On this subblog I will post my original writings: mostly poems, less often prose. I'm in no way a professional (or systematic) writer, I just do it as a way of letting my thoughts out into the world, at times. I hope you'll enjoy the content and stay here for longer.
DISCLAIMER: writings in languages other than English might (and will) occur, though always with translation.
Uciekam
Choć przecież nikt mnie nie goni
Nie widzi
Czy jednak?
Nie chciałem
Nie chciałem?
Przysięgam
Minęło, już nie ma
Nieważne
Nie szkodzi!
Niech przeszłość zostanie w przeszłości
Uciekam
[Z chmur pada betonem]
I nie wiem już nawet gdzie jestem
Czym jestem
Uciekam czy gonię?
Minęły miesiące
A może godzina?
Tu czas nie istnieje
I świat się zatrzymał
Wciąż biegnę na oślep
Ścigany przez cienie
Dojrzałem w nich twarze
A wśród nich i ciebie
Na Boga, nie chciałem
Lecz to bez znaczenia
Ciebie przecież tu nie ma
Nikogo już nie ma
A jednak
Wciąż jesteś
Podążasz
Pamiętasz?
…przeklęta!
Zostaw mnie w spokoju!
Nie goń! Nie nękaj
/// Kwiecień 2023
Tomu NIESKOŃCZENI część druga
TRANSLATION:
The Chase
I flee
Though no one's really after me
No one sees me
Or does someone?
I didn't mean to
Or did I?
I promise
It's all over now
It doesn't matter
Nevermind!
Let the past stay in the past
I flee
[It's raining concrete from the clouds]
And I no more know where I am
What I am
Do I flee or hunt?
Whole months have since passed
Or maybe an hour?
Time has ceased to exist
The world has stopped
I keep running blindly
Followed by shadows
Among them, I saw faces
Among faces your face
By God, I did not mean to
But it doesn't count
After all you're not here
No one is anymore
And still
You are
You follow
Remember?
Last night I dreamt about three villages among the hills. The one in the middle bore a foreign name you could roughly translate as Plague – the names of the other two have fled my memory since, but it is not of great importance. The village on the right, as seen from a distance, possesed a small canyon on its outskirts. Atop stood the wooden remains of what appeared to had been a bridge once connecting the two banks – construction now deserted, deprived of purpose, bound to vanish off the face of Earth in the next five to ten years, if not by man's hands, then on the principle of ruthless nature reclaiming its property. Frost. Precipitation. Winds of high velocity. Landslide. Structural decay. Small animals sharpening their teeth on wooden bars. Rust devouring screws. Sunshine. Rapid fire. The hills were mostly treeless, naked; buildings lay spread among the terrain, inappropriately colourful in such dull, monochromatic surroundings. I think the wind was blowing. The wind would be blowing in this type of a vision. If you had practiced enough cause-and-effect thinking you could foresee the three villages sharing the fate of the old bridge at some point in the future – though possibly not yet in our lifetime.
Gdy ty byłaś przy mnie, świat był jakiś inny
O niebo jaśniejszy i jakby mniej zimny
I nic nie znaczyły czarnych ruin plagi
Tak wszystko to było niewarte uwagi
Kiedy spoglądałem w oczy jak z hebanu
Już nie było bólu i nie było strachu
Brzmienia głosu twego w marazmie słuchałem
Jak z gwiazd kołysanki – i już się nie bałem
Pomyśleć, że kiedyś ciebie kochałem
Gdy ty byłaś przy mnie, ja byłem prawdziwy
Wierzyłem w dni złote i w światy na-niby
Tak bardzo odległe, a nam tak znajome
Choć, zawsze wiedziałem, nie dla nas stworzone
Stanęliśmy kiedyś gdzieś w wyśnionym kraju
Na skraju przyszłości, na przedpolach raju
W tej chwili przeklętej nie odpowiedziałem
Nazajutrz w rozpaczy z głowy włosy rwałem
Pomyśleć, że kiedyś ciebie kochałem
Ty byłaś nadzieją, niczym urojeniem
Skrywanym głęboko piękniejszym pragnieniem
Musiałem zatrzymać, jak wykuć w krysztale
Upewnić me serce, że będziesz tu stale
Lecz wtedy odeszłaś, zabrałaś wspomnienia
I rysy twej twarzy, i twoje marzenia
Czerwienią krwi twojej na niebie spisałem
W pudełku zwięzione, wśród olch zakopałem
Pomyśleć, że kiedyś ciebie kochałem
/// Luty 2023
Tomu NIESKOŃCZENI część pierwsza
TRANSLATION:
An apostrophe to
With you by my side, to me, seemed this world
A whole lot brighter and somewhat less cold
The seas of black ruins could as well be ignored
All of that was just not worth the afford
When I looked deep into your ebony eyes
All pain and all dread would vanish at once
Enchanted I listened to the sound of your voice
Like a stellar lullaby – to fear was no choice
To think that I had loved you once
With you by my side, for once I could live
Trust in better days and worlds made-believed
So faraway from us, and yet known to each
Although I knew, always, not for us to reach
We once stood together in some fairyland
On the brink of the future, at the heaven's gate
In that goddamn moment I failed to declare
The next day I plucked my hair in despair
To think that I had loved you once
You were my hope, as delusion revealed
More sublime desire profoundly concealed
I had to preserve you, from golden thread weave
Promise to my heart you would never leave
But then you departed, along with your dreams
And your facial features, all your memories
I wrote down in the sky with the red ink of blood
In a sealed box I buried amongst alder trees
Myślałem, że to nieprawda
Myślałem, że to nieprawda
Ale mleko już wykipiało
Kości zostały rzucone
Nie jestem pewien, co właściwie się stało
Nikt tego nie przewidział
Tak nagle, w mgnieniu oka
Błękitne niebo pociemniało
Sięgnęło ku ziemi
Mackami absurdu
Objęło nasze miasto, a z nim twój dom
