Nothing you can do about it
Under your gaze,
I see myself as the one
who sits in front of you
and allows the gaze,
so I take my chair,
put it a bit closer,
even more in front of you,
so I can still more clearly
under your gaze
see myself as the one
who sits in front of you
and allows the gaze.
Black and white
I imagined
that I turned around
and pressed you
against the wall in an empty room,
where, apart from us,
there was only the ticket lady,
looking ahead
into nothing, motionless,
the tape was still running,
and you, motionless as well,
were watching a film about me
over my shoulder.
I imagined
that you turned around
and you pressed me
against the wall in an empty room,
where, apart from us,
there was only the ticket guy,
looking ahead
into nothing, motionless,
the tape was still running,
and I, motionless as well,
was watching a film about you
over your shoulder.
Natural and tireless
You showed me the tip of your tongue
and I pulled you off the chair
onto the floor and tried
to undress you. Not showing any
particular resistance, you told me
to tell you something.
I pressed your hips
to the floor and said something.
You smiled with moist
lips. You told me to
say it again.
I said it again.
You put the tip of your tongue out,
and I gently slipped it in,
certain that you were just about to show it to me.
The sonic breakthrough
In eighth grade, I tried
to learn about love;
there was nothing about it in school,
so I went to the cinema,
where I bought a ticket to a film
that was swarming with women.
It gave me some knowledge about love,
but I couldn’t apply it
effectively, so the next one
was about war; that’s when
I heard your voice,
and it was definitely your voice.
Love
I lift my gaze
to a tall building
where the light is
on, it goes out,
I look at the clock
to make sure
midnight
has arrived, it passes,
I close my eyes,
when they are closed
sleep comes
faster, it has come,
you sit astride
on my lap,
in a moment the story
will start, it is budging,
I ask the questions
that this night
will be answered with moisture
by delight, it whispers,
I search for a tongue
with your tongue,
to immobilise the
body, it falls silent.
Translated by Paweł Kaczmarski
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
