April 2013
1 post
5 tags
T.Różewicz "Ocalony"/"The survivor"
I am twenty four years old
I survived
when was lead to the slaughter
These are empty and not ambiguous names
a human and an animal
love and hate
an enemy and a friend
light and darkness
You kill man just like an animal
I saw:
carts of chopped people
who won’t be ever saved.
Notions are just words
virtue and maleficence
beauty and ugliness
bravery and cowardness
Virtue and...
March 2013
7 posts
7 tags
7 tags
Z.Herbert "Apollo i Marsjasz"/"Apollo and Marsyas"
the proper duel between Apollo
and Marsyas
(perfect pitch vs
enormous range)
takes place just before the evening
when as we all already know
the judges
awarded the god
he is tied tightly to the tree
precisely skinned
Marsyas
screams
before it reaches
his high ears
he relaxes in the shadow of that cry
shivering with repulsion
Apollo cleans his instrument
only on the surface
...
5 tags
Z.Herbert "U wrót doliny"/"at the valley's gates"
After the rain of stars
on the field of ashes
everyone gathered under the angel’s guard
from the hill that lasted
you could’ve watched
bleating stocks of bipedals
there aren’t many of them
even when you count those who will arrive
from cronicles fairy tales and life of saints
but enough of pondering
we should focus on
the valley’s throat
from which a scream...
5 tags
Z.Herbert "Prometeusz"/"Prometheus"
The old Prometheus writes diaries.
He tries to explain in them place of a hero in the system of necessity,
reconcile contradictory notions of fate and existence.
Flames happily crack in the fireplace,
in the kitchen his wife hustles- she’s an exalted girl
who couldn’t give birth to a son, though she comforts herself
she will go down in history.
Preparations for a dinner...
6 tags
Z.Herbert "Kaligula"/"Caligula"
While reading older cronicles, poems and bios, Mr Cogito experients
feeling of physical presence of people who died long ago
Says Caligula:
from all the Rome’s citizens
there was only one I loved
Incitatus- a horse
when he entered senate
a spotless toga on his fur
shone immaculatedly among the cowardly murderers covered in purple
Incitatus was full of merits
never spoke
a...
8 tags
Z.Herbert "Deszcz"."rain"
RAIN
When my older brother
came back from the war
he wore a silver star on his forehead
and under the star
nothing
a fragment of a bomshell
hit him at Verdun
or Grunwald
(he can’t exactly remember)
he talked much
in many languages
though the one he liked the most
was the language of the history
until breathless moments
he raised fallen comrades from the ground
his...
10 tags
Z.Herbert "Przesłuchanie anioła"/ Angel's...
Zbigniew Herbert
Angel’s interrogation
When he stands before them
in the shadow of suspicion
he is still weaved
from the matter of light
eons of his hair
are pinned into
a curl of innocence
after the first question
his cheeks fill with blood
tools and interrogation
distribute the blood
with iron with cane
with fire so hot
they define the border
of his body
blows on his...
May 2012
2 posts
6 tags
T.Pióro "HWDP/ T.Pióro 'Fuck the police'
Fuck the police
“Gentleman, we have a guitar and all the lyrics
Perfect circumstances and the supremacy of
Ars longa vita brevis….
This is the stairs that will lead us to heaven
And down the pipeline full of Russian champagne
We will float to Alpes, like on that one’s New Year’s Eve”
He said and added “If they’re gonna drink
they have to pay”
So I drank to those who do porridge
Scab...
9 tags
Z.Herbert 'Do Marku Aurelego' /Z. Herbert "To...
To Marcus Aurelius
To Marcus Aurelius
Goodnight dear Marcus, shut off the lamp
And close your book
Above your head there’s a bunch of stars
It’s sky that speaks in an unknown tongue
it’s the barbarian cry of threatened
the ones your Latin barely knows
it’s fear so ancient the fear so dark
about a fragile human land it starts
to beat and will win Do you hear the hum
it’s the high tide Your...
April 2012
1 post
5 tags
a.osiecka jeżeli gdzieś jest niebo/if there is any...
If there’s any heaven
I didn’t know that everything
Everything that ever mattered
Is so close.
Didn’t know that in the winter
we’ll dance
around the garden.
Couldn’t know that our hands
From that dance
Like from wreath
Can’t untangle.
Didn’t know that our hearts
Would now ever
And forever
Be together.
Didn’t know that one can
Go on like that
With no air.
Didn’t know that me, too, would...
March 2012
1 post
3 tags
“She wants to be king, she wants to be queen; “Half Josephine, half Napoleon,...”
– She Told Him A Story Once
Pretty much, if I were to ever write a fem!Moriarty, I would want her to have this sort of mind set. An amazing one-shot that everyone should read.
Untitled
(via sassyfries)
February 2012
6 posts
8 tags
Z. Herbert "Tren Fortynbrasa"/"An Elegy of...
Elegy of Fortinbras
Now that we are finally alone we can talk, dear prince, man to man
And thought you lie here on the stairs seeing as much as a dead ant
Nothing but a black sun with its rays all broken
I could’ve never think of your hands without a single smile
And now as your hands rest on the marble like some fallen nests
They are vulnerable they always been This is what the End means
...
8 tags
E.Lipska "Podczas Świąt"/During the Christmas time
During the Christmas time
During the Christmas time
You can finally switch the phone off.
When the God is born
The guy next-door would knock.
I watch Casablanca
With the usual hunger
For digression.
Accompanied by the solitude
I drink sweet milk served with honey.
My sixth finger
Taps on the keyboard.
I will write no more.
The rest of the evening
Is silence.
original:
Podczas Świąt
Podczas...
7 tags
E.Lipska "Nikt"/Nobody
Nobody
I agree on this view
although it does exist no longer.
The father holds a violin in his hand
the children are starving for a sweet sound.
Clumsy wind caresses
roses’ soft petals.
And then comes the war. We lose each other
in a hurried crowd.
Words disappear hidden behind
the scared sentences.
An empty room
fixed in the darkness
of our old houses.
Please, leave the...
8 tags
E. Lipska "Ruch"/"Movement"
Movement
I would have never guessed
the bird would call me
and say
let’s fly all over the world.
And though I have no wings
And though it has no face
We read each other
from the greatest book on creation.
polish original:
Ruch
Nie przypuszczałam
że zadzwoni do mnie ptak
i powie
że fruwamy razem na tym świecie.
I chociaż ja bez skrzydeł
a on bez ludzkiej twarzy
czytamy...
7 tags
E.Lipska's "Jesień"/ The fall
Fall
We try to portray the autumn.
Step by step. Leaf by leaf.
Counting all the colors.
There’s a tormented haze on the cross.
And your voice drizzling softly.
There is a topic undiscovered around us.
Like a sad gray murmur of the wind’s chant.
So in love, we cook a simple meal
In the rusty morning of a red fall.
And then
the same, exact moment rages
all over again
as we
catch the cold...
9 tags
The cat in an empty flat / on W.Szymborska "Kot w...
Original / Kot w pustym mieszkaniu by W. Szymborska/
The cat in an empty flat
You can’t just die on your cat.
He certainly would feel terribly confused
because what he is to do within an empty flat.
Purring and chasing isn’t quite the same
the furniture isn’t as interesting
Nothing really changes
yet everything is different.
And the lamp doesn’t shine as bright
And the steps on the stairs not...
