At the Cave
You can come to terms with anyone
Even a troglodyte
You only have to keep your head
To be patient
To offer him a lamb a herd of oxen a few sheep
To figure out his reasons right after he yells
To guess them from his gestures and his glance
When his eyes get bloodshot, then he's mad
Call the soldiers and make them take back what they brought
When he thumps his chest, then he's happy
Order the same thing once again
He drinks sugar water
Alcohol apparently isn't recommended
You have to understand him that's all
Don't meddle with his tastes
Demand the impossible
He's cruel by our standards
But he's got his own logic
This is a different configuration from a different culture
We must make him feel that we can respect it
Show sympathy and kindness
Not provoke him
Fate the Clerk Lays Down a New Set of Bylaws
Fate the clerk lays down a new set of bylaws
It used to be the elements' decree now it's a decree of the authorities
Hard to believe that back then it was personal like a soul
On a first-name basis with those wretched kings in their nooses
It's gotten red-tapey and torpid
It's a bookkeeper of great numbers
It still cuts down a forest or a nation the way it did before
But now it's hit-or-miss and get-out-if-you-can
29-77-02
Realistic dreams with a whiff of terror
I've got to call the number 29 77 02
I call with no luck from God knows what cities
I want to talk to the beautiful M. S.
We were friends ages ago
But she's either dead or forgotten
The phone booths are dusty and dark
The dials are falling off or don't work
We're sitting with Julia at a table covered in white
It's a party thrown by our classmates' parents
We don't know anyone there
We feel depressed and sad and I wake up
It's the night from March seventh to the eighth in Normandy
I turn on the lamp I write down the phone number
Tugboats call out to each other in the fog
They
Don't think it's your character they don't like
Your weakness, your terrific disposition
Don't think that they don't like your critical mind
Or your unwavering faith
Or the sky-high flight of your unruly soul
Or that you're a slave to love
It's time you knew that they don't like all of you
They don't like you as you are nor anything you say or do
And it's not my place to tell you
What a black and venomous hatred this is
And who the killers of God are
And the destroyers of peoples
The War of Nerves
The war of nerves is a natural phenomenon
Dogs wage it with cats, bears with bees
The pine moth with the forester, the bookworm with the bookseller
The skunk and the boa with the rabbit
Gentle persuasion won't help much here
There's no point dreaming about taking some time off
Since what kind of break will the mountain eagle get
When he's being shot at from a copter
But the nightingale still sings in spite of danger
The soaring eagle holds sway in the spring sky
The swallow flits by, the swift flutters its wings
The woodpecker, gaudy drummer, won't give up its morning scores
In the war of nerves the less-nervous one wins
The one who doesn't borrow trouble and understands
That the skunk won't shake off its skunky nature
And that you've got to keep your inner balance
1981
What Does the Political Scientist Know
What does the political scientist know?
The political scientist knows the latest trends
The current states of affairs
The history of doctrines
What does the political scientist not know?
The political scientist doesn't know about desperation
He doesn't know the game that consists
In renouncing the game
It doesn't occur to him
That no one knows when
Irrevocable changes may appear
Like an ice floe's sudden cracks
And that our natural resources
Include knowledge of venerated laws
The capacity for wonder
And a sense of humor
1981
Can You Imagine
Absence
Can you imagine
Absence
Not as the opposite
Of something that is and breathes
Or a gap in the universal presence of things
Or a catchword that calls for a mediating symbol
Or for dialectic quibbles
But as infinite transparence
Where no images take root
A colorless invisible monochrome
Absence
Something that's not there
That's not there anywhere
Let It Talk
Let the tree talk which has grown tall within you
Lend a patient ear to the lament of its leaves
Let the birds talk among its boughs
The Reason of Existence
The eternal quarrel
between the reason of existence and the reason of brute force
reaches exceptional intensity
whenever individual or collective self-conceit
leads to the catastrophe of war
or when tyranny wields its arbitrary power
transgressing humanity's true nature
and the law that sanctifies it
In such cases it's clear
that the reason of brute force - however it's explained -
is always a corruption of life
in its very social essence
which is the endless play
between acquired culture and one's sense of personal uniqueness
between free impulse and an unimagined obligation
to oneself and others
In examining injustices and wrongs
no one can possibly say
if the human reason for existence
must always give way to violence
at least for some period of time
But that's the way it is
and it's not just the result of this or that set
of shifting circumstances
it comes from the black breath of the contrary spirit
from evil hovering
The Golden Age
So what if clowns and gnomes
Run the show at the royal court
Calabacillas, called the idiot from Coria
Barberousse the coxcomb
Pablo de Valladolid the nitwit reciter
The Golden Age is the Golden Age
Philip the Fourth's favorites have nothing to do with it
Only the scribblers from outside the palace walls count
Góngora Calderón Lope de Vega Tirso de Molina
And who cares after all whom Velázquez paints so beautifully
The grand duke on horseback or the jester Hodson with his dog
1979
Simultaneism
But this is happening
Simultaneously!
Simultaneously!
So what
If it's happening simultaneously?
Could anyone at any time
Have had the slightest doubt
That everything always and everywhere
Happens simultaneously?
Air raid sirens and drifting clouds
And the grip of the invisible paw
That suddenly grasps your throat
And you feel the air and blood that circulate
Within you shutting off
While for some unknown reason
A buzzing meadow from the past comes back to you
And you hear robins and larks sing
And the Falklands war begins
And they play taps in Kraków and a passenger plane
Takes off from the Long Island airport
And you love and lose and you repeat
The coded gestures of despair
And deeply hurt and hurting
You burst like shrapnel
In all parts of your deep heaven
And you don't know about the hundred things
Happening at this very moment
Simultaneously!
Simultaneously!
Oh don't even try to reassemble them
In your multilayered narratives:
The descriptive disease is no better than the rest
And includes confusion of measures
A Saint Vitus dance of glances
Obfuscation of speech
Someone Else
A tyrant's proclamations (in whatever era)
Are merely words
Someone else must translate them into a manhunt
Someone with a knack
Someone who likes his work
Someone adept at getting the right people
To the right place at the right time
To pound on the door with a crowbar or a fist
Someone who draws up the timetables for raids
As if they were crosswords in the Sunday paper
Someone who doesn't bother with whatever's coming next
it's no longer his affair
He's not responsible
Hell's humble servant
An exemplary employee an adroit technician
Obituary
He knew how to barter
But he couldn't sell himself
He knew how to have his say
But he listened with just one ear
He could go to great lengths
But he couldn't get back
His love was larger than life
But his life was very small
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
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