Tied with chains
(for Dorota)
Too spacious the house – I don’t want to say: empty.
Severing the umbilical cord doesn’t hurt. Windows,
as if bullet proof, dull the hum of city streets. Walking
window to window (feet thunding). I close, open the curtain –
flowers and a trapped butterfly staring. I am speaking to you,
the echo just seemeing to find its voice. I am looking
for a trace of nastiness in a lit candle, for it entraps moths,
or in the web of a spider – yet you are not a foolish fly!
I calm myself, flattening the folds of my skirt. As a child,
you laughed when the lobster lolloped, while ghosties flew.*
I look for my migrane pills, bite the bitterness – it will heal
hypersensitivity and you will stop calling me a mad bitch.
*Polish children’s rhymes
A glass ceiling. Drifting
(for Dariusz)
That you are submerged does not mean you are sailing.
Time as if it were water – drop by drop takes
the breath away. You gulp air, stealing life.
You are wondering if it is over or beneath the surface.
The glass parts, while life goes about its own business.
The changing of wetness into dryness takes place
by itself (everything began in the water). You waited
until amniotic fluids receded*, knowing you would become
homeless. Now you are on your back, clenching fists
ready for a fight. Smiling in your sleep,
someone’s hands straightening the covers, sinking
into you. The shell still absorbing. Foot prints going nowhere,
the course set by a ship’s compass, before the ice hardens.
Obstacles
It is as if with looks alone you had to knock down a wall
of bricks. Been there for years. Many fingers have tried poking
holes in the mortar, instead of learning how to
go round it; telling weathers from clouds, dream own dreams.
Unnamed complaints are blurring the background. In hiding
scars etching, where snakes are shedding skins. Everything
passing, like summertime campfire chats. Later,
keys ring in perfect harmony with the flight of cranes.
I know why you won’t shake hands, hiding behind your back
broken fingernails, shins scratched from being hit.
Now you are smoking, the smoke weaving nests overhead,
nests which then fly off along with the brids of your imagination.
A silence remains, like a million bells ringing in your ears.
Azymut
You smile into the distance which her gaze hunts after,
without considering how many she will lose along the way.
She measures the distances between points known to you and
always is, will be far off. The point of road to nowhere becomes
defined, expected. Its breadth is defined by side roads. Detours.
Doubts. Journey stops are points with a view of places of
excess. Falling. Entering.
Another trail of events signifies the marathon, but no
bearer of bad news will come. You believe that they will
build a bridge heading your way beforehand. Will lay down
railway lines, build a road made of stones someone dropped
or which fell in the water by themselves.
Do you know there is life set in stones?
Disharmony
At dawn, he had turned into a watermelon; rolling. Rolling down
bleeding when sliced. Wandering if the blood would
ferment, become wine, or congeal instead. How is it
with a vitaminc K deficiency? He did not analyse dog love.
It simply is, in return you take them out for walks and feed them,
once a day. Does everything has to mean something? Drilling
holes, howling. Bells are ringing (because dawns are rising),
flies shimmering. Jazz behind the wall, outside summer
hits on the radio walking past. Sensitive to noise, he vanishes.
Or reappears redoubled in strength, to scream. Imparting
meaning to that which desires, that which he needs today.
It’s like that Central Train Station – no one knows if it is
a home for the homeless, the start or the end of a journey.
The ghost train expected to arrive at platform 3
will be delayed by a 120 minutes.
translated by Marek Kazmierski
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Łucja Dudzińska – (born 1960) graduate of Akademia Ekonomiczna, she has been writing poetry since high school, though she did not debut officially until 2008. He verse has been published in the following prestigious titles: “Topos”, “Arkadia”, “Bliza”, “Odra”, “Znaj”, “Notatnik Satyryczny”, “Okolica Poetów”, “Autograf”, “Nestor”, “Akant” as well as local journals, anthologies and competition almanacs, where she has often won awards. This includes winning the poetry slam WARTAL 2010, VII OKP im. Michała Kajki 2011 and the literary prize Tetis 2012. Her poem „Na końcu świata albo języka” was the title verse of the 40th anniversary anthology of the Literary Club „Dąbrówka”. She lives in Poznan, where she oversees the ZLP O/Poznań Young Writers Club, although she remains independent. She is the founding editor of the NA KRECHĘ Association of Writers.
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Łucja Dudzińska – (ur. 1960) absolwentka Akademii Ekonomicznej, pisze wiersze od szkoły podstawowej. Na debiut publiczny zdecydowała się dopiero w 2008. Publikowała w pismach literackich: Topos, Arkadia, Bliza, Odra, Znaj, Notatnik Satyryczny, Okolica Poetów, Autograf, Nestor, Akant oraz w pismach lokalnych, w antologiach, almanachach pokonkursowych. Została laureatką wielu ogólnopolskich konkursów literackich. Wygrała Slam Poetycki WARTAL 2010, VII OKP im. Michała Kajki 2011, otrzymała nagrodę Tetis 2012. Jej wiersz „Na końcu świata albo języka” dał tytuł Antologii na 40-lecie Klubu Literackiego „Dąbrówka”. Mieszka w Poznaniu, gdzie powierzono jej Klub Młodego Literata przy ZLP O/Poznań, chociaż jest niezrzeszona. Założyła i jest kuratorem Ogólnopolskiej Grupy Literycznej NA KRECHĘ.
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