new poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz

touch
my body
my face
the painful places of memory
I touch my skin
    Â 
    touch an alien body
    Â 
    I rub my eyes
but do not wish to open them
opening them
I rise but stay in bed the day rises
I look at my hand
say to myself: “dear lord!”
I hear that in the fields outside Cologne
a million young people
are searching for themselves God faith
the rag (yesterday’s paper)
rustles underfoot I rise
start moving but not toward myself

depressions VII
    â€œpoor people”
    Â 
    Someone phones me
wants something I explain that
I’m here
that I’m not
that I
it’s someone young
younger
he has plans
involving me
I explain that I have no
plans
in my thoughts I say
to myself be patient
polite
those young voices
scratch me
hurt me
those live voices
hurt me
why do young people
yell shout bellow
after all there’s no
dudek or maradona here
małysz came in 20th or 26th
but he talks quietly
the poor kid

The Gates of Death
    to the memory of Henryk Bereska
    Â 
    Â 
    when I started writing poems
“everyone” was still alive
then they began to depart
    Â 
    the hardest task
is to pass through the gates of death
without the aid of an Angel
    Â 
    believers pass
through the gates of death
with eyes closed
once through
there is a smile on their lips
    Â 
    behind me I have a journey
growing longer
from hour to hour
before me I have
an ever shorter journey
    Â 
    faith in what exists
is knowledge not faith
but faith in what does not exist
is true faith

    Â 
    whoever believes God exists
needs no miracles
faith is the miracle
    Â 
    one who knows that love exists
has a duty to describe it
to let others see its image
    Â 
    The gates of death
The secret of their construction
is that the gates are not there
and at the same time they are
wide open to all
they are so narrow
that they must be squeezed through
in the sweat of one’s brow
in bloody labor
for years on end squealing
or screaming in fear
    Â 
    fortunate those who die
in their sleep
their hand taken
by Eurydice
who is immortal
and weeps for she must
live on alone

Notes

THE PROFESSOR’S KNIFE
    the professor’s knife
    I: The Trains
    Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821–1883): the outstanding poet of the late Romantic period in Poland.
    II: Columbus’ Egg
    â€œsugar fortifies”: Polish advertising slogan from the 1950s. Melchior Wańkowicz (1892–1979) was a well-known author.
    Father Robak and Jankiel: a Catholic priest and a Jewish innkeeper respectively, from the 1834 epic poem Master Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855): the major poet of the Romantic period. Konrad Wallenrod, a Teutonic knight, was the title character of a long poem by the same author from 1828.
    III: Shades
    Julian Przyboś(1901–1970): avant-garde poet. Bronisława (Bronia) was his wife.
    Czarnolas: the country home of Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584), one of Poland’s greatest poets, who wrote about sitting under the linden tree in his garden.
    IV: The Discovery of the Knife
    1968: in March 1968 there were student protests that led to an “anti-Zionist” clampdown by the government, forcing many Polish Jews to leave the country.
    Zomo: the riot police.
    VI: The Last Age
    â€œ The iron age was last [. . .]”: from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (author’s note). The translation is adapted from that of A. S. Kline.
    â€œthe poet Jawień”: pseudonym used by Karol Wojtyła (1920–2005), who later became Pope John Paul II.

    Â 
    gateway
    â€œstone upon stone . . .”: a children’s song.
    Â 
    the mystery of the poem
    â€œLudwik Solski’s Dressing Room”: room in the Słowacki Theatre in Kraków, named after the famous Polish actor Ludwik Solski (1855–1954).
    Extracts from Useful Books: anthology of world poetry compiled by Czesław Miłosz and published in 1994.

GRAY ZONE
    gray zone
    Antoni Kępiński (1918–1972): eminent psychiatrist and author.
    Juliusz