letters to the Muse (2000). In 1950 Herbert makes his literary debut with three poems published without his consent in the journal Dzi? i Jutro.
1951 Transfers to the philosophy department of the University of Warsaw, continuing to correspond with Henryk Elzenberg. Begins to write reviews and articles for various periodicals, among them Tygodnik Powszechny, under the pseudonym “Patryk.”
1952 From January to July, supplements his income by selling his blood.
1954 From January, works as an economist in the accounts office of the Central Office of Research and Projects in the Peat Industry, or “Peat Project,” in Warsaw. Publishes a group of poems in the Catholic anthology Each Moment I Must Choose. Works intermittently in the University of Warsaw library, making an index of philosophical articles from pre-war periodicals.
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