OPTICAL ILLUSION
I don’t know when the papillary lines
Disappeared from my hands
but I do know that my sex perished
at the same moment
that my beloved
closed his eyes forever
the tenth of may two thousand ten
early morning
since then my desire to love anyone has died
time stands still for me
the clock’s hands are immobilised
neither having moved
a millimetre
to the side or upwards
dead motionless
that’s the way it is
although so much has happened and piled up
in the fast-flowing moment
time stands still on the clock face
unbudged
I’m starting to suspect
that the facts collected here
pressed to the limit of endurance
have been transformed in the wink of an eye
but that which you take for an incontrovertible fact
isn’t really a fact at all
perhaps you’re deceived by a mirage
a trompe l’oeil
an optical illusion
such as occur among architectural elements
DUSK
I am far away from myself
I am no longer me
someone
someone I don’t know
has ravaged my mind
and soul
has transfigured me
I’ve fallen down before the world’s eyes
before yours
I can’t get up
will someone lend me a hand
or must I struggle up myself
before there should fall on me
the night as black as the coffee
I drink every morning
Maharaja Bosphorus
THE LAST LETTER
Each poem of mine / is a letter / to an imaginary lover / you’re surprised when something / rings in your ear / that’s my letter / my last letter / there won’t be any more letters / this is the last time / the doorbell’s pushed / at your threshold / it’s time / yes / it’s time / I’m off / going away for good / departing even / from my own self / no time now for me to read / those poems / I carry about in my head / and which / leap out of my head / and now are for nobody / I’m leaving without any farewell / in the middle of the night / in the very middle / of many nights / punctually / I wake up / and run out in thought / into my city / onto its cobbles / shimmering / sparkling with mica / rolled out before my feet / each cobblestone / precisely cut by a laser blade / selected from local quarries / including silver / silver and mica / the shimmering cipher / tells me / that it’s time / high time to bid farewell here / to you / with one last poem-letter / although I know / you can’t read / my letters / I shake my head / I flutter my eyelid / waiting / thinking up an imaginary / lover / and situations / I don’t want / anyone to guess / how very lonely I am / how I run away from the void / fortunately it so happens / that I’m visited by Bach / Johann Sebastian / who enfolds me in his arias / his scores / the organs ravish me / bear me off into the beyond / lead me / into their registers / afar / beyond I / allow me / not to be / I vanish / disappear / become everything / I flutter my eyelid / so as to shake away / this tear / hanging on my lashes / I don’t want to share / my tear / with anyone / I’d rather share words and thoughts / Time to bid the world / adieu / I’m off / I’m almost gone / from myself / the fountains of my city / the far-reaching spray of their waters / wash my traces / from the pavement / so you shouldn’t guess / that I was here / just a moment ago / that just a moment ago / I shook the fingers of my hand / fluttered my eyelid / so as to knock away the tear / the wordless tear / caught on the lashes / just about to fall / I don’t believe it will fall / after all this is my last letter because I want / Vermeer / to paint me with the sooty nub of a torch / as the letter writer
Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski
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”
