* * *

Evening behind the wall a child wails, 
soothing words, a lullaby. Scraps 
of talk, voices reach me through the walls: 
I don't know never Mom I'm coming remember why it'll be all right

Behind all the walls of my room, behind any 
walls anywhere -- the talking 
never stops. I don't see the faces, eyes; I hear 
voices: unimaginable 
ties binding each 
with each, everybody, everything. 
You can't pick and choose. There's no place 
for a breath faultless and free.

* * *

These are strong, calm words 
when the time comes for just these people 
to speak them: they say no, they say enough, 
they say shame and truth. These are not 
trite, funny words when spoken by 
the tight-lipped men 
who speak up only 
then. Women listen in silence, 
with suddenly idle hands, 
and children, who suddenly understand 
everything. And this is just what you've got 
then: silent women 
with hands helplessly dropped,
children, beginning to understand, words 
that demand a voice, and 
a low ironic laugh 
the only sound.

* * *

Who will bear witness to these times? 
Who will record them? Certainly none of us: 
we've lived here too long, we've soaked the epoch 
up too well, we're too loyal to it to tell the truth 
about it. To tell the truth -- at all. Loyal: 
I say justice, but think of revenge's dark joy, 
I say concern while thinking them and us, 
and what have they done to me. I've got 
nothing else in my defense: loyalty. And weakness: 
that I hated wicked people, cheated to shield 
the truth, that scorn was my sick pride. 
Hatred, scorn, lies -- for so many years, 
so as to survive and stay pure. But it can't be done: 
survive and stay pure. At best -- survive. 
Stay -- mute. Ask: Who will bear witness? 
Knowing full well that none of us and certainly no one 
else will. Hence without a word. An empty epoch. 
More full of life than any other because 
ours, and we won't see another. Uproar, 
clamor, wail, laugh, howl, the same old 
song, no words, not a single word 
to speak someday 
for us.

 Translated by Donald Pirie

* * *

If I will ever tell 
about these times, what will I say? What 
has been creating me, the pitiless anxiety, 
the sick hope to last in it 
eternally. Maybe I will put it more simply: 
I will tell about night wanderings 
in the city, about everything I felt
at the time. Maybe I will recall -
already knowing their meaning - these last
days when newspapers constantly proclaimed
new triumphs of madness and crime and no one
cared any longer. Maybe
I will choose a single event: isolated 
from others, dead, it will disclose nothing. 
So most likely I will be silent. I will tell 
only how very much 
I was afraid that one day there won't be 
anyone by me who will listen 
as I tell the story. "You know," I will say, 
"I was so afraid."

* * *

Night in the railway station: an icy hall made of 
stone, wind in the doorway opening with a crash, 
neon lights. That old woman who begs and camps 
in the Planty sleeps here in the winter. I have bought 
the ticket, in two hours you will open the door for me. 
I will say that I got cold and I'm hungry.-
I feel your hot breath on my arm, 
the other image returns: it could have been 
you, but it is her - only her. No one, 
no one is guilty. It happened so 
that you breathe evenly and safely 
next to me, it happened so that I am 
happy, thank God, thank 
anyone, thank with each breath 
torn from despair, continually torn away 
from the huge icy void in which 
the wind alone 
lives.

Translated by Bogdana and John Carpenter

At Night, On A Bench Before My House

In the stillness, the garden's warm breathing: I watch a star.
That's being watched at the same time by 
someone homeless, hungry, betrayed, led 
to death. Who will 
forgive me...

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Request

After forty nights and forty 
nights the hungry black waters of tumult retreat. 
After great weeping as after a great storm - permit 
me to rise up and go. As far as possible. Leave without 
a thing and without memory, pure. Under a new 
name, new clouds and in my 
new body, pure: "light, light, light 
of the world bear me in your blood, and the words 
of a speech no one has used await 
me." In the vast silence after such great 
weeping. In silence - voicelessly, with purest 
voices of earth, water, air - speak to me, touch 
me, revive me...

