KRYSTYNA LENKOWSKA, POLAND
22 POEMS, translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough (some poems with Teresa Cedar, see below)
Rosary on the Stairs
Even if
she were as resplendent as a rose
precipitous thoughts about her
each time not knowing if she
looked in his eyes
plucking sails off petals
she feared the northern wind
then the southern wilderness
if only
with one eye one thorn
one hand
even if
in the doorway on the porch on the stairs
if only
she dared
to look behind reverse herself
become her own inevitable pricking
avoir l’esprit de l’escalier
even if
if only
she shed no rosy beads
for him
this pearly echo on the steps.
Adam said to Seth
Kiss
but be wary not to let the harvested grain
fall from your mouth
like an evil word
then the wood of the cross won’t grow
in the garden and there will be
nothing to carry.
Gift
Jane Hirshfield an American poet a Buddhist
works on changing the unwanted into the wanted
my God give me at least a moment's break
and let me not want the undesired
which smells of musk and tastes of the Garden
and which you bestow too freely.
The Scent of Love
My dog returned at dawn
wounded in the war of passion
he’s lying under a maple tree
and sticks his tongue into a round
wound half-a-finger deep
in a few hours he’ll wag his tail
at my hand made of meat
then again he’ll run away from home
at the scent of another bitch
while people are still asleep and dream of each other
who was the first to say that love is beautiful?
and who will be the last to say it beautifully?
Union with Kafka
He knocked feebly as if he wanted to leave empty-handed
when I opened the door there he was rescued and disappointed
then he stood in the middle of the room silent and absent
when a car alarm came on outside
he began to gesture like a salesman
of shabby goods
I didn't hear what he said
leaving he laid the flowers on a console table in the hall
I realized that he had proposed
I ran up to the window to see what he looked like from behind
in the yard children were playing
Eins zwei drei Polizei.
One two tie my shoe
he returned unexpectedly kissed me clumsily
and reluctantly when the alarm came on again he ran down the stairs
in the yard an old woman was feeding pigeons
she stretched out an open hand to him as if to a bird
it seemed that no one and nothing could hear the persistent sound
that it was only in my head
for several years I was sick or maybe I simply went away
a letter came from the Office of Records a manila envelope
"Mr. Kafka. Priority."
* * *
This day and night come
when we sit down to wine which has matured
between steppes
in the vats of stagnant time
we dip our lips and fingers
as if we plunged in it whole
and bite after bite
draught after draught
we share this bread this wormwood
somewhere between steppes
until blue absinthe covers the table to the horizon
as if our last vat had cracked
and your eyes came to me free
they were the steppe.
In the Color of the Hollyhock – Chopin’s Waltz
He played
a waltz then meadow and air
she soared above the bittersweet grass above a sonata
and above a prelude
as if she no longer lived didn’t yet live in her body
she said and invited him to her place
tomorrow afternoon
Mon Dieu!
she smokes a cigar wears pants
(is she a woman?) hats like flambeaux
her white-red costume
it’s rumored the blood of a Polish king runs in her veins
and she used to dance mazurkas polonaises
my God!
before long
he’ll move his fashionable grand piano to her place
she writes smart books each day after supper this new mother
like a pharaoh’s wife
she calls him her genius and her weakling
her children keep guard at the bedroom door hoping
he’ll die
on Majorca
he’s rasping and dying
the clamminess in his fingers and the monotonous
chords of rain are killing him
he fears death and compassion
the island doctors say he’ll die soon or
has died already
in Paris
salons await him
a dandy he puts on a gilet the color of hollyhock and gloves
like buckwheat white as snow
a crimson storm surges in his chest
its sparks will ignite everything
into a perfect fire
he coughs
and spits blood
behind his breastbone Polish homesickness
sleepless like cosmic dawn
she’s so terribly alive and beautiful
all around kings of life drink gobble have fun after them flood
and fire
far away there
he dreamed of light
and of the sky rising over a birch wood in pure fifths
and octaves
here beamed ceilings like tree limbs fall into hellish triads
who’s that?
play sonny don’t spare any sounds
don’t stop.
Translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough and Teresa Cedar
The Eye of John Keats in Rome
For hours it stands in the window
once in a while it casts itself onto the Spanish Steps
or into the Tiber
on the steps
it bursts and then like a gel medusa
returns intact into the dark-skinned palm of a street vendor
in the water
it swims and then flies to dry its wings
it sweeps the Hadrian arches of the bridges
the sky of the Vatican domes
the horizons’ caravans of pines
in the evening it orders the same wine
in the same bar
at last it returns to the window and writes on the pane with its finger
the crowds on the steps won’t let it sleep
it doesn’t know what to do next
so it starts all over
from the pupil
from the core.
Rzeszów
For the first time the city came to me at night
everyone in the window waited for a comet
I thought the stars blazed with living fire
and dared not put my eye to the magic pane
the sky advanced upon me from the street
it went by but came again in my dreams and waking hours
the air murmured while grandpa counted flares
and wondered if a war wouldn’t spark in heaven
that street was called Butcher Street
but it had no meat, only living horses
I fled to the horses and the banks of the Wislok
where Gypsies banged copper pans like drums
for the first time Rzeszow came at night
and although no one said the word
I sensed the city in darkness roamed the earth and sky
and would still be there at the break of day.
Charles Bukowski, C’est Moi
Beforehand I never would have thought
how much I resemble Charles Bukowski
that barfly
Henry Chinaski
or Mickey Rourke the actor who was one of them
for several sleepless nights
and days
the scandal monger from old photographs
where he paws skimpily dressed girls
I’m not a prose writer
and don’t belong to the Beat Generation
sex doesn’t inspire me to write
I don’t hang around shady types
I’m not drawn to lowlife
I don’t get drunk
I quit smoking
I like perfect order and nights in my own bed
before I leave the house I primp and preen and check
many details too many
in front of a mirror
even though our names
sound very much alike
their endings suggest a completely different gender
and yet I catch myself being Charles Bukowski
for a short while
to the extent he was never someone like me
and wouldn’t have even imagined that.
Italian Poetry
for Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough
Italian poetry is a great mystery
I inherited all the anthologies of the world from my father
but it’s not there
so discovering an Italian poem I’m fated to
chance
encounters
a four-leaf clover
illumination
et cetera
why then do I rummage in this old attic as if in a forest
of unfamiliar provenance
surrounded by dusty purple canvasses by cicadas and drizzle?
The Divine Comedy Warsaw 1975
La Divine Comedie Paris 1858
unbound pages Rome the smudged year
and the words handwritten with a flourish
like rare butterflies and dragonflies
Giacomo Leopardi Salvatore Quasimodo
Mario Luzi Eugenio Montale Cesare Pavese
don’t the sounds of a foreign speech tempt us with eternity?
cio in cui credo non ama essere citato tanto
spesso e come l’eterna c’ema e muto
how far from here to the question of
whether it’s better to find it
or withdraw at the last minute
how to fly away
and not to burn?
*What I believe dislikes being quoted/it happens to be like eternity but it’s silent Francesca Moccia
Epiphany
I was left
all alone in the crowd
dazzled by my loneliness
filled with the void whose
antinomy I didn’t predict
as if a monstrous rose
petal had slid
off my head
across my back to the Achilles’
heels
as if I stood here
trapped: naked and bald—
hairless stripped
of my tentacles which
outside the filaments of light
nuzzle
inside
I was touched by sudden
useless
tenderness.
A Poem
I’m a poet
you’re a poet
he’s a poet
she’s a poet
it’s a poet
we’re a poet
you’re a poet
they’re a poet
solemn
in a dark suit
in sleeves pant legs
in the right hand pocket
in the noose of a necktie
I read my poem
I listen to my poem
I am my poem
without sleeves
without pockets
without pants
without shoes
without shoelaces
without a noose
I don’t have to write
or read
I don’t have to be a poet
or a poem
my poem
no one’s poem
or no poem’s poem
I don’t have to be
there’s nothing I have to
I don’t have to
I have to
have to
to
St. Francis Preaches to the Birds
In the middle of winter the birds
returned on a warm river of wind
I heard
they were larks
tomorrow frost is supposed
to arrive in its freon trough
someone has seen St. Francis
preaching
to the birds.
