Seweryn Górczak /// 3 new poems

 

Bosporus

Constantinople is on beautiful fire today, but it isn’t
opening fire, of the touch between flame
and sensitive, urban wood; the freshness
poisoned by smoke. I study the date
through crystal, at a safe
indifference, an etched turn
of phrase on my lips, with the first headline word

– I stop breathing. Today, you can choose
one of a range of icons; the rest extinguished, with
verses arranged in walls hurriedly
spat out by passers by. The bridge no longer there,

 

which is why today you can choose one
of those crystal icons, before they crumble.
Before you’re cut off from
the other side of the mic,
just before the immolation.
Save?

 

 

 

 

La Noche Triste

He fell asleep, his eyelids covered in richly decorated
cuts; shadows resting against them
in harmonies, with a taste specific
to this country. We were sitting
in a half-empty apartment, dirty
light from a long unwashed bulb. I wanted
to shower, but no water was running.
A tree blocking out the only window – from behind
its leaves a crooked, shimmering city appearing, one
which, as we’ll learn later, we’ll burn down. From beneath
the floorboards the wail of glasses and complaints that,
once again, they’ve been given mirrored bottles. One voice
was too indifferent not to be mine or his. Wanting
to silence it, I turned on the television
and came upon a beautiful tale – a film
cut together from nothing but end credits.

 

 

 

 

Report

Defeat in such situations can be interpreted as insanity
only when we agree to ignore the pasts of all those generals, all the
trysts which they had to drown along with shaved off stubble in sinks,
over which matt mirrors hung, minor affairs tossed across the front, before
they could bring anybody any joy, of limited
uses and approaching use by dates. Though
this is certainly scant assurance for families which
had to break themselves into tiny shards of glass upon receiving the telegram.
And it must be small comfort to the postmen who had to
gather them up with bare hands and send them to me with complaints, instead
of funeral wreaths for those no longer concerned with hygiene. And yet

 

I can read into more things than just my own complaints – I promise that
this conflict is about to die out. The only
outcome will be a little tickly
smoke down the throat, suspended in mid-air until exhausted.

 

 

 

translated by Marek Kazmierski

 

 

Seweryn Górczak, born 1991 in Warsaw. Studying at the Stefan Wyszyński University; his poems have been published in PKP Zin, “Odra” and “Lampa”. From time to time he reads at poetry slams.
Seweryn Górczak, ur. 1991 w Warszawie. Student historii na Uniwersytecie im. kard. Stefana Wyszyńskiego; wiersze publikował w PKP Zinie, “Odrze” i “Lampie”. Od czasu do czasu występuje na slamach.

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