On a swivel chair, I look around
the time capsule of my head
flies and devises stories

of memories and images
that pass, I travel
to my birth country

It does not exist, never
it has existed, it is a soup

of ingredients picked life-
long at my feet, cooked
in the pan of my skull

.....The fresh soup now
.....from my birth country
.... tastes different, really

.....I see it
.....at the plants and the varieties

I.
In the land far away,
where the feared knight
still roams night and day,
forgetful of his steed and might,
I lay in forgotten stones.
In this ancient coffin, my abode,
I listen to whispered tones,
from ages and times, about
to lose their pale.
The scratched tapestries unveil.

II.
When this tragedy is tangled no more,
I will sleep my rest,
closed eyes with sore,
and a hounding pest
at my feet that plucks me apart.
If without a scream I shall lose,
my sense of being, my heart ****
with the anguish of my dearest Muse.
The chivalrous soul of mine,
would disappear in time.

III.
A fatal blow would prove to be,
the sorrows of my people, my love,
for they hold out candles out for me
when sways in wind a pale dove.
Without this lighthouse,
just like a corsair without his men,
- my fires ***** and douse
quick as they darken -
Foreigner of the people that once were.
Stranger of his neighbors, fellow pair.

IV.
All this I uncover in our misty
and dying chronicles,
that seep from the attic, a dusty
worm-filled hole with obstacles
thrown all around.
Somehow, the sulfuric hand
guided and bound
me to this newfound land.
Now, I leave my diary to rot
with the rest of this abysmal lot

V.
and see for my self I will,
through the eyes
of great delight, that still
thank the Lord for the rise
of my homeland, my dear Spain.
So speak to me, not through whispers,
but thunderous march. In vain,
I've called out to you, disperse
my puny efforts and become real
or my crust, my shell you'll peel.

VI.
Forever, for forever engravings
shall burn with lushness,
the tint and stings
on my canvas. Redness
eaten away by heroic equals.
Forever, for forever I wear
this cloak unwrapped. Rumples
or smiles come up. I spare
them of their rugged hatred.
Here I come, my love, forever sacred.

VII.
While birds have sung
their heart's quaver,
from threads, I hung
not to waver.
The one leading, guiding,
and scheming my escape,
the one who brought me to the brink
of death, as Zeus tried to ****
Europa so did Mother Nature.
Her vivid corpse cold as a glacier

VIII.
I've kissed countless times.
She brought the beast back to life,
like a beggar awarded with dimes.
Now I've caught up to the strife,
the woe that plagues me I've seduced
with frisky moments, and pedant
efforts to capture the spruced
scene that grows around. Hesitant,
my chimera has become.
I await the return of the lost one.

IX.
En Plein air, that's how they call
my unhinged creations,
when behind the marble wall
a mess of colors invokes sensation.
While my dreams still lure
me to believe far voices,
some have caught here for sure
and my attention poses
openly to these claims.
So I have taken a few new names.

X.
Heat shines
among the littered bricks,
that shape these cheerful chimes
and clouds puff and huff. Cheeks
of young and fertile women
reflect the solar flare
that forecasts a prosperous omen
about to arrive and meet my stare.
Beautiful, sweet, and sunny. See
them exit my breast free.

XI.
Smite me almost did Saint Peter
when into his otherworldly
palace naive and eager
I walked boldly
on thin ice for a silhouette,
****** Mary, I thought at first
I saw. Godly choral, a duet,
with a phantom throat, full of thirst,
I couldn't quench
and closed shut, the hinge

XII.
wouldn't move.
Truth be told, I was in heaven.
Bliss and sooth
fell on my shoulders. Raven
of doubt, nowhere near.
This is it, come here, my angel.
A single tear
drowned in a bust stable
with years. But the second
briskly happened.

XIII.
No more could I look at her
with these sinful hopes.
Bind her figure and tear
that coal habit. Robes
of pure essence
defend from ***** folk.
They shine of transcendence
that God willed to stalk
their highness.
Look could I look no more, no less.

XIV.
Steps turned to miles
from wings, I stole.
Once church's tiles
now are a single pole.
Like a chess piece
without the restrains
of playful dynasties.
Still, it pains
me when I escaped
and the way I paved.

XV.
Here I notice
your toppled towers.
Giants left this
as a reminder. Showers
of needles deep in your skin
I enter and cry.
Where did it begin?
I ask while I sigh.
My lips against yours
where attack did sores.

XVI.
Final light
shines through your veins
as I uncover what's right
while stains
of buckets of blood
collide with my
own sacrifice. Flood
hardens my tie
to you, dear Barcelona.
I become one with your persona.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/3/2019

My homeland - dear land,
where for the first time I saw the sun  
and where I came to know God;
Where my father, brothers and mother kind
taught me prayers in my maternal tongue.

