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The Heart
Where are you tearing off to, my poor heart,
as if you were still looking for
your incarnation?
1973/1977
On the Eve
On the eve of the First of May,
coming home from work
along gray Red Army Street
I was just going by a butcher's window,
when I caught from the corner of my eye
how among imitation and original pieces
of motionlessly lurking meat
all of a sudden
a fairly hairy hand
with a gold ring on the middle finger
and fingernails polished red
moved slightly.
And nothing happened.
I Don't Know
I don't know if the poet
can really be impartial
like a doctor who treats
two bitter enemies the same,
since he has to take sides
as only a sister of mercy can,
patient witness
to a patient's pain
July 1977
You Don't Have To
You don't have to look,
they turn up by themselves, the slaves,
ready to wield the power
that only
love or fatal sickness
has over us
1977
Maybe It's You
At last I'm on an equal
footing; I'm always pressed
for time; I commute
up to my ears in debt; in a crowded bus
maybe it's you who hates
some sort of me?
I'll Remember That
Remember
I'm your friend:
you can tell me everything.
And you can tell me everything, too.
I'll remember that,
stone.
25 July 1977
If It Comes to Pass
If it comes to passthat I have to shout
"Long live Poland!"
-what language will I have to do it in?
1975
Rose
Manifest mystery, simple labyrinth,
careless, immortal,
ill-boding rose, I don't want to yet,
I don't have the right yet to die.
28 June 1974
The Answer
After a talk with my would-be publisher
I myself don't know
who's the author of my book.
(The state, the paper allocations, the moon's pull,
or other circumstances?)
It'll only be half an answer:
The author of my book
is the Polish language
Almost All
It's the twentieth century, so
I go to bed with the newspaper,
my glasses, pills, and wristwatch
are within reach;
I don't know if I'll fall asleep,
I don't know if I'll wake up, that's all
December 1977
Socialist Realism
The ghost of the dove of peace
with a little white flag in its beak
flies to and fro
along the Berlin Wall.
A sniper
keeps it in his sights.
1973/1975
A New Day
The Veterans' Cooperative "Twenty Years of People's
Poland"
waits for a new office, the wind blows,
the Holocene sands grind, hair falls out.
Your unemployed you
passes by a line that grows before your eyes near a newsstand.
A crumpled paper with an already faded photo of the new leader
takes flight and falls beneath the wheels
of an ambulance. Open,
open the cablegram with the pink ribbon,
maybe the cobalt helped.
When you take your child to the kindergarten
in a postwar barrack, you'll see, as on any other day,
the guard on the wall
who doesn't take his eyes
off whatever's going on on the other side.
I Am Not Worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
of Thy punishment
but if it is to fall,
let it strike only me.
Forgive me, I have sinned grievously even now,
by believing you would hold me, too,
in your all-and-nothing seeing
gaze.
Do Not Want to Die for Us
Do not want to die for us,
do not want to live for us:
live with us.
September 1980
Sleep Well
Sleep well,
the devil keeps watch:
he eavesdrops and spies
on our most secret fears and dreams,
trying to learn something new
from us, too.
Suddenly
My little girl, my great teacher
(who nobly forgives me my errors, since
she knows already that even spelling rules change)
shouts in triumph from her room: "The mantis
devours its mate only in human
captivity."
So What If
So what if
we were right,
dragonflies from before the ice age?
I Can't Help You
Poor moth, I can't help you,
I can only turn out the light.
Yes, She Says
Yes, I survived.
Now I face an
equally serious challenge: to get
on a bus,
to get home.
You're Free
"You're free," says the guard,
and the iron gate shuts
this time from this side.
A Stop
During an endless stop
in East Berlin
a young customs officer zealously unscrews
the tin ceiling
in the car's corridor; standing on tiptoe,
he checks for runaways;
the top of his uniform
pulls up and reveals a plump
helpless tummy, cuddling
a holster.
Facing the Wall
A woman turns the mirror around
to face the wall: now the wall
reflects the dead snow
crunching under iron soles.
The fire freezes.
Nothingness puts on its bayonets.
From a Window
The soldiers kill
boredom; they have brown shoes
and to the mute question "What did you do,
when they ordered you to shoot defenseless people?"
they have a mute answer: " I was lucky,
I was just guarding the TV transmitter."
The Wall
Looking at the concrete wall,
the barbed wire and the steel gate,
for a minute I couldn't remember
my country's other names: a little door
in the gate half-opened
- but it was just a guard who came out,
then disappeared into a nearby store.
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Claire Cavanagh
A Quarter To Midnight
Your voice in the receiver
is covered with another voice that I
don't even try to understand. Maybe it's calling 911,
telling an answering machine "I
love you," dumping stocks, cursing,
sobbing. Out of the ozonosphere? From the Atlantic's
floor? A quarter to midnight
of no one's time.
Frost
A whisper's gray frost, fossilized despair. Who will catch
the earth's fading psalm, the mute greetings between
planets, the galaxies' farewells. Black suns
collapse into themselves
in inhuman
silence.
Among Them, In Their Midst
Twelve men at a table laid for fates: they know that one will be a traitor
and another will deny three times before (or twice, accounts remain unclear) the
cock crows once. With them, among them, in the very midst of his infinite
singularity, the master, teacher. He who is proof against numbers. Son of the
unmentionable Name. Son of man. He's just finished breaking the matzoh, for the
very last time, he lifts a glass of wine. His face is hidden from us. His hair,
sprinkled with spikenard, emanates unearthly light. His few words reach us in
variants and translations. Careful, endlessly amended, after so many wars, how
faithful can they be.
Translated by Clare Cavanagh
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