If with one hand you
made me a king, god,
with the other you
brother have taken everything else
in return.
My wide eyes travel alone
towards colour.
They all stare at my crown.
But words do not weep
and nor do you.
We both have wet muddy hands,
under your skin, new silver,
under mine, a whole new town.
The familiar surrounding of yet
another road to Jerusalem
which I follow
as I follow black.
(‘Perhaps this is not a poem…’ C. Milosz)
And because I was made a poet
a lot of blood is spilt
on the neat grass, when I walk.
For fear that I will have
nothing to give back
I collect old books.
My word confesses to its imperfection
with the honesty of a fractured second.
Not that I mind,
not that I have high hopes,
only tall steps.
Because of this self deluded truth,
it happens that waking up in a desert
is not a surprising coincidence,
but a certainty, like a niggling pain in a missing limb.
I am not grateful to sleep facing the wall
but hey! someone needs to show a bit of courage
and say nothing
when nothing is to be said.
And though no one will remember
the poem once written but me,
after all, forgotten things are
the only possessions worth keeping.
Photo: John Stadnicki
http://www.johnstadnicki.co.uk/Site/Welcome.html
I do not happen to know
the purpose of our war
but I’m working hard to
remember the words you
scribbled on the piece of paper
which set fire to the entire land.
Then I could not catch
the imagined rain on the glass roof
nor the light of the earth
so
the battle just happened.
Out of the blue, both of us
ready, awake,
on the horse’s back,
measured with precision
the distance between
the polished guns.
The bullets hit my left arm,
my knee,
hit open my skull;
the flesh exploded in thousands of pieces,
covered the yellow sky
with hair and skin.
At the end,
the music kept playing again,
you followed the clear road,
I followed you:
nothing more than a perfect, unfinished poem.
For a while you kept feeding me
ink pots instead of water.
My mouth locked in a bud
could only touch black fruit
and blue.
The language came afterwards
to check my vital signs;
my weak pulse made the world see
I existed at last
in words:
unspoilt spring, not creature, not flower, not cloud.
Stone.
But when you stopped,
I vanished.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
I will say it again,
with the risk of repeating myself:
the poet does not exist really,
do not wait for him, do not.
The words themselves, not the tears, will choose to
get out in the world and
find you.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
I kicked a dog in the teeth.
The dog turned and
Bit my lip.
The gushing blood stained my words.
I am now silent.
We did not think we needed food
When we set to walk back in the dark
Guided only by the reflection
Of the angular words
But
It rained so much overnight that
The road collapsed
The city has now locked you in
With me
Hungry in a white room
At the top floor.
You take the unspoken word and
Look at it under the magnifying glass
In the dark
You live out all the unnecessary sorrow and beauty
And get to the bone of the language
With very small steps
Learning to walk in poems
Naked stone
And in learning so
The need to talk grows in the broken wood.
We feed the orphans with poems
Never to be
Hungry again.
The fire nourished with letters
Never stops burning
Overnight
Our bodies wake up
Warm bricks
Restored to their path.
Each breath locked
Between the heart’s walls
Returns to its silver lung
Once the word released.
Come with me I know precisely
Which direction to go I said laughing
Face to face with the unspoken word.
Never afraid to fight you,
Never stopped building the new language
Only for us.
I put on my best dress
I killed everyone around
Just for a moment of solitude with you.
Come, I said, but do not look at me,
Like I at you.
The new vocabulary can now describe with easiness
The true detail of this abandoned land
On which we slowly walk through the mud
Holding hands.
And for a while there was an echo.
The word, however, did not reply
The word kept still
And winked at me before
It jumped off the bridge.
Maria Stadnicka 