The Collected Poems (30 page)

and anyway a priest can
do with a bit of exercise
in the fresh air

 

More rain with snow is being woven
on these great looms of early winter
a string of farm carts and pine coffins
brings the fallen to the forest's center

let a shroud of mist be given to them
and for light hard sparks of hoarfrost
let our remembrance stay with them
in their furnace of eternal darkness

more rain with snow a stormy wind
of boundless plains and arid thistles
that fills the world expands the world
a wind from off the stars and glaciers

 

One
winter morning
it came to Mr Cogito's mind
it stood still
in the middle of his mind
didn't want to budge
either to the right
or to the left

it was big
panting
smelled like a mailman
and a mystery of humble means

If only
Mr Cogito knew
why it had come

there was
no contact
Mr Cogito didn't dare to ask
“sorry but what is this about”
he was wrestling
with its speechless stillness

this went on
an unbearably long time

an embarassing situation
more than that humiliating
because the longer it hung
in the middle of his mind
the more it was subject
to metamorphosis
from an intruder

—into a guest
—a subtenant
—a coowner
of his mind

it was
and was
and was once more
unyielding
virulent

fortunately
Mr Cogito
fell ill with pneumonia
the fever ignited a fire
his mind burned out
and with it
what had come to mind
on that winter morning

these days
Mr Cogito
is cautious

carefully
he checks
doors and windows and locks
even the flues of the chimney
even the flues of imagination

 

in common parlance
stuck in the mind
means a fixation
on a single unmoving object

stuck in the mind
can be represented
by a powerful peasant
in a furry winter coat
appearing in the midst
of objects all too mobile
he steams like a horse
has a thick oaken eye
—easy to have something
stick in the mind all it takes
is a moment of distraction
but to get it out is harder
another thing altogether
big inept stuck-in-the-mind
simply stands cap in hand
panting like a stable of studs
—not clear how to address it
“Sir” would be too much
“beat it Jack”—would be
too familiar
so stuck means stuck
stocky and apathetic
a medium quake might help
say 4.6 on the Richter scale
but no it's glorious weather
he's like a rock
a general sense of fatal
paralysis
stuck in the mind
a bear of a guy

 

A view of a park and a wall in the early evening light
as in Corot—lemon peel skin of a powdered cheek after a ball
air cast in gold and you don't hear anything here no whispers
or stifled cries no touch sweaty hands clatter of hooves
only the soul becomes a painfully fragile spiderweb
and it hangs in the air like the Gioconda's smile
the smile of Etruscan girls

the Sphinx's smile

 

the tensely
anticipated
tournament of man
whose special mark is a knife in his teeth
against monster machine
whose special mark is Olympian serenity
has ended in victory
for the dragon

in vain
the epics that matured
in Andalusian gardens
the parvenu
Deep Blue
elbows across a board
sewn from a harlequin's coat
this sneering philistine
stuffed
with all openings
attacks defenses
and finally the gleeful
hallali
over the corpse
of the opponent

so this is how
a kingly game
passes into the hands
of automatons

we must break it out of
the prison camp at night

when mind drowses
machines are roused

the quest for the imagination
must be begun all over again

 

in the night
well after twelve
the telephone rings

through outlandish tangles
of mist and barbed wire
Thomas Merton the monk
to whom I owe so much
makes his way
ringing so softly
that even my
vigilant cat Shu-shu
doesn't lift his head
but sleeps snugly buried
in an old skiing sweater

—how nice
that you didn't forget me
we never did meet in life
now we can have a chat
about everything—

I should really ask him
what he's working on
but there's a buzzing in my ears
a button on my lip
water on my brain

—how have you been doing
the good Trappist inquires

—my eyes are sore
—must be conjunctivitis
we read too much

meditate too little
chamomile's best for eyes

we got stuck in chamomile

copses of chamomile
meadows of verbena
groves of belladonna

I am consumed
by measurelessness
shot through with black holes
the philosophy of three AM
the philosophy of hangovers
ergo the New Age

a philosophy
of the left leg
as the Russians say
naplevat'

the next time
I'll read the fundamental tome
on the philosophy
of the very Far East

I don't make a very good
custodian of nothingness
never in my life
have I managed
to produce
a decent abstraction

 

Here the blade was held to the flesh
Right here
and thrust
and there's a keepsake
it cries in all the tongues of the fish
—a wound—

The face focused
forehead furled
blue light of dawn
reluctant and cold

Thomas's index finger
miner's lamp of touch
is guided from above
by the Master's hand

so doubt is permitted
we are free to question
so Leonardo da Vinci's
furrowed forehead
has value after all

 

In the borderland city I'll never see again
there's a winged stone light and immense
a winged stone struck by lightning

in the faraway city I'll never see again
there's water that's heavy and nourishes
he who gives you a drink of that water
says—someday I'll return to this place

in my city which doesn't exist on any map
of the world there's bread giving lifelong
nourishment black as an exile's fate—as
stone water bread towers standing at dawn

