The Collected Poems (29 page)

may the main clause rule confidently over dependent clauses, control their course, a circuitous but expressive
basso continuo,
endure unmoved above the elements in motion, draw them to itself like a nucleus draws electrons by unseen laws of gravitation

I pray then for a long sentence, sculptured by the sweat of my brow, extending so far that in each there might be reflected the mirror image of a cathedral, a great oratorio, a tryptych,

and also animals mighty and minuscule, train stations, the heart brimming with sorrow, rocky cliffs, and the furrow of fate in the hand

 

Lord

 

Lord,

 

In the life of Mr Cogito
illustrated supplements
were a vital supplement

thanks to them
the lives of famous actors
princesses
belly dancers
held no secrets
for him

it was enough to hear
a few bars of a tune
to summon a gallery
of merciless portraits
illuminated by X-rays

from a poor childhood
through a dizzy career
to a death in oblivion

abandoned now
in vinyl record cemeteries
slightly smaller
than used-car cemeteries

thanks to them
he puzzles out
his life's dates
without a miss

he is guarded
by Dalida

Halina Kunicka
Irena Santor
good witches

thanks to them
tyranny
was beautified
by song

they ought to get
a word of thanks
a tender memory
a collective name
on the stone tablet
of an arduous life

 

I was very young
and common sense told me
not to give my word

I could easily say
I'll give it some thought
what's the big hurry
it's not a train schedule

I'll give my word
after graduation
after military service
after I make a home

but time exploded
there was no before
there was no after
in the blinding present
you had to choose
so I gave my word

a word—
a noose round my neck
an ultimate word

in the rare moments
when everything is light
and becomes transparent
I think to myself:
“my word
how I'd like
to take my word back”

it doesn't last for long
the world's axis screeches

people pass away
as do landscapes
colored rings of time
but the word I gave
is stuck in my throat

 

what business is it of mine
that these legs belonged
to a real-life princess

the rest was
hypothetical

what does it help
that these legs
when they still made up
an unimaginable whole
demanded
more care
then Nefertiti's smile
than the model
of time and space
built at Greenwich

 

From the white podium
of quilts pillows duvets
they address humanity
(part of it) in baby talk
and the rest of humanity
listens—doesn't—forgets

this is how it welled up
the milky source of bindweed
dragon's source of destruction

two prophets—a voice test

verily verily
you will not return to the smiling face of the apple
to the white gardens quietly burning
liquid spaces
harken to the pounding of the storm

grappling in the cloakroom
O Rapallo republic of treason
the laughter of daggers
city with a rat's head

 

when I sleep
like everyone
before dawn rises
I wind the clock

I sink on a white
ship
waves wash me
from the white ship
I look for keys
I kill a dragon
which laughs
I light a lamp
but above all
I chatter

I suspect that
we all dream in images
but I spin
all these crazy yarns
as if sleeping
in a mound
of narrative

but that is what
dream language
should be like
a fine language
with a long arm
airy
it flouts grammar
phonetic principles
a language of mockery
a language I don't know

when I sleep
in the cat's place
the bronze body
is pierced by a shudder
we moan like a melody

when I sleep
in the cat's place
sometimes my body
is pierced by a shudder
a melody like a moan
audible to the ear

at such times
dream language
closes itself off
independent
of weariness

pure
a language of sweet dread

 

It is truly no evidence of a great soul
—O nature—
and if you are not magnanimous
you may not exist at all

Could you really not treat him to a sudden death
like a candle guttering
like a wig slipping off
like a ring's short expedition on a smooth tabletop
spinning and turning
at last standing still like a dead
beetle
So why these cruel games
with an old man
loss of memory
dull awakenings
nocturnal terror
wasn't it he who said
“beware of bad dreams”
he who has a gray glacier on his head
a volcano where a fob watch should be

It is in terrible taste
to condemn a man
learning the trade of apparitions
suddenly to become
a ghost

 

And from now on I won't be there in any group picture (proud proof of my death in the world's book reviews) when someone says look see—that's Zbyszek—pointing to a man struggling with a suitcase—it isn't me no it's someone who's not even in the same business as I am I'm not there I'm not there period a perfect emptiness even if I concentrated my will in a single burning point I would not be able even for one moment and in a flash of magnesium to come into existence so I'm not there
schluss

airbrushed by a tyrant as if I turned out to be an enemy of the revolution whereas I once stood safely in the sun of the leader

 

Flowers armfuls of flowers brought in from the garden
Flowers blushing with color violet dark blue crimson
Taken away from bees they dissipate their fragrance
In the waxlike silence of a room on the edge of winter

For whom are these lavish gifts too lavish for whom
this languorous body the blizzard of scattering petals
A sky stitched with white the house's bronze silence
Mists are trailing over the fields Ships lift their sails

 

So many sleepless nights so many diapers
a whole avalanche of washing detergent
underpants shots kisses on a warm behind
so many spankings
so many hopes so many eyes filled with tears
if all this is ground under a heel so quickly
like a cigarette butt when an attack begins
and still
   still so much song still rising
over a place where a grain of emptiness spins
   over a grain of nothingness

