OFF_press

dear madam, no one said we should write and we’re not afraid instead awfully healthy
I made the effort to look nicer today ironed my neck need only
cats for protection and drafting my ancestors’ assessments comes easy
indeed I have scrapped my arrangement with the dead which means I don’t return
home before three but do speak with an accent appropriate for time and place

madam will allow me not to spit in front of the club in case someone says
the audio performances by banal sasnal in zacheta gallery
are better than carnivals in rio and no I only neck a little spirits
in secret when no one is looking certainly not her
and so I am overall done up to the max and then some

dear madam if you wish I can clean up after myself
because it ain’t nice plus I haven’t got a job
and have to try harder although you probably didn’t know
anyway back to what I was saying no one says we should write
we’ve got ourselves into it but I don’t think this is a sin or any sort of job

and so why the whispering unless it be whispers of approval
or the whispering of a mountain stream when skiing and this my nth attempt  
at reintegrating the first person in the basement of zacheta
in moments of depressing violence and overall that ain’t it
not that but perhaps something will come of this upright libation

the woods are sober

darling the world is no more sober than I am
I am right this minute boarding a lift made by the municipal works
which means in a moment we’ll be out of range of thoughts and arms and so
I take up position parallel to the direction of travel and grab the railing  
so as not to drop out of the city’s intestines and land in the colon

barely dreaming of home and the warm internet which you will attach to the eyes
so I can doze off on line so that other women can drip down in letters
while you chronically tired try to catch your breath  
before another deep dive into tomorrow and you do it with such hunger  
it seems you are heading towards a world which was not made for us

those I meet in the compartment here are unknowns and look at me ominously
directions are mixing in my head and I don’t know if they’re coming or going
to their desks their beds children on loan loans for children
I won’t look them in the eye there’s too many private histories there
instead just look upwards towards an earth rumbling with a concrete morning

my friends left behind there some still dancing others want to stop but can’t
some want to stop and come and peak with declarations of enforced socialisation  
I’ll meet them here again but they have time let them have their lie-ins
on the surface before they board that damned lift and I’ll know them no longer
as for us if you ask I think it’s time to get the hell out of here perhaps into the woods

the woods are sober

a photo from a mobile phone taken after a poetry event

we make our even beds in ditches dirt
fugues gatherings lying down straight
unpecked by hens crows or other avians
reality does not turn us into themes
for our poetry or other cultural texts

sometimes with a daring stretch of the neck
we reach for the surface of metaphysics and mysticism
nowt to say while everyone steals glances at falling mythologies
classical that’s only just sounds now ears humming
and a revolution in value systems in line with quarterlies

modernity to blame for the bullshit wiggling its
ass at father’s politics ’cause what else is there to say
ads ever longer the cosmos ever nearer
boredom while as asides we toy with kitsch and
oh what a wonderful Word and everything clear

like a billboard slogan dragged down by its hair
we lie back seduced sleepy supermodern
and runs on does the clubber-gay-hooligan newspeak
the current leading us to a morning clash with the city  
and so friends let’s take us a group photograph

it’s the last gesture we’re capable of before another
tearing off of warm bedsheets to save the remnants
of face and give ourselves the chance to return to this tale
of our attempts at talking our way into some more passes
of our saintly and still ever so fresh insanity

from the left of our town

you like those shared spots where we talk books and lounge with laptops
once again someone tried to instruct me in tip top manners
but I tipped and fell hard my ever so tender neck straining in my track suit
sensitive to touch repressions and all fears of coverings and influences

I try not to let myself loose and not to feel pressure in terms of cool
political scenes if only I knew how not to vote and align myself
with current perspectives in cultural publications and young poland
which is after all as much ours as any subject of discussion in this cafe

you want to go to the march I don’t think I do and I’ll go though a little off
some sentences stuck in the throat my world views left unshouted  
because in the end I do not understand them myself as they are not ready
to fit with the terms of our aims of developing this town

be more street and yet how and what to mark the self with in terms of differences
any logo is a state of soul this I know taking more exams in said discipline
so I’ll log in to the system from the left because this is the obvious consequence
and one cannot do otherwise in today’s time zones along our latitudes

five seconds

five seconds mano a mano five seconds facing that face
numbers don’t lie walls don’t embrace or instruct in whispers

nothing matters aside from this retrospection retirement
survive only this much inside me too many bodies
opposite cells louder than my television set
I will wait for the ads they always shove to the fore

shouting preening they are just so perfect for this very moment
perhaps they’ll turn off the nodding in me or buy me out
nodding is something I inherited from my nan who needled me
now only the lack I’m too big she too small

I once knew how to play with a crayon fly it cutting the air
cutting space with a crayon children were only outside the window
I didn’t know their names now I would like to call them all
open the windows let some of them in let them shout
let each one have such a crayon let slice let cut

it is too thick I’ve held my breath
perhaps it was for five seconds

she came in and made it lighter time stopped weighing so much

An oxygen bath, colours, lights! Oh castles,
mansions! The driver of the bus pontificating
about Baudelaire. The Captain shrugs his shoulders.

Swim, then, in an aerial aquarium.
Listen to the song of the swallows, they are the ones
who kill. Oh, Captain, my Captain!

A MEASURE OF DISTANCE

It is becoming dangerous, as dawn rises
and the trance passes. What was, leaves. In its
swat-stained place the dawn crawling along,
cold and tangible.

The night has no memory. Dreams always come out
of nothing, of a hat. Which is why we need to
record now, when the shadows
are still grey.

Shadows darkening, maturing into
memory. The sun burns a hole in a cloud,
then it starts to rain. Slugs slithering
onto the path without fear.

This guy, Kołodziejski, we spent
a lot of years together and don’t bother
each other that much any more. He’s funny,
hugging his hollow point.