Generation
to my friends
so we set off
to the sound of hobnail boots
and our voices ring out far and wide -
so we keep coming back
on a winter's morning
tapping and knocking
just not the same people any more
with frost-bitten hands
with a lump in our throats
with hearts ready for flights of fancy
some of us were in the front line
we still keep torn banners under our shirts
there still remains a little warmth and although
more cruel we are less
arrogant
yet our world thrashed like a dog
and quiet as only mothers can be
wanders aimlessly through the ravaged skies
as each second passes we are
one less every moment
we set off tap
knock
and our voices ring out far and wide
October 1981
Accidental Witnesses to Events
accidental witnesses to events
were passing here purely by chance
are witness to events
where they are out of their depth
accidental witnesses to events
attribute either too much or too little significance to them
rarely getting the point of hope or bitterness
only they remember the colour of the victim's shoes
or that he was wearing a ring on his finger
let's not ignore these accidental witnesses
only they can tell
who is pulling the strings of the puppet monarch
how many hands are reaching for the crown
and who is watching it all from the wings
August 1980
Isadora Duncan Dancing in a Red Scarf, 1918
how was I supposed to know
that red is the colour of blood
they told me
that it would smell of lilac
someone even slit his wrist on a razor
actually I didn't feel a thing
the scarf wrapped itself around my throat
in a flash
how was I supposed to know
that red is the colour of death
they always applauded
once they had put down their guns and knives
when I stood up in the open-topped car
they sang out
though it was more like a roar -
or a groan -
and I threw my arms up into the air;
I can't remember any more maybe
they were already dead
when with a vicious smile they carried me down the street
their women dancing and clapping their hands
and newspaper-sellers running past us heralded the advent of death
December 1984
A Lady in Waiting Gives Evidence
I was particularly frightened a revolution might take place
when it did happen
I went and hid behind a screen
I saw how they knocked the clock off the mantlepiece
how they danced on the smashed crystal in their huge boots
I watched as they pulled down their trousers
and left foul piles of brown excrement
on the empress's dresses
they found me when I whimpered
the scene, you must admit, demanded that at least
they raped me slowly, finally one
skewered my breast with a Chinese parasol
now at least that is all behind me
I don't even care much you won't experience
the same relief as I did: revolution is a most
agreeable dormition
for a lady in waiting dressed in satin beside
a broken down door
January 1985
The End of the World at Breakfast Time
In they walked - and the banter and bitchiness stopped
the guests froze with their forks still raised in their hands
the lady of the house opened her mouth in an amazement beyond description
but they did not let her utter a word
The end of the world can sometimes be the front-door bell at breakfast
though it is best recognised by scuffles and raucous laughter
but even death's disseminators expect better manners
so now they slip in more discreetly than ever and leave no tears in their wake
And as usual they ask some poet why he didn't shout in time
like peacocks scream in the garden during a ball under the light of paper
lanterns
he is the only one who recognises the extinction of an entire generation on its
face
as eternity's cold breath brushes against his temples
April 1984
Lonely Men
we live right
over there next to the black eye of
the lake we don't know
our own names
we meet at night-time no questions asked
no advice given
like joyless fish without
animosity karol szymanowski
jean genet jaroslaw iwaszkiewicz
handsome nameless under an
unresponsive sky
arms bleed and Veronica's veil watches us with
no anger and
no hope
Oh Greece, Greece why have you done this to us
arousing us in among the olive groves
in the arms of shepherds who had once been gods -
the skies have blasted open and
for a long time were left charred
we cried for the ashen
Earth we were persecuted
by the men on the street's sneers
the cackling of their wives
we live right
over there next to the black eye of the lake a pair of
unseen men with features darkened by time
among the trees
which are laden with
incomprehensible warnings
water lilies whisper
when jostled by fish snouts
May 1981
Emigrants
where are you now my friends
I love you all and still
I have made no effort to relive those good times
to giggle at our voguish in-jokes
do not question a leaf's deep-set veins
what it all means
where are you my enemies who
I needed so I have now stopped
understanding the inanimate platforms
are silent the hated
dawn telephones dead
animals no one for
better or
worse gives me any answer
I examine my face in the mirror
I am inhabited by two
twins both dead
as alike as two drops of water
bitter tasting
identical
December 1984
This Place
this place.
this is where I am growing. this is where I can sing.
this is where I try. where I lose
this place. not the table. not
the chair. not even
this house.
those people.
this is what they trust. this is where they are waiting.
these are the windows from which they keep watch over me
day after day.
a recognizable coat. a familiar walk.
this is the door I knock at every day.
this place.
deprives me utterly
of all the other places open to me
in the world.
* * *
I am so sick
oh America of dark sycamores lining the streets
of swings floating on white porches at the front of houses
of the smell of coffee and toast which remind me of holidays in Jazwin;
a nun of simple farming stock holds a microphone in her hand
shouts good morning and hands hold
and even arms embrace
Handel's Messiah
piped through twenty-three rooms of the Iowa Creative Writing Programme
typewriters tapping on a Sunday morning
novels of genius by order
of the United States Information Agency
small dark-haired Mary
the martyrdom of office girls
checking who's in class
is Dostoevsky here today?
what about Proust? and
de Beauvoir? she's gone for her blood test oh America
we conceal from you
the prophets of the Old and New
in religion's hollow core
but even there
the air-conditioning rumbles on
and prevents us from dreaming of you;
I do love you after a fashion
you a Jewess of Budapest who translated
the raptures of St Teresa and St John of the Cross
the Pope smiled made a sign what are they going to do
the Jews have been sent to an alternative heaven
with their heads shaved holding small scrolls of the Torah
inscribed on birchwood parchment in their hands on their way to the ovens
I am sick
in love with sycamores and concrete avenues along the riverside
for a Spanish boy who says "hold out your hand" to me
admit love don't hide tears
down by a slender box pretending to be the UN building
among the lavender bushes behind the low hedge
students turn over from one side to the other reading textbooks
I am sick America this love
is a sickness and there is
no cure
Iowa City, September 1988
An Introductory Conversation Between Writers from Eastern Europe
I cannot understand your freedom Herr Grass
and what's even worse I don't understand myself
in you there is something watery something sharp
in you there is something fishy and something fiery
we were both extracted from mud from nipple and from
womb;
so we cut open the Earth sensing
her defenceless heart
looking for love I find hell
you are looking for the frontiers of hell that Soloviev
detailed
but all of it is fabricated my hell
your fake flames
and even the blood that runs
when you slit your wrists;
people were murdered in my country
until transformed into one ultimate human being
how can I walk the earth that trembles and groans
how can my face not ache I strike it with my open
hand and I feel the tears in heaven's eyes - everything is
a lie and that one single truth
saved Europe: I can feel inside my
heart a jagged stone
I crouch down over my agony
which is raw stone
September 1986
Poem for Allen
Allen that isn't you
a one-thousand year old rabbi embraced by a velvet armchair
on the third floor of an apartment on Chlodna Street
next to a lamp that my great grandmother remembers
we talk we move our lips
in English French you wrote of your father a real mensch
who
are you an old Jewish queen from the Bronx or an old
Jewess
from Warsaw we drink have some sandwiches the expected
props rubble all around a scream a hand which scratches at
flames
in his fine khaki uniform over you a gun held to your head
what
right do we have to a wild cruel adolescence, Allen?
we descend into dreams
I can see a Jewish boy in his skull-cap
you are that boy with your hands raised high
a New York gentleman with a small dog
handsome athletes rob passers-by in Central Park in the
evening
that's where Naomi died
on one of the lunar meadows where we wander
dreaming of bridges and stone towers
embracing that boy in his cap repeating "you too
will enter the fiery furnace";
oh Allen Allen oh poetry
a Tasmanian does not exist in each person the charred core
of our Earth
the millenial Schvul Avrum in Odessa or maybe even Lvov
not every hand like yours searches for matches on the
tablecloth
not everyone's eye is smaller than the other
not everyone recites
for hours on end the poems
of the dead Hassidim
Kerouac Cassidy
the handsomest fall
it's evening now Allen
under the ghetto's cold rain we will heed the bones
and the stones clenching our hands tightly trembling
beneath the sky's furious searchlights
October 1986
Translated by Donald Pirie
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