Glimpses of our childhood
Wydawnictwo Biblioteka Tematu,
Przekład na j. angielski Alina Jelińska-Żelazny,
Autor rysunku na okładce Wojciech Górka,
Redaktor Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda,
Autor rysunku na okładce Wojciech Górka,
Redaktor Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda,
Posłowie Danuta Mucha,
Bydgoszcz 2009
Bydgoszcz 2009
Wybrane wiersze
Birds in all weathers
The weather in a grey coat
turned the earth into a mud clump.
The sky was overcast.
And when ,according to the forecast,
the weather puts on a sheep skin fur-
The earth will become a snowball.
You won`t tell a human from a snowman.
Who`s going to call this weather beautiful?
Who`s going to nestle close to it?
Who?
The children will!
As they are not fearful of winds, fogs and drizzle.
Not even the snowdrifts, blizzards and chills…
Children will chirp up on that day like sparrows.
For children are birds in all weathers.
A grandma`s dream
To the shelter, hurry, my grandchild!
They are coming…there, whirring above.
There`s no time to lose, we`ll get covered up
with rubble.
Wake up ,grandma, look through the window.
The sky is like a flax blossom..
And there`s no aircraft over your head.
It`s only grandpa`s hoover vacuuming.
Portraits
Helter-skelter from my grandson, I received
a sheet of paper with a carrot spot inside and
a caption saying: A portrait of a snowman
in the snow.
-That`s pure abstraction!
The face of old portraits has to be refreshed,
Grandma. He said splashing me in the eyes
the paint of words in which our neighbour,
a portrait painter, wanted him to dip his tongue.
Later, he pinned up the snowman`s portrait
next to the one of grandfather, the teacher,
which hangs over my desk on the wall.
After a while, the snowman itself
fell on the floor.
That`s because grandpa looked at it askance.
A violin
There hangs on the wall an old violin.
A resonance box with a neck
and broken strings.
No signature of a violin maker.
No violinist taking it from the wall.
When it comes to instruments,
an artist neither takes it or leaves.
He simply parts with it.
An artist stashes his talent
in a life`s case and hangs it over
his shoulder like a wing…
His soul dwells inside a violin.
A wirtuoso
A virtuoso went playing the waltz,
with so much fiery passion
that the strings were bursting one by one,
and the bow gave snapping sounds.
When the last string broke
with this passionate and sultry waltz,
the artist finished it with a shattered bow
and his finger`s strings, still aglow.
Freaks
Over the bridge,
within the boundaries of a global village,
instead of the old cottage
there is a high-rise block of flats.
No longer familiar and cosy in this global village.
Only the children, like flowers,
got soaked with the global sod.
The children`s parents, like boulders,
also settled down in this place with time.
And even talk kindly with neighbours.
But grandma and grandpa-
two old apple trees,
transplanted,
still long for the old orchards
they pleased.
That`s why people call them… freaks.
A swallow
When a boy demolished a swallow`s nest
with a ball, I thought
it`ll give up this place of bad luck
for good.
A demolished house is not the same
as a broken vase.
Yet it came back to the same spot-
the thatched roof under the sky of forget-me-nots
to guard the remains of the nest
and the fragments of eggs.
Attachment is stronger than pain.
A dog’s friendship
When once a duck tried a dog`s meal,
it was knocked about and hit.
Although the dog was not to blame,
The master beat it with a cane.
This gave the dog a real pain.
Tears in his eyes began to show.
It couldn`t bear the master`s
blow.
A loving dog would do anything
for his owner ; carry him in its mouth
to save from fire and lend its tail to
rescue from water.
A melody on a dog’s note
There`s a bustling market crowd,
and a busker
playing music rather loud.
Pressing his harmonica so close
playing on the same old song.
Unsolicited, they throw him coins
and he plays it on and on.
The crowd gathers helter-skelter
with an eye on shopping stalls,
and he plays the same old songs.
Then a child nearby a gate
called out - Mom, look right-
no old doggie at the busker`s side.
Stunned the busker went and dumb,
with a bang his notes fell down,
and one note turned into tear on the ground.
A row
The nerves are being frayed.
The tongues are slashing themselves.
One fist threatens another-
I`ll beat you, beware!
When anger knocked it about,
the reason awakened at last.
And stamping its foot, it called out:
Enough of the row! Let`s talk
like good pals.
Hear the heart in the breast cage,
it`s tousled. It`s thumping like mad
and quaking all feared and sad?
A lightning - rod
Mother feels a little restless.
Father wears a nasty frown.
Well, it looks like a stormy
row.
So I ask my dear grandma,
and I use a praying code:
-
Please, appease them
since you are my lightning-rod!
Then I make a little promise:
Never do any mischief.
And a rainbow starts to beam
in my parents eyes so dim.
The unwinged
How many more of them,
like Johnny the fiddler,
were left unwinged
He had his music plucked off
and a violin wrenched
by time`s wind.
