The Polish Review
Library of Polish Classics
Janusz A. Ihnatowicz
Displeasure and Other Poems
New York
208/30 Press
2010
208/30 Press is an imprint of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Inc., a tax-exempt and non-profit educational and academic organization with headquarters in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan.
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ISBN: 978-1-930205-08-6
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This e-book is a new edition of Displeasure, originally published by the Poets’ and Painters’ Press (London 1975). It has been revised by the poet, and augmented with several new poems not appearing in the original edition, as well as several poems translated from the Polish by Charles S. Kraszewski and appearing in various numbers of The Polish Review.
Displeasure
rex ibi tranquille, medio de limite vitae in senium vergens
… monstrum excitabile dictu
(Statius, Thebaidos I, 39-95)
INVOCATION
Nel mezzo del cammin’ di nostra vita
(Dante, Inferno I,1)
Now in the middle of the day
we are still desirable
thanks to weaving and formula nine
dentugrip and dentucream
we are still fairly smooth of skin
and agile of mind
but there is an evil wind
blowing in the woods
from the future so soon to be lost
it is time, perhaps, to meet
some of our more forgotten dead
some of our ghosts buried long
under a canopy of flesh and song
we have traveled through many a land
talked to sphinxes galore
we know too many tales
we have guessed
too many answers to the quest
now it is time for
one, and only one, journey more
time to be bitter
in a fashion altogether new:
middle-aged, icy and cantankerous
to knock unwilling, squirming, kicking
at that final door.
one
pleasures of a journeyman
RECHERCHE DE LA MAISON PERDUE
For my sister, Irma, who also remembers
In our house there were no windows only the sky beyond the curtains
the sun painted shadows on the walls by day
and by night caravans of lights wandered along
sometimes — when birds were at their loudest —
a maple would enter, red as a begonia,
a spring maple with its flying seeds
in our house there was no furniture only lurking tigers,
stuffed animals, when you stroked them, you could feel
under the plush quiver and purr
the lazy cats with eyes of cushions
ah, those cushions! gardens floating in the oceans of the sofa
birds of paradise inclining their swooning heads
above the silky stream of blue-eyed stars!
cushions scented with a thousand tales
like a conch whispering pressed close to the ear
a refuge when at dusk the awful Shadow
sneaks out from behind the curtains and
standing in the corners drinks the air
violet and fluttering like a butterfly
till sailing out of the depths of the sofa
mother stabs him with a shaft of light
ah! in our home a fountain of light
hidden in the fragrance of our mother’s lap.
MOTHERS
At night the walls
weep
quietly
calmly
creak
their wooden song:
so very far
have gone
the sons
of the house
till even the echo
of footsteps well-known
in the corners of memory
at the turning of the thought
is gone
perhaps it has sunk into
the grain of the wood of the wall
the ceilings sound like rushing oceans
like
far
wide
seas
day after day
when
grey
dusk
falls
because the hands of mothers
long
for their distant sons’
golden hair.
PARIS DRUNK
remembering Konstanty Ildefons, a poet also mad
i.
I put my finger into the keyhole
and now we are both flying
the city and I
high in the moon-time delight
for the day is rising
the bridges are steaming
and on the vapors the door
to a new world
soaring
ii.
I intended to open it
instead I flew with it
and the wind snatched
all my seven veils
so now naked
quite brazen
over the roofs I drift
a charlatan?
a fool?
Crazy parigino?
iii.
steeples strain
to anchor my flight
in vain in vain
the rectangle of wood, my ship,
pulls up rows of houses
like the tail of a kite
street by street
as it rises into the sky
iv.
I fasten myself to the streets
with the stars
not to fall below
into the afternoon parade
of the Champs Elysees
but the nails are of glass
and like zithers they play
or lips that wander over the skin
v.
then the sun
rolls down from the top
like an old man’s coffin
lowered from a window
and we fall down too:
the sky, the city,
and I with my door
till on the pinnacles
of La Sainte Chapelle
I rest impaled.
MONUMENTS IN THE JARDIN DE LUXEMBOURG
Assembled here are the great of another time
who sailing away from life, it seems, for a moment
stopped (so a butterfly that in its course
wavered and was fastened on a pin for ever
poised to fly) this everlasting flight of figures
by pedestals pinned to the ground
so death in the stone portrayed
struggles with spring erupting in the buds
and children with their play-boats by the pond
weave that silent struggle into a tapestry of sound
like Rafaelo’s tangled battle on a bridge of Rome:
but noise departs at the rattling of the gate
and the monuments remain alone among the trees
surrounded by gilded spears on the guarding fence.
COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL III
tels ils marchaient avoines folles
et la nuit seule entendit leurs paroles
Verlaine
You say: my heart, I say: hurts
the afternoon marches along rue Rivoli
flashing a colored stocking time after time
like a strolling centipede slowly
plodding towards the depths of night
raising a cup to your lips (so charming!)
you cover your eyes with a turquoise curtain
and cast me words like half-wilted flowers
yes… hurts… love is so uncertain…
and again your glance transparent
what to do now? I cannot stop the twilight
the sun crawls along the wall filled with color
striking window panes one by one with a golden crash
and we become but an excuse for one another
not to be alone — when apart — together au lit.
A ROOM IN THE LATIN QUARTER
walking alone
Alone like footsteps in an empty street
only my shadow in the lamplight circling
round me measures the hours of my passing
and the sky? the roofs of Paris
have propped up the sky and pushed it
to the stars above the steeples
over the vaulted silence rising
all the shutters came down with a rattling
of iron like a coffin’s lid as I was
running towards them
and people hid
in sleep? fleeting shadows on the pane
but from a doorway as I pass
a wisp of whisper
monsieur monsieur
window in a high wall
By day the hours wander on the roofs like bells
of Saint Étienne-du-Mont and now and then fall down
like icicles on the pavement: the hours hurry
quickly more quickly to return to zero
by night tomcats twang on the roofs
and hours grow like a tycoon’s belly
and someone’s whisper of enchantment
plucks the chimney strings
the morning is all flat and grey with dust
and into the courtyard empty out
morning pails and loves of the night.
A NUN INTO A CRY TRANSFORMED
Sister, let your cornet play, sister,
the night is empty as Hell,
the white ceiling the white casket
around your head lower above me,
I am being devoured by darkness,
sister, silence is the devil’s season,
let the abacus of grace play
let it tinkle
rustle like a half-read book
sister, silence opens again
sister, cry out loud shout, sister,
sister, look, sister, I am dying.
CANADIANA
fishing
Splash, a fish on the line lurks like a spider
till the gills eat up the void
like a bomb explodes the light of life
but still against the boards a silver tam-tam beats
as if the sea were struggling with the air
for better, for the victory of life
the summer has already turned towards the fall
the winds are pulling a cloud over the lake
like a tarpaulin over a tennis court
before winter comes
and so once more I let the worm into the depth
a silver spangle to catch a silver scale
that into the night submerging will emerge
night
Mosquitoes hum among the rings of smoke
around the whispering sparkling embers
we too but glowing points of light
what the shadows are saying, or rather,
what they are hinting in their whispers,
to this the lake, all moonlight hid, says yes,
till touched by a bat’s wing it flees
like an enchanted harbor
cease
whispers the alder shuddering
like a shadow that has met a shade
die out
for it is midnight, the coyotes wail
and shells are sleeping on the shore
let us go, then, and swim
naked
and let the water flow through your hair
in rings of silver
and the mosquitoes burning round you
a weeping melancholy column of air
tree
Returning towards golden autumn
he met death draped round
a fiery maple
exploding in a blaze of scarlet metal
he sank, a stone as heavy as a soul,
into the clear bottomless blue.
LAMENT OF AUTUMN TREES
If only you would let me live a little more
if only I could fly like a dove
higher and higher till I’d rise above
the hunter’s bullet, as the wild geese do
or like an arrow that returns no longer
but lost among the clouds joyfully
flies away with the clouds, like cranes
to northern plains when the summer comes
if only I could be a flying thing
a dandelion seed, a maple’s wing
but you have pinned my feet to the ground
with a nail heavy as a book, as iron cold
so all I can do is to cry and tear out my hair
and cast it on the wind after the feathers of the birds.
WATERS OF THE APOCALYPTIC NIGHT
1.
Fishing for stars in the sky
a black figure whistles
a dark line stretches
into the night
birds waken in their nests
first this then the other cries
afraid of this nightly fright
but he
now stretches loud his spine
now gives a long long yawn
now swings his line
waiting