undefined desires

[undefineddesires]

A concept, IV (Koncepcja, IV)

if you return

drunk with victory

I will lock you in

a night fraught with darkness

will creep up

in the morning

I will bear sons heirs

and if

frozen

I watch

the earth open

then close

I will wonder at the grasses

that so hurriedly

they bloom

fraught with pain

my homeland is your beauty

[undefineddesires]

A concept, II (Koncepcja, II)

when you are silent

eternity

carves its hardened shape in you

do not roil

with your reflection

its deep mirrors

let it grow beautiful

in the shape of your slender hips

let it grow slender

buried

at the bottom of the light

at the bottom of the day

in darkness

in darkness

a fruit is born

it turns golden

in an interior thick

and sweet

it ripens

the soaring of pear trees

the bushiness of apple trees

children with skinned knees

embracing the trunk with their knees

sweep the fruit 

into their impatient mouths

my homeland is

with my leaves

the knowledge blooms

I immortalize

consciously

brazenly

at the edge of the road

[undefineddesires]

*** (szukam cię w miękkim futrze kota...)

I search for you in the cat’s soft fur

in the raindrops

in the pickets

I lean against the good fence

and draped in the sun

— a fly in a spider’s web —

I wait…

[undefineddesires]

*** (znów jestem tu...)

here I am again

on the same shore

which is golden and flat

stretched out on my back

the sun

leaning over me

and my body becoming more like the ground

it sees nothing else

except for its own concentrated brownness

no pine tree 

had your hair

and no moss 

bent so softly 

under my hand

no bird 

twitched so

in my closed wrist

and no night

stripped of stars

weighed so heavily with gloom

in a moment I will say world

and draw the border

for my feet and hair

measurable

becoming more like the ground

pulsating

there is no space

between a word and love

you are in the space

between a word and love

there is no certainty 

only the word love

love within a word

I love you more than all the dictionaries in the world

[undefineddesires]

Through a smile (Poprzez uśmiech)

you will come to me

biting your lips

when you have burned

in the green fire of books

my arms

will embrace you

who’s covered

in the dust of the roads you have not walked

the dark secrets of existence

you will drink from my lips

and on my shoulder

you will calculate

how much is infinity multiplied by eternity

an excellent abacus

my uncounted hair will make

breasts — the golden halves

of the earth that is your home

and the streets of the universes

on which you walk lightly

my legs in front of you

like so you will gather countless 

knowledge enclosed

in the rhythm of my dancing blood

[undefineddesires]

*** (słowa - czworokątne dachówki...)

words — square tiles

the sun — a golden cat carefully walks on them

softly bends its paws 

over our sleep

press your lips to the melody

your hair to the scent

so many colors

rippled the sky

so that we could not fall asleep

the restlessness 

within us

makes symmetrical circles

the world is infinitely spherical

tiles narrow 

the sun’s touch

has the warmth of your hands

the square of the roof

navy blue background

on a dark surface streaks of purple and gold

our light sleep circulates

on tiptoe

a bird flutters

captured

in the cat’s celadon eyes

[undefineddesires]

*** (z żywych bolesnych gałęzi...)

braided with living painful branches

my garden’s body

cries at night

recalling the birds’ downy wings

the moon’s face wet among leaves

looks into nests full of absence

the green fingers tremble

clenched on the wind’s throat

dawn

on white-and-black keys

dance the seeing fingers

with a breath I say — welcome

with my hand I touch my lips

with a smile — I bring a visible shape 

into the reality of color

and with the prettiest one in blood

I write — I

[undefineddesires]

*** (mam ciebie w roztańczonej krwi...)

I have you in my dancing blood 

in my teeth

with threads of nerves tied in a knot

I feel — the golden passion of your body

I run my hand across it

lightly

lightly

I bend

from all sides

from the end to the beginning

and again 

to the end

I am

within you

up above you

whole — in you

[undefineddesires]