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

* * *

Rain outside a window, a glass of tea on the table, 
a lamp -- this is how, perhaps naively, I see you 
in five, in twenty, in a hundred and twenty-five 
years reading this poem: thinking of me, a man 
of twenty or a hundred and twenty years ago-- how
did I live? I and my age: hopelessly tired people, 
a few dates, sites of defeat, names: incantations we repeated
then, with the childish hope of the living, lacking 
the wisdom which time has given you who lived 
after it all -- after us, after all of us. There's so little 
I can pass on to you, no more than anyone else. But after all 
I lived and I don't want to die entirely: to remain 
an everyman for you, an object of statistical 
pity or disdain. What was only, 
only me is outside history. So I'll tell you about me 
in the only language we both understand: about the smell 
of wet city dust outside the window (it had just rained), the table
pressing my elbows, the clock's tick, the taste of hot 
tea, the lamp's light that hurt my eyes 
while I wrote this poem -- in the universal language of all 
five undying 
senses.

* * *

March 21, 1980, Krakow

It takes just a few minutes: the largest market square in old 
Europe, a hazy morning, the city's voices still uncertain -- then: 
fire, blinding yellow, shocks and stuns them: in the bank's 
doorway the dealing in dollars and vodka stops, the crowd's 
trembling circles converge around a man who -- having chained himself 
to an old pump -- is burning. The smell of gas, in a flash: 
clothes, then hair, shivering hands and lips: the voice, 
deformed by pain, is just a scream, it will never become 
a word now, the harsh brown smoke of the cast-off sacrifice 
won't rise to the skies, it won't form a sign: it drifts low, disappears 
devoured by the crowd's hungry lungs, which -- in just a few 
minutes -- will choose life: in the entrance across the way the dealing 
in dollars and vodka resumes, the crowd's calm circles 
disperse, the last flame of 
old Europe dies out, and the city's triumphant voice 
grows strong: Aflame, you never know if you're becoming 
free. And whatever is yours is 
doomed.

On that day, an elderly Polish farmer, Walenty Badylak, immolated himself at a water pump in Krakow's Main Square to protest the lack of civil rights in communist Poland.

On that day, Turkish terrorist Ali Agca shot John Paul II in Rome's St. Peter's Square. The pope survived.

May 13, 1981

The world: whole and indivisible, begins where 
my hands end. As I stand at the window, I see it: the green spires 
of Skalka and Wawel, the dome of St. Ann's, further, deep blue 
hills, for so the woods look at dusk, beyond them 
other valleys filled with cities, and still more cities: 
on rivers, on wide plains sloping 
to the sea, beyond which lies another sea, sharp brown 
peaks, mountain passes, roads, and people's houses not unlike my 
own. The breath that fills my mouth, lungs, blood is just 
a share -- mine only for a moment -- of all the air 
enveloping the world: indivisible. I see it -- I know 
that it is there, right at hand, at my fingertips, at my breath's warmth. 
The rest is just a matter of miles, of imperfect vision -- insignificant 
on a scale of mind and heart. Hence right 
at hand, just a few blocks off, on a large 
city square full of people, my brother shoots 
my father, here, at my fingertips. 
Just like that: not a bang, not a whimper, like that.

* * *

This city died. Blue streetcars moan 
on the curves, the streets can't curb 
a nervous gray crowd, colored light streams from the signs. Voices, 
dust, exhaust. This city died when you understood 
how easily it could die. Those who think that it happens in flashes and claps of thunder, 
as in the Scriptures, are wrong. So is the Master 
who sneers that it will come on cat's paws. They are wrong 
about the method. Not ready: in mid-word, with an 
unsent letter, with a woman still wanting love, a hidden 
sin which will stay mortal -- no one is 
ready. Love what is doomed. There is no other love. 
Part each time as if forever, 
that is, be kind, forgive. Don't put off for tomorrow,
don't keep back the great, important words, there may not be 
time, or space. Henceforth there will be 
no other love. This city is
everywhere

Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh