Song of Four-Egg Enriched Ribbon Noodles
I'm one of the seven maybe eight basic foodstuffs
that are always available I don't cause a stir
when I grace store shelves in Jaworzno Plock or even Slemien in abundance
I take life in moderation (its salt doesn't bite me and doesn't cheer me
up)
I roll dolefully on ruddy waves of tomato soup
served to forest workers in Lopuszna
once I entertained a ranking dignitary
and his fair-haired little girl
I've also gone abroad in the trunks of Fiats
campers cook me hurriedly in Bulgaria Serbia and Slovenia
I've even been as far as Cyprus
where my corpse my little cardboard
home from which the spirit had fled (had flown away)
in the shape of countless crunchy little tongues
was found at the foot of an ancient fortress in the city of Famagusta
Song of a Crust of Bread Thrown to Sparrows on Victory Square, Formerly
Saxonian Square, by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
I wandered all the way here from the town of Mielec
in the pocket of the unskilled, single cleaning woman Zofia N.
though I was born on the sunny Mazovian plains
for which the poet Broniewski bard of the Revolution yearned
Our bus came on a no-work Saturday
people pressed their noses to shop windows
Zofia N. was after children's tights and diapers
since she's the unwed mother of eight-month-old Mariusz
Dear Mr. Comrade Chairman Sir
she'd written for the umpteenth time
please cast your kind consideration on my unfavorable conditions
I live in a kitchen I'd like a housing allocation
Having bitten out the soft part smeared with lard
she held me with her fingers with the same uncertain air
she'd had when Zdziskaw S. the deputy director locked
the office door behind him and offered her the vodka
But when she heard the sudden order for the changing of the guard
she started and I fell softly to the stones
of that square so full of history and suffering
that when the birds' hard beaks hit me
I thought: these must be eagles fleeing abandoned banners
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
* * *
From time to time the bird of inspiration alights on my brow
I see then nations in pageant flying dragons
states fall dust flies above thrones
the messenger brings news of victory
and collapses foaming at the mouth
for it is Greater Time a mythical dimension
devoid of our media
deprived of the joy of seeing our leader
as his face fills the small screen every night
when mother brings my caffe latte
when the baby whimpers Jacek working on the water heater
I got a kilogram of kasha says N.
food shortages will end soon
My bird folds its wings
jumps down onto the bookshelf to find its own place
next to the Buddha the postcards from the sea-side the pipe
left there by Lutek
who abandoned our ship Purple
and got a job in Houston where he pastes posters
of Grandma Stalin's Moustache the rock band
* * *
Trying in vain to save the drowning painted butterfly
N., aged 2, discovers the wall between art and life
two unsalvageable necessities
running on two different tracks yet grimacing at each other
yet all around there's steelworks' smoke the victorious communism prospers
the song of police sirens and the hymn of mothers waiting in line for the goods'
abundance
O come, thou plenitude of the Leberwurst
and let a potato sea sprinkle our doorstep
translated by Jan Rybicki
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