And how many of them like
Anthony couldn`t fly high with carving
because a gale blew harsh not in the windmills
but straight in their eyes.
How many Pegasus` foals
couldn`t neigh in the nebulous fields
because they had their wings slashed,
and their feathers plucked for quilts.
How many more of them…
Many… up there on Parnassus
there is a garden of genuine talent
beings, watered with tears of Muses`
and no longer scourged by the wind.
A night heron`s distribution
The children on earth
are given food from
a purblind cook.
Hence the ladle`s uneven.
Hence a night heron`s distribution:
One child is surfeited, and the other
asks for scrap.
No need for a dish-washer with
such eating. The hungriest will
lick the plates clean and scrape
the pot`s bottom leaving sheen.
A bluebottle`s blossom
You relish the beauty
of a bluebottle`s blossom
sparsely seen.
There`s so much delight
and glamour for you
in such a fine form,
in the cloud`s hue…
And the sky, where butterflies
spread rainbow wings, adds more
to the scene…
but, lo…once you let it,
the flower will grow wanton
in the whole field.
Beauty appeals,
it`s there to please,
but bread is your need.
Partridges
From a fox they run away-
Mother Partridge
and
its covey tail.
Wherever they secretly
hide, in the cornfield
or grass, the fox goes
past and acting like blind,
it sniffs the partridges
even underground.
It always catches
the runaways.
It knows where to
trace.
Chamomile
Chamomile-
summer eyes
with pupils like sunrays.
Gentle and suave,
ready to ease every cut.
Chamomile the same as
eyes of a nurse from
Krynica`s sanatorium house.
The nurse in a white frock
gave me medicine and she
smelled with an azulene.
Bird`s Niobe
A bird flew from over the sky-
in its beak a flapping fly.
The bird flew into the nest
that a fox had ripped into shreds.
The bird went dumb at the sight.
The empty nest made it petrified.
So much pain and torment dwelled in
the small bird. Tears surged into a river
within seconds, and all that turned into
sand spilling from within its tiny eyelids.
A hare
Funny thing, a hare,
taking me for a greyhound,
ran away to a forest
at a bound.
But worse than a greyhound
is the abysmal forest
w
ith an iron mouth.
A stag
A stag flashed by in my eyes
like a flame,
shining with a satin of its hair,
flaunting its impressive antlers.
And it hid in brushes.
Left after it in the air
were those quivering waves,
in which it impressed with a living
fire its beauty shape.
A birch
When a birch couldn`t straighten up
its old gnarled bark,
it cried out in human ache:
-Let thunder strike me right there!
-Let a lumberman come and fell!
With no strength in my bough
I can`t with this crippled old age go on.
-A ranger said to it- You`ll be a white
cane for me when darkness pours.
-It would be really sad without you-
A ranger`s son whispered,
cuddling his head close to
the leaning birch.
An oak tree
An oak tree is a strongman
carrying the sky`s dome
on his shoulders.
The soil at its root
around shrank to a sand
lump.
With the oak tree,
bark beetles failed.
The wind was no gale.
A saw had a tooth dropped,
an axe got notched.
No man and no element defeated it.
Yet you can never trust-
A spark in the forest
turned the oak into dust.
Sunset by the sea
The sun-
a drowsy eye of the day.
Below the sea`s tearful vale.
There`s a blazing fire…
reddening, swelling with scarlet.
Heavens` aglow.
The waves shimmer with fish scales,
glimmer with flames. And silence`s
smashed with squawks of birds,-
torches of doves.
And a sand-fringed lagoon is burning.
In it my rocking paper boat`s sailing.
Fire! Fire!
And after a while… the fiery sun
behind the horizon rolls down…
And a cool wind from the sea
stops twilight`s fire
and leaves.
Tomorrow looks like a beautiful day
Tomorrow looks like a beautiful day.
The setting sun was glowing red.
The sky will brighten up again
and a skylark will chirp…
Tomorrow looks like a beautiful day.
And yesterday`s paintings,
tainted with our fate,
will be dispersed by a dawn`s gleam
and a brand-new day.
There`s only left on canvas,
as if on Veronica`s handkerchief,
a reflection of a child`s face
with a pent-up shriek…
Tomorrow looks like a beautiful day.
Only a shadow from behind trees`ll sway.
The Ark
I`m sending these poems,
like Noah`s Ark
into life`s billowy waves.
In it- A CHILD
with a flower and a dove…
In it I want to save The WORLD of A CHILD.
Because at the time of our present apocalypse,
when all blustering elements meet at once-
YOU, THE YOUNG ONES
YOU,WORLD`S CHILDREN
You are our HOPE.
An island of green upon angry waters.
An anchor on this biblical boat.
A rainbow in the sky after the deluge…
AND A BETTER WORLD WILL BE BORN OUT OF YOU.