 

Permit me to open by expressing joy and wonder
that we're marching at the head of our companies
in different uniforms under a different command
but with a single aim—to survive

You say to me—look here we should probably let
these boys go home to their Margot to their Kasia
war is beautiful only in parades
but apart from that as we know—mud and blood
and rats

As you speak comes an avalanche of artillery fire
it's that bastard Parkinson who is taking so long
he caught up with us at last when we took a walk
on an irregular route our collars loose at the chin
our hands in our pockets we were on leave already
when Parkinson suddenly reminded us that it was
not the end yet that this blasted war isn't over yet

 

I don't know who (who the hell)
this storm of pain is attacking
with heavy artillery every inch of air
of ground is torn up turned inside out
leveled by previous attacks why then
this maelstrom of pain if it is a signal
and pain a signal sent to headquarters
when all run dropping last orders for destruction
as they go why then cramps cold shivers nausea
the howling under a low dark sky
why the hammering to the stake

 

It's unclear whether anyone knows its personal zoological name, so small is it, so low, near the very bottom, beyond the naked eye. It is something that wavers between existence and absence, insignificant, fleeting as a scrap of print, a particle, the paring of a diacritical mark, the chip of a comma, a speck of lead from the printer's cabinet.

I open my winter reading and there it is crouching down on the page, a Very Little Creature, motionless at first, but soon it is off on its way, sniffing between the lines, and then it lurches ahead like a horse from the stable, forward at the speed of the Very Little Creature's light (the creature is blind).

This season (it may be the last season of my life)—everything was as before, the Very Little Creature amused me and warmed my black heart, when one day I decided to give the book to friends in London. I made a parcel of it and sent it off. With the Creature inside.

What does it do during the long sea voyage? It has plenty to read; it doesn't eat very much; but what does it think of me, its old companion who proved so treacherous?

 

For some time now
Mr Cogito has been
wearing his soul
on his arm

this signifies
a state of readiness

placing
the soul on the arm
is a delicate operation
it should be carried out
without feverish haste
or scenes familiar
from wars
evacuations
cities under siege

the soul likes to assume
various forms
now it's a rock

it has sunk its claws
into Mr Cogito's left arm
and it's waiting

it may abandon
Mr Cogito's body
when he sleeps

or the parting may be
in broad daylight
in full consciousness

short as the whistling
of a fractured mirror

for the time being
it sits on his arm
ready for flight

MR COGITO. ARS LONGA

Pompous manifestos
civil wars
decisive battles
campaigns
filled Mr Cogito
with boredom

in every generation
there are those who
with stubbornness worthy of a better cause
wish to rip poetry
from the claws
of the everyday

at an early age
they enter the order
of Most Holy Subtlety
and Ascension

they strain minds and bodies
to express that which is
beyond—
that which is
above—

they don't even feel
how much promise
charm
surprise
lie hidden in the language
everyone
gabs in
hoodlums and Horace

many years ago
Mr Cogito took part
in the Festival of Two Hemispheres

the event location—Yugoslavia
in the vicinity of Lake Ohrid
on the banks of the river Struga

on either side
more than thirty thousand
poetry lovers
set up camp

a warbler from Paris
Le Bon Mot
half-mad with rapture
(at home his audience
consisted of his wife
and cowed offspring)

ascetics
flagellants
anchorites
of pure poetry
wallowed in the abundance
of thirsty souls

after dusk
had fallen
shooting broke out
artificial fires
exploded in the air
it seemed like
another Balkan war

the next day
they fished from the river
four peasants
a woman
an infant
countless empty bottles
a barn door
a piano leg
an ownerless prosthesis
a chain
about twenty meters long

the Wunderlich family quartet
provided brisk accompaniment

father Hansi—book-keeping for cello
mother Truda—tin and violin accounts
son Rudi—he of many talents
and the natural daughter of old Wunderlich
ergo Hansi's sister
Rudi's daughter
she who awakes sweet terror—
the terrifying
Maria Chaos

 

in the mornings
of early spring
to late autumn
the magpie
flies by
my bedroom window

in annals
chronicles
genealogical tables
it's called
Pica pica
from the family of insidious
and bloodthirsty condottieri

let us not be led astray
by the purity of colors
the sky's vivid foliage
the snow's chaste white

its song alone
a rattler's song
betrays
the true nature
of a baby killer

we ought to
curb our joy
urge caution
stigmatize it
anathemize it
tear asunder
the cloud of rapture
it uses to cover its crimes
and throw frivolous souls
into a dither

what action to take
what would be best

—aha
I know what I'll do

I'll hire
father Jan Twardowski
the bard of Polish birds
to be Nature's Exorcist
for special assignments

when the priest
pops out of a thicket's
obscure confessional
our feathered friend
might suffer a stroke
and croak on the spot