Preaching to the Birds by Jacopo Torriti
Tracing Joyce’s Traces
Nora spent all her days lying in bed
and waiting for a letter from James
passion took her speech away
in the wind on the balcony
her daughter stood like a stone baluster
dressed in a white dress with the stroboscopic pattern of
light
the powder on the floor led to the labyrinth of
the bedroom
the powdered sugar led to the well of
the courtyard
faith in the touch of the mind
motionless faithless
the sheets next to Nora
the humming arteries of fiber optics
in Triest
they are.
Translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough and Teresa Cedar
Hospital Accounts
I step accidentally into a clear puddle by father’s bed
“glucose” says a woman in the next bed
yes there’s a leak in the IV
every seventh drop falls on the floor I’ve counted
I walk down the fire escape and listen to the rhythm
of my soles sticking and unsticking
I take away something that could have been life
I carry it out on my shoes together with dust and mites
the squeaky steps fade as I descend
the sticky stuff dissolves in street dirt and disappears
can I tally what I’ve taken from him over these years
how much I drained or changed
into small drops?
A Coat
Our fingers wilted and drooped
when we kept vigil by your sick body
you were all in our nails as if in the petals of a cinquefoil
you were white from stroking
when you died we told Rozalka you’d gone to heaven
and to prove it we raised our fingers
she looked up and asked
did grandpa take his coat?
above us a skein of wild geese flew south
and then someone found a white feather on the doormat
a sign that you’d taken your down coat and the cold wouldn’t faze you
that space that fills the coat
where is it and when?
***
Death is a simple thing
K. I. Galczynski
Death is simple as a cradle
both are miracles of loss and gain
in the perfectly perfected present tense
is – isn’t
isn’t – is
there’s material evidence
beyond all doubt.
A Pathetic Computer
How are you?
she asked irrelevantly and with concern
when I began to stammer she looked at me with fear
I saw myself in her face as if in a broken mirror
you must reset yourself
reset!
that was precisely the word I needed
to focus my reluctance and hope on something
the elementary verb relation of my daily trips
into the uncontrolled weightlessness of my desk
and nightly escapades to the fridge
I a pathetic computer
favored and disfavored by earthly gravity
how much strength is needed to get up from bed and return to it
with dignity?
how much strength does a strong person have to keep from sinking in life
and to plow sow gather and share everything except
the ten thousandth page on the hundredth site?
I’ve already touched all the keys on the keyboard
even my eyeballs and nipples
I can also turn the power off
close my eyes embrace myself and trust that
after I get back my whole memory will be here
only a little bit different
Ode to Snow
Ryszard Kapuscinski died today
You fall like everything else on this planet
you come from silence
from where we also come
you rest against freezing time and hard earth
deer leave traces over you
a dog sinks in you up to its ears with such obviousness
in his eyes as if he had understood
in Slocina in the Carpathian foothills you’re the same
as in Turkish Kars
Herodot’s legend
geometry on glass
black ice on the road
our fragile bodies crash
in your glazed splendor
under you love death and trash
lightly patted over
fragments of rockets from Baykonur drop on your head
while you unshakable equilibrist lie
supine in the Altai mountains
my white idealist.
A Scrap of Conversation
However you look at it
it’s the simplest things that matter
for example miracles
he looks and doesn’t even believe in sinful conception
a twenty-year old skeptic with long experience
the uncertain enters noiselessly through the back door
monochromatic like a movie extra
it grows like a gray bench in the park after rain
and you can’t even see how it turns into a baobab
(it won’t fit in your arms)
a hundred mile forest
a mile.
Obituary for Wislawa Szymborska
After a life duly bearable and unbearable
With her separateness concealed like the Nobel medal
In her drawer
Wislawa Szymborska died
In her bed
In her sleep
On a bitterly cold night
She didn't like to bother anyone
And quietly disappeared the way
One slips out to pick up matches at a newspaper kiosk
While others are having the time of their lives
So in such frigid weather
Let the others remain under down comforters while she finishes
Dreaming herself to the very end
In perfected silence
Where a moment
Is crystal clear and in the morning particles of gold
Fall from the sun so lightly
They elude the law of
Everything.
Translated by Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough and Teresa Cedar
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