a sip of red wine
another encounter with Hamlet
I first met him
sixty years ago
he’s not changed a bit
I on the other hand
midnight
I read Chekhov smile at him
what a kind good man
he must have loved people . . .
“ich sterbe” he said and passed away
here I have a letter to
Bujnowski
I’ll never finish it
because his wife wrote to say
Józek had died
“it’s so hard to bid farewell to life” he said
before dying . . .
“Adamaszek” leaves his house
smiles at me
his wife buttons his coat
from his eyes I can tell
he’s no idea who I am
though we’ve known each other fifty years
I can see he doesn’t see me
yesterday Mietek called
“Adamaszek died you know”
this morning
I met a mongrel
that I know
sometimes I talk to it
it used to bark at me
it lies in the sun ignoring people
its little muzzle
completely gray
where are you doggy
I know I know you have your own affairs
by the post by the tree
round the corner
The Mystery of the Poetry Reading
From Aristotle
Omne animal post coitum
triste est
praeter gallum, qui post coitum
cantat
at the reading
the poet
rises
and falls with the audience
levitates
drinks water
takes wing
after the reading
by candlelight
or without candles
he takes questions
signs books
writes in journals
receives flowers
kisses a beautiful young lady
on the cheek
flowers ribbons
tied in hair
murmur of voices
the candles are put out
silence
give me your shadow
and your supple neck
no
I don’t want shadow
alone in the hotel room
nur narr
nur dichter
throat dry
heart pounding
beneath the candelabras of chestnuts
male and female students
laughing shouting kissing
drinking beer from bottles
standing still
in the moonlight
he hears footsteps
in the hallway
a woman is coming
he hears
another door
closing
the tap of heels
now everything starts again
from the beginning
in a dream
the door opens
he sees
a dress falling
from shoulders
breasts
knees
he wakes
turns on the light
opens Faust
I was a man. Then, one dark day I hurled
Blasphemies to myself and to the world.
Today are voices everywhere, such a din
That I no longer know where I can run.
Heart in my mouth, I stand alone in fear.
The door creaks loud, but no one enters here.
after a reading
the poet is sad
[2001]
Too Bad
I never finished reading
the “Paradiso” mea culpa
I got bored in the “Purgatorio”
mea culpa
the “Inferno” alone I read
with flushed face
mea maxima culpa
Ezra Pound read not only all of
Dante and Confucius
but also the poet from Predappio
(la Clara a Milano!)
whom he adored
Pound was a madman a genius
and a martyr
His favorite student
Possum
wrote beautiful poems about cats
wore tasteful neckties
and was more temperate in speech
than his master
for which he received the Nobel Prize
Pound
was right
not to be fond
of capitalists and moneylenders
he sought to drive the merchants
from the temple
he was put
in a straightjacket
in this outfit
he roams Parnassus
conversing with the admirer
of Dante Ariosto Schiller
Klopstock Platen
and Weiblinger . . .
with the poet composer leader
translator and author of the poem
Die Worte vom Brot
with Benito Mussolini himself!
(serves you right! you foolish poet)
PS
too bad Pound never finished
Mein Kampf
before he started extolling
the Führer
Done In
Done in
by a plank
on a trash heap Pier Paolo
tries to rise from the dead
crawls
enclosed in his hands he bears
bloody human
genitals like a chick
in the nest
up to the Lord’s throne
and this divine earth
with its unearthly beauty
this lesion in the universe
this canker in the loins
of the milky way
spits blood and sperm
it was you Pier Paolo
who said
“Far off a person sees someone
who is killing another person.
He’s a witness to the act,
he distances himself from it . . .”
someone
saw from far off
another person
who was killing you
La Terra vista dalla Luna
il porcile
a barely fledged youth
giovane di primo pelo
a kitchen boy with the burning eyes
of La Fornarina
clenching his buttocks
the rectum of paradise
too young for the noose
for a death sentence an amorino
consuming the shit of the world
one of the heroes
of Salo or 120 Days of Sodom
Created in the image
and likeness of God
Pier Paolo awaits
the day of judgment
The Philosopher’s Secret
ich werde von Zeit zu Zeit
zum Tier–dass kann ich
an nichts denken als an
Essen, Trinken, Schlafen
Furchtbar!
this confession
came in the private diary
of the philosopher
now interpreters publishers
slave traders relatives
have sold
the person
it’s the revenge of his
famous assertion
(conjecture?)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann
darüber muß man schweigen
a saying as common and as hackneyed
as the Mona Lisa’s smile
as the tongue Albert Einstein
poked out at the journalists
September 5 1914
I lie on straw–on the ground–
I’m reading an
d writing
on a small wooden trunk
(preis 2,50 kronen)
wrote the philosopher
today once again I mas——
things are so tough–wrote the philosopher
Lord take pity on me
I’m a worm
but with God’s help I’ll become
a person
and he wrote
that he’d have to take his own life
I’m going through hell
Lord may the cup
pass me by
the mind is asleep in the head
wrote
the philosopher
then he wrote that he was afraid
and now bad people
have sold the philosopher
and his great secret
that he mas——
like a boy or a recruit
like a million a hundred million boys
it’s all half-scary half-funny
like the tiger in the circus
or the monkey masturbating
in the zoo
in plain sight
of its larger brothers
from the vanishing species
of Homo sapiens
Wittgenstein served as a volunteer
on a ship called the Goplana
it was still sailing
between Kraków and Sandomierz
after the second world war
when I was a student
or maybe I just dreamt it!