A przynajmniej tak mi powiedziano
Być może nieba w ogóle nie było
I nie będzie
Stoję na wietrze
Przede mną i za mną aż po horyzont
Rozciąga się czarne morze bez dna
Nieruchome
Zamiast wody atrament
Tuż pod matową taflą – zdaje się – ktoś żyje
Choć wzrok mój i dłonie nie zdołały go dosięgnąć
Czasem myślę sobie, że gdzieś tam, na dole
Po drugiej stronie
Istnieje inny świat
Gdzieś, gdzie nie jest jeszcze za późno
Gdzie niebo pozostało niebieskie
A twój dom stoi na swoich fundamentach
/// Wrzesień 2024
TRANSLATION:
The Return (Nysa)
I thought it's just not true
I thought it's just not true
But the milk has boiled over
The die is cast
I'm not exactly sure what happened
No one has predicted that
Suddenly, in a blink of an eye
The blue sky darkened
And reached to the ground
With its tentacles of absurd
Embraced our city and your house too
Or at least that's what I'm told
Maybe there was no sky at all
And never will be
I'm standing in the wind
In front of me, behind me, up to the horizon
Stretches a bottomless black sea
Motionless
Instead of water full of ink
Right beneath the matt surface – it seems – someone lives
Although far out of my sight and hands' reach
I sometimes believe, that down there, under
On the other side
A different world exists
Somewhere, where it's yet not too late
Where the sky remained blue
And your house still stands on its foundations
I'd rather watch the birds in the sky
The flow of a river
The cars passing by
The Milky Way on a cold, starry night
A light in a window
And tears in the eyes
I'd rather watch these
I don't wish to die
I'd rather listen to the rustle of leaves
To the barking of dogs
To the sound of machines
To the voices of people, no matter how raised
To a clock on a wall
To a song badly sung
I'd much rather hear these
I don't wish to die
I'd rather feel the sand on my feet
I'd rather smell roses
I'd rather feel heat
I'd rather get lost on my way through the town
And dance in the rain
Than lie in the ground
I would rather live
I just wish, sometimes
I wish that the world
Would end overnight
Na imię miała Hania
Hania Niekochana
Umarła
Jednak nie ona pierwsza
Nigdy pierwsza nie była
Nigdy nie ulubiona
Nigdy nie najważniejsza
Zawsze ta druga
Pomniejsza
Od kiedy zjawiła się Ona:
Cud
Skarb
Marzenie
W pierwszym dniu życia postawiona na scenie
Artystka
Ponoć mówiła wierszem
(Nie była to prawda, ale ojciec nie słuchał)
Tak szybko zgasła
Po prawdzie trochę jej szkoda
Koniec końców nie zawiniła
Zabrała ze sobą wszystkie łzy na świecie
I wszystkie kartki na świecie
Zajęło jej epitafium
Dla drugiej (nie pierwszej) zabrakło łez
Zabrakło kartek
Ledwie skrawek
Ledwie słów kilka
Parafrazując:
„Pamiętaj
Ciebie też kochamy”
/// Styczeń 2024
TRANSLATION + CONTEXT:
Lament XX
Her name was Hania
Hania the Unloved
She died
But she wasn't the first to do so
She was never the first one
Never the favourite
Never the most important
Always the second
Inferior one
Ever since She appeared:
A miracle
A treasure
A dream
Put on stage from her very first day
An artist
They said she spoke in poetry
(It wasn't true, but father didn't listen)
Soon she faded away
And in fact, it's a shame
After all, she's not to blame
She took all the tears in the world with her
And all the pages in the world
Filled her epitaph
For the second one (not first) there were no tears left
No pages
Just a snippet
A few words only
Paraphrasing:
"Remember
We love you, too"
/// January 2024
Context: a reference to an ongoing joke about a polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski and his daughters Urszula and Hanna, both deceased in their early childhood. The death of the former (an alleged child prodigy) affected the father so greatly he wrote a series of nineteen elegies (called Treny, or Laments) to her, while to the latter he only dedicated a four-line epitaph. Note that: Hania is short for Hanna. Niekochana (as translated to the Unloved) is a word-play, a negation of the family's last name.
Birds with iron wings
Circling over my head like hungry vultures
Ready to dive in anytime, to attack
I'm going up —
I pass them by, leave them behind
Sit high among the gleaming stars
Look down and laugh:
From here, from above
They're nothing but mere fruit flies
Buzzing around a city map
They cannot ever reach me here
I close my eyes without no fear
As long as I stay here, I'm safe
As long as I dream, I remain
An intermediate-range ballistic missile fell on my house yesterday
It interrupted my eating breakfast
And – for God's sake! – broke my favourite mug
Spilling the tea all over the floor
In the other room my sister was sound asleep
Dreaming about that dog our mother promised to get her for Christmas
She was going to name it Caramel
But she never woke up
She never woke up
And I didn't wake up either
Only the tea dried up
Among my favourite mug's shards
It did happen
Not to me, maybe
Nor to my sister I have never had
Nor to my house that stands still
But to someone
In one or another part of the globe
It did happen
Just yesterday
Somewhere, sometime, for no actual reason.
(who needs a reason?)
The reason for existence could be the existence itself.
No beginning, no end.
Infinity and eternity.
Time passes, nothing changes, nothing ever changes.
Yet everything is brand new:
Unknown, unfamiliar, alien.
Doesn't live, never die, just remains.
Somewhere…
Sometime…
Far away and right outside your window.
Awaiting…
They call it evil, but it is neutral.
Objective and just.
Unbiased.
Awaiting…
No need to be afraid.