My homeland - villages and cities,
planted from the times of Piasts among Lechic fields;
Rivers, forests, flowery leas and meadows,
where larks sing their sweet songs of hope.

My homeland - our forefathers' glory,
Chrobry's Notched Sword and Cecora Mace,
Knightly Spirit, noble and brave,
bitter defeats and victories great.

My homeland - quiet green fields
for centuries trampled by hostile armies,
burial mounds and sad graves
that have covered our freedom defenders.

My homeland - heroic spirit of the Polish people,
that by miracle lives amid hunger and cold;
- hope that always blooms in hearts,
with work for the fathers, and song for the young!

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/2/2019

Paint me such a village in the valley,
sad with dark green firs and cheerful with crops...
Let she all in red rowanberries be,
and let gray linen lay on her meadows;
let colorful rainbows throw themselves across the silent pond,
dispersed by air that spurts out of the waters deep.
Let the cloud of pigeons flutter overhead,
and dandelions' soft fluff and spiders' silk threads...

And paint pastures and fertile fields,
and in their black soil let wheat and barley shine with gold,
and let fiery red of poppies ridges beautifully adorn,
and poplars over the road make into a string,
and throw the silvery mist on the meadows...

And let they walk so, loudly, through the field
heifers' bells and clapping of whips.
Let the willows ponder by the murmuring stream,
casting shadow pre-sunset and long,
and quiet calming blue give around,
and fill the air with birds' happy babbling.
And put such a cloud on the mountains' brow...
And only people make ours, so dear to my heart.

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

* The original name of the poem is "In a foreign land", as
the poem was written in Karlsbad in Germany.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/30/2019

There, in my country, in a faraway land
a hundred dimmed stars shine in a crown,
one hundred extinguished stars above the field stand,
like a hundred knights in an iron armor clad.

There, in my country, in a faraway land
one hundred red-hot hearts with longing burn,
one hundred red-hot hearts pound in the chest
like a ghost into armor iron plates.

There, in my country, in a faraway land
one hundred winds are galloping through fallow lands,
one hundred winds are galloping through the steppe trail
like one hundred steeds' golden horseshoes beating the ground.

And when one hundred days, one hundred nights shall pass,
with hearts full of power knights will rise,
knights will rise, horses will mount,
and they'll light up stars in the golden crown.

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/20/2018

Kneeling before you,
I bow my head low,
confessing the truths
due to the Motherland:

it's you who taught me
to see beauty with a word,
and when I entrusted
my soul to you,
you made the bed
with mirror thought
- looking-glass' reflection -
dressed in pensive ponderings.

I love you, Poland,
when you are blooming in spring.
Your fertile fields
of gold wheat and barley.

I love,
when in summer,
in the aroma of linden trees,
adorned with flowers,
you lure with cool shade.

I love in autumn:
saddened,
rainy.

I love with pure and
unchanging love,
full of joy
of sins remission:
of Christmas Eve
examination of conscience.

I love, from south to north,
in February cold
and in hot July.

Your steel statues
of the Carpathian peaks.
Your streams, when rumbling
they carry the March ice floes.
Your beautiful sparkling willow greens
of Masurian waters,
when the sun is chasing
dancing rays
-with emerald's spark
of silver-plated steel,
before they'll disappear
with colors of the rainbow
in the hazy distance.

Your ancient castles,
standing proudly since the times of Piasts.

Your dunes, tamed with dwarf pine,
your country homesteads on the Bug and Prosna.

Polish wolves', eager for blood,
fearful thundering voices.
The heroic fate of the brave Polish armies.
Golden wheat ears of liberation
in the coat of arms of the Nation.

At the sources of the Vistula
I love you with reverie:
And over transparent waters
further reaches
I sob.

You'll hug me,
Mother!
Your son,
when you'll tuck me in
as my only Ma
-buried,
with eternal... loving.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/9/2001

I've inherited my mother's fear
And my father's bitterness
And he inherited his father's recklessness
And his mother's pain
And she inherited
And he inherited
And we've inherited hatred of our own kind
Passed down from the terrorists who have colonized the lands and minds and bodies of my ancestors
And I can feel the anguish & the effects of this hereditary agony from here;

I am ready to heal.

Through a torn visage, I see the flame
One torch, by day, reflects ages hence
That spark, they say, can't be to blame
But many, still, keeps shoulders tense.

Man, sincerely, calls for homeland
But flame to mirror rends reflection bent
When man, in jest, sets sparks to woodland
The forest, torn, its visage now rent.