 

as a reward
an excursion
to the High Castle

before
we reach its foot
a journey by tram

a great concert
on iron
poured
welded
adored

the viola of the tram's tracks
both
in a thick grass of confusion

at every corner
the tram burns
in its ecstasy

on the roof
a comet
with a violet tail

an ardent din
of ruddy tin
of hoarse tin
triumphant tin

reflected in the windows
hushed

Lwów
a tranquil
pale
weeping candlestick

The High Castle
hides its feet bashfully
under a blanket
of hazel shrubs
deadly nightshade
and nettles

a grove of floozies

she in her sweaty
white blouse
hangs on a shoulder
with an anchor

we take a shortcut
along a path quick
as a running stream

Józef and Teofil
were hanged here
for loving freedom
with a hot passion

—do the kids' crying
the mothers calling
the vendors' falsetto
not bother you

—may all of them
do as they like

—soon we will
be taken away
on night wings
apricot wings
wings of apple
of light indigo
along the banks

to another
yet higher
castle

 

From the fact that he managed
to learn the cat sat on the mat
Mr Cogito has drawn
some exaggerated conclusions

does the ability thus acquired
authorize him to pass sentence
to found schools of good taste
opine on projects for mankind's
reconstruction
after the example of the comical
August Comte

would it not be better
to abandon
that cheap
knowledge
and to stick
with the wisdom
of old mountain folk
devoid of real
progress

it would mean
rising unemployment
a large number of face
openings without a job
the lucid knowledge
that all philosophy
is superfluous
and even harmful

 

…I won't sing of Felek Stankiewicz now
or the marching song about the red poppies
so you're gone Artur this winter was awful
no trace of the battle no trace of the poppies

so you are gone Artur there where others go
with your military step chest thrust forward
and only an echo an inconsolable echo still
playing over strings like a wandering Angel

Now—it's funny—you sing in an angels' choir
hidden by radiance vast mysterious radiance
you sing when I open a window or put on tea

yes Julia
Artur

 

Sure there's plenty
open the window
adjust the pillow
pour out cold tea

—that's it
—that's all

it's both a lot
and not much

for it should
be done well
considerately

open a window onto the whole spring
adjust a head to the shape of a pillow

 

I live in several times like an insect in amber, motionless and so outside of time, for my limbs are motionless and I cast no shadow on the wall, sunk in a cave as in motionless amber and so nonexistent;

I live in several times, motionless but furnished with all motion, for I dwell in space and belong to it and everything that is space lends me its touching, transient form;

I live in several times, nonexistent, painfully motionless and painfully in motion and I truly don't know what is given to me and what is taken away forever

 

Once in his lifetime
Mr Cogito attained
the height of mastery

in the first grade
of Saint Anthony's
elementary school
seventy years ago
in Lwów

the calligraphy competition
Mr Cogito broke the record

he wrote the most beautiful
letter
b

he won Petrarchan laurels
with the letter
b

history's storm
sadly devoured
the masterpiece

destroyed
for good
the soaring tower
Renaissance belly
of the
b

the grand competition
took place under the eye
of the Polish teacher
(her passport gave
the name Bombowa)

the nursemaid
of Cogito's mind

history's whirlwind
wholly devoured
the soaring tower
Renaissance belly
of the
b

and in chronic distraction
Bombowa herself as well
she slipped into mythology
and since then she lives
and reigns
over Mr Cogito
and the orphaned letter
b

 

This is the most endearing spot the body's city
for nine months a blind telescope on the world
until at the last minute the fire brigade arrives
a sudden caesura
   and it's on its own doomed to love
love's sequel friendship and service to Conrad a cross of dough
a marshal's words on an insignia a city-state everything turns
history's wheel crushes
only it remains faithful
the body's embroidery rolled up in the navel
the navel the end of a braid

 

O season everything is locked in heaven's vaults
shape sound and colors spread lightly over them
there's only the rose's petal rusty along the edges

sweet doing nothing do not ask when dusk falls
Boreas sculptures clouds and the Cirruses the rest
black and white Norwid and pangs of conscience

 

I knew all this considerably earlier
and so better the threads have been tied more logically
which is to say better
the same cat Shu-shu warms up between thigh and shin
the same dream—a mouse hunt the capture of a tower
I don't need any keepsakes
reality circulates slowly in the veins
before closed eyes
I know he was the one who betrayed
I don't need exposition of the theme
because everything repeats itself

it is better now
I'm not curious

 

Before departure
it's a madhouse

papers objects
flying around

as if they feel
they will lose
a right to gravity
when Mr Cogito
flies off

unpaid bills
unsettled debts
incurred on a word of honor
unwritten poems
futureless contracts
colorless flirtations
beer left unopened
all of it flies around
in Mr Cogito's head
the mess is growing

what will happen
if he doesn't manage
to tame the elements
after all you can't
put off going away
on holiday forever

so one day
or night
when it's all ending
Mr Cogito
will prop himself up

on the pillows
of an express train
covering
his chilly knees
with a blanket
and conclude
it will all go on
as before the holidays

surely it will be worse
than in Mr Cogito's time
but it will always go on

 

not everything
in Mr Cogito's opinion
can be seen from this world's perspective

this world
is really the other world
if you buy the theory of relativity
what's here
is there
what's in the other world
is here