*** (zawołaj mnie po imieniu...)

call me by my name

and I will come

my soul

call me by my name

do not ask 

if my name is the name

of a migratory bird

or a bush

that grows into the ground

and stains the sky

with the color of blood

and do not ask

what my name is

I myself do not know 

I am searching

I am searching for my name

and I know that if I hear it

I will come

even from the depths of hell

I will kneel before you

and into your hands

I will lay my tormented head

[undefineddesires]

*** (moje oczy - już nie oczy...)

my eyes — no longer eyes 

but stars 

finely scattered across the sky

my skin — no longer skin

the snow outside the window

clung softly to the ground

my love — lush

with roots

my deep dark

love

the scorched ground cracks dully 

[undefineddesires]

*** (odkąd ptaki odfrunęły z moich słów...)

ever since the birds flew away from my words

and the stars went out

I have not known what to name

fear and death and love

I look at my hands

helpless

they entwine one another

and my lips are silent

a nameless

sky spreads over me

and a growingly closer

nameless

earth blooms

[undefineddesires]

*** (w kwiatkach czeremchy...)

in the bird cherry flowers

intoxicated by the scent

my frenzied anger

slipped to its knees

I stood over it

helpless and trembling

and you — stood beyond me

and faster than the water flows

you took my hands

and bound them

with kisses

and then — there was the bird cherry

and the bird cherry

looked on —

[undefineddesires]

*** (czy świat umrze trochę…)

will the world die a little

when I die

I look I look

wearing a fox collar

goes the world

I never thought 

that I was a hair in its fur

I was always here

it — there

and yet

it is nice to think

that the world will die a little

when I die

[undefineddesires]

*** (Znaleźć ciebie…)

To find you — to look at you — is merely a foyer of imagination — but already inaccessible to my senses blinded by sorrow. I cannot recall the features of your face — they have blurred in despair like a word in an ink stain. Your voice does not sing within me — within me who was the best resonator of that voice. It does not sing because the cry of loneliness drowned out the patient words uttered by your lips.

And your hands I have lost and your lips and all that was you went away — to be born again in a sudden sharp pain after you.

[undefineddesires]

*** (delikatnie niosę moje serce…)

I carry my heart tenderly

like the severed head of Saint John

the ground dances beneath me

my heart is an amoeba

endlessly elongating

a tiny creature

this world belongs to it

a bed a painting four corners

my heart likes geometry

and harmony

I carry it carefully

like a severed

head of a saint

[undefineddesires]

*** (wiedzą o nim…) 

they know of him

my swollen breasts

kissed awake at nightfall

a grazed shoulder

memory

dormant in the hollow of a hand

inside of me

he bloomed

like a prickly hawthorn bush

the cold birds

of my nights

have all flown down

they eat

[undefineddesires]

Vietnam 1965 (Wietnam 1965)

I

fortunately

my parents gave me a flammable body

all it takes is a little gasoline

in the light folds of a dress

all it takes is a dash of sulfur

on the dark head of a match

do not tell me about love

do not remind me of the scent of the forest

of my young hair

of fingers

I lit this pile

to light up the earth

I walked blindly and in the dark

do not remind me of fingers

do not evoke the smell

look — I am burning with love

II

I still do not know why I did it

I had a mother and a father and a little brother

who messed around running to school

I liked animals I even made friends with stars

I mourned the death of every flower

why why did I do it

the newspapers wrote about me

some photojournalist even managed to capture

my smoldering limbs

it was not much

a handful or two

my mother could not read my name from the ashes

my brother was fidgeting and seeing

that she was blinded by despair he ran away

the street sweeper sprinkled sand on the dark stain on the pavement

I still do not know why

distant I wander in the wind no one wants to notice me

no one has yet laid a hand on my head

despite my hair being soft and shiny like a summer day

lips made for kissing…

III

long ago

my childlike faith

was killed by cruelty

I could have written a tragedy

or a poem

I could have raised several children

taught them hatred

I could have walked into my own house

opened the window

breathed in the evening air

listened to what the leaves talk about

I could have smiled at people

said good morning

said goodbye

said what a beautiful dress you have madam

I could have tamed a cat so

that it would follow me side by side

and maybe it would die if

I did

long ago

I lived through it all

in the blink of an eye

and now I am nothing

lull your conscience to sleep

do not look at the dying embers