the Goplana with its great paddle wheel
Der Wachschiff Goplana
In Krakau
Trakl vor wenigen Tagen
gestorben ist
additional uses for books
large books and small
can be variously utilized
in the morning
upon waking
jump briskly out of bed
(don’t waste the day!)
take a book
(if you have one at home)
and begin your exercises
walk in a straight line
with the book
on your head
you ask
“which book”
this isn’t about books
it’s about balance
place one foot
in front of the other
do not move your hips
from side to side
set the book
aside
“which book?”
it could be Quo Vadis
With Fire and Sword
J. R. R. Tolkien
Der Herr der Ringe
(mit Anhängen)
Baudolino
An Ancient Legend
it makes no difference
it could be something shortlisted
walk straight
with eyes closed
stretch out your arms
to the sides
walk in a straight line
take a deep breath
[Wrocław 2002]
why do I write?
sometimes “life” conceals
That
which is greater than life
Sometimes mountains conceal
That
which is beyond the mountains
so the mountains must be moved
but I lack the necessary
technical means
and the strength
and the faith
to move mountains
so you will not see it
ever
I know
and that is why
I write
March 21 2001–World Poetry Day
around noon the phone rang
“today is poetry day”
said Maria
“I can’t hear you!”
“today is World Poetry Day, o poet!
it’s been established by Unesco”
Even Ionesco couldn’t have thought up
something like this! this is something (something)!
“Poet, I send you
best wishes on your own holiday”
said M. imperturbably
tomorrow is world rheumatism day
I replied and
sat for a moment to
put on my boots . . . damn laces
one end always longer than the other
tangled like the black spaghetti
advertised in Malbork
by charming grandma Zosia from Naples
How did Leopold Staff put it?
Something must be tied,
something joined,
something resolved.
before I’d tied them
the phone rang
“good morning
pardon my boldness
but I’m an old lady
close to death could
I come round right now
and read you my poems?”
no!
I replied gruffly . . .
but I relented . . . (embarrassed)
“how old are you exactly?”
seventy
well I’m eighty
I’m sick
(and I was “half-dead”)
but you look so well on the television
your neighbor the lady who runs the steam press
saw you . . . I’m ill too . . .
the voice unwound softly
like a ball of yarn in a dream
sweet painless
“I live round the corner”
I can’t
I repeated more quietly
feeling like a killer of old ladies
a butcher (or baker) from the Old Town
a murderer Jack the Ripper Jacques the Fatalist
“my grandson persuaded me to write
and my daughter-in-law to paint” said the old lady
actually old ladies can hardly be blamed
for painting writing poems making cutouts
if ladies in high heels
write novels
compose music
to their own words release records
a golden mask a handprint in Między
zdroje a Fryderyk Prize
after all these women in (or past) the prime
of life could be doing so many other
things...
One is in Paris
one is in Naples
the third: Hans Metaphysikus
“in seinem Schreibgemache”
and for me an old lady is waiting
round the corner
my leg hurts
my eye hurts
grauer Star
Geschwulst am linken fuß
gestörter venöser Zirkulation
Ulcus cruris varicosum
gichtischen Schmerzen nehmen zu
In Toledo I bought
Spanische Fliege
eine Tasse Fliegertee
didn’t help!
forgive these ostentations
these linguistic flirtations
(I’m doing it for my critics)
Spanish fly is just a compress
or a tincture
from the beetle Lytta vesicatoria
maybe I’ll manage
to make my deepest self possessed
by some philosopher
because I make myself depressed
by being too shallow
poet in applesauce
on an endlessly
long
golden honeysweet
strip of
flypaper
in a little blue tux I see
a great medium
small
poet
I see a fly
on the strip
blowing into its blocked proboscis
stretching out a leg
cleaning its sticky
wings
its legs flailing
piping a song: Root-toot-toot–
warming up for battle
rubbing its hands
in an empty vodka bottle
it deposits its suffering
(for posterity)
on the milky way I see
a black spitfly
(spitting and apologizing
apologizing and spitting)
after a thunderous flight
a soft landing
on a rubbish bag
in some radical
porno-rag
you hear the heroic buzzing
in space (that’s our Root-toot-toot
making a face)
him too
him too he writes
poems
Adam!
the spoon raised to his lips
Adam froze
you hear? I’m talking to you
Adam . . . he’s not listening!
so then dear friends
Mr. Onufry Mr. Teofil’s neighbor
writes too
and he’s pretty good
dashing off
all kinds of stuff and nonsense
fairy tales idylls bucolics pastorals
ballads limericks dactyls iambs
historical songs elegies
rhapsodies chivalrous legends
epics comic sagas
hexameters trochees
eat up Adam
or your beet soup
will get cold!
new poems Page 5