/ The wound /

Nobody's home
Room silent remains
A deep wound on the body bleeds
Which will eventually leads soon to an end
Memory of an ivory holding the mind
Still awake
And then she'll hear the man's mourn

"I have told you this before, you know... " -
I spoke, "Sing to me the song of Calimir,
just like the times where we were
dancing among the trees"
And so he did
His hands for a last time the harp embraced
His voice quietly was signing and so
My soul was dreaming of...
And the eyes I hardly kept open
Now are closed

And then suddenly he stopped
"Don't be afraid. I was just listening
And wandering through
the places we have been to." - I said,
holding tight his hand
"Please, sing it again, my friend
I want to know where he went
After he lose his faith" - then added
The man's smile was a gift I gladly took
His eyes I quietly look
"I shall sing as long as you can hear,
As long as you're here with me, my dear.
I shall never let our memories disappear
In Lethean,
I shall play for you as long as you're near." -
then he told me with a single tear on his eyes.
"I shall no die yet,
It's just a wound of a spear"- I said
"Now sing me the song again
And do not stop even when I close my eyes
I shall listen. For you I shall be awake,
For you I shall live"
And so he did
He singed while playing on the harp's strings...

How is it so
that you play me
like fine
piano keys
tuned to a melody
that only we
can read
Music so divine
settling in my mind
resting on my soul
a rhythm so bold
and tempting
Your hands
ring my cymbals
as sounds
that resemble
percussion
rock my hips
and a bass guitar
guides my lips
to meet with yours
where we score
a beat unmatched
Is that you
tapping
on my walls
like a flute
notes staccato
and true
as I open
to receive
your
treble clef
accepting
there's nothing
left
but to receive
your striking
baritone
as we both moan
ah, sweet
crescendo

Hundred miles of country road,
Wind blew gently and it snowed,
Icy mountains here we stay,
Whisper softly all the day,

Playing pebbles at the noon,
Tracing patterns on the moon,
Forming shadows from the ray,
Singing loudly if we may,

Rhythm echoed down the lane,
Ripples dripping down the stain,
Starry skies we count array,
Dozing off to sleep away

I sat awake on the back seat
Stared at the window, harnessed heat
As the lamp-lit city whizzed by,
The untouched dusk still in the sky.

Closed my eyes as it gently swayed,
Then listened to the silence fade,
Speed cushions, the quiet highways,
The sleepy tires, its steady phase.

I missed the constant compliance,
Radio waves' static silence,
The roads rolled on, no fuss or rush,
An empty mind, all my thoughts hushed.

They were asleep, no sound of day,
And on the car's back seat I stay,
As urban cat eyes shine, blink fast,
A few more hours to home at last.

At night, under the dim darkness,
I found, the world’s best tranquilness
Under wafts of water and soap
Folding clothes, dreaming about hope.

Opened the door, felt how snug, warm,
The fabric’s touch was on my arm
As I folded each piece with care
And slowly roll socks, pair by pair.

Ballads, dolce, I am entranced.
Cantabile, as my hands danced
To the guitar's riff, the drumbeat,
Sweet heartbeat, beneath their heat.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/7/2019

The sun has saddened its face
with lots of gray,
and made the mountains' bed
with an abundance of colors:

For Winter - it makes the bed with whites.
For Autumn - with reds.
In the Summer - with golds.
And for Spring? - with lyrical greens.

It has adorned everything
with shades of colors
awakened but still sleepy,
spoiling with correlation
of fiery greens.

Enamored time of red
of autumn colors
will turn the forest into one big flame
with fulfillment of flirtation.

A dewdrop sobs in the morning
put to sleep by dusk,
flying away as a wreath of rainbow
it returns at dawn.

Wieslaw Musialowski 10/15/2001

Like leaves

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 7/19/2018

If for the orphans of golden autumn,
Then only in a country where they dig out
From sycamores, beech trees* - among ancestors' shadows
Because these, constantly dying live.

If hands of the poor fall
Like golden leaves, without the law of gravity
- Then what must be never changes
And richer they die.

If everything ecloses itself in the space
Over the crowns with radial glow
Then nothing apart from this color will change...
They'll be reborn again in the multi-leaf tree.

Wieslaw Musialowski 9/22/2004

Beech tree is a national Polish tree often found in Polish poetry.


Indeed

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 9/23/2019

Nestled into a pillow before falling asleep
maybe you will think to yourself
I managed to get something done today
and the rest? let it happen in dreams,

when you wake up fresh in the morning,
like the grass silvered with frost,
the sun will twinkle with a ray
and everything shall be great,

at midday, you'll sit under a tree,
because it's pleasant to rest in the shade,
and to end the day successfully
you look at the tops of the mountains

and you think how wonderful and beautiful
is autumn, luckily, the forest is not burning
though beech trees as red as fire

Wieslaw Musialowski 9/2/2019

*A reference to The 2019 Siberian wildfires.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 10/1/2019

The most beautiful is the one who at the candle top
lives alone and this poem is about him:

tiny flame - a metaphor for life.

Przemyslaw Musialowski 8/21/2008