when already in his mind
he'd dusted himself off like a rooster
run down the hotel stairs
gotten on the train
to quickly
escape from her
to where the black pepper grows

she, snuggling up to
him with both eyes firmly closed
had already built with them
a house
smelling of dinner
and fresh children
to which he'd just come running
up the stairs

(in reality
he and she had slept
together for the first time
and lying
keep silent about this precisely
in two foreign
mutually unknown
languages)

I told her: I know of such a place,
where the cats all come to die.
I asked her: do you want to see it?
She answered: no.
I told her: it's clean and it's important.
I told her: it's bright and it's first.
I asked her: do you want to see it?
She answered: no.
She said it in such a way
that I had to turn away from her.
Ever since then
I am slowly
approaching the exit.

Lithuania! My homeland! You are like vigour.
How invaluable you are, only he can figure,
Who has lost you. Today your beauty wholly I view
And seeing, describe it, because I long after you.

Holy ******, who guards Luminous Czestochowa
And shines in the Gate of Dawn! You, who watches over
Strongheld Novogrudok and its faithful populace!
As once you healed me, a child, so miraculous
(When into your care from my despondent mother bid
I lifted my already departed eyelid,
And soon could make my way on foot to your temple's door,
Having gone to offer thanks to God for a life restored),
So too you shall restore us to our homeland's womb.
Meanwhile, may you convey my soul from its longing's gloom
To those aforrested hills, those evergreen meadows,
Stretched wide across the space where the azure Neman flows;
To those vast fields, painted in varicoloured grain-dye,
A landscape gilded with wheat, silver-plated with rye,
Where the runch is amber, and the buckwheat white as snow,
Where like a maiden's blush the red clover overgrows,
And all's interwoven, as if by a ribbon, green
balk, within which a wild pear tree can sometimes be seen.

Zegar popuszczony. Drewno w deski popękane.
Twoje dziecię po raz enty leży w sofie, jakby nieznane.
Czy widziałeś jakże gołębice są dziś rozszlajałe?
Białe a wyprute, jakbyś coś z żeber z alabastru na wióry mi
pasem skórzanym przerobił.
Pogardą jakże ci koniak a nie me oczy ambulansem!
Wargi sąsiada jak posąg dawidowy a nie me wyżebrane!
A sen nas dwojga na strychu już tylko we krwi coś znaczy?
Mętny widok asów, pików czy trefli bez serca twej „królowej” spił cię
i na wiersz w popielniczce przerobił?

- Ty co stoisz dumna, niby poharatana,
nie wiem jak siebie samego odpędzić.
Jakiś ból liliowy, jakiś pieniądz w twarz córce rzucony,
ekstaza z barw i szkarłatu przed oczyma już tylko
do anestezji się sprowadza.
Bo, powiedz, czymże trzask twych żeber, o potomku zapomnienie,
jak nie chwilą gorzką małego goździka
co zaraz nagle w przełyku zaniknie?
Po cóż pierścień zaręczynowy, czesne, ognisko Hestii,
śmiech twój platynowy
jeśli stoi przyszłość jak twój posag stracona?
Ten salon, ten pas, ten orgazm, każda sprawa lichwy ci warta.

- Bez wykładania ci na ławę „przynajmniej ja nie...”,
chociaż stanę ci wyzwaniem i ostatnim tchem
jaki marmur mych kości coś jeszcze się broni
i spytam, nie wycofam:
Ten ból, ten skowyt co mówisz, jak czyn schowany Nazarejczyka,
u stóp w wodzie twych pracujący,
czy znać ci dać co przekazał przez wsze narody?

- Naprzód, wypatruję

- Co na Ziemi związałeś, w niebie się nie odstanie,

                jak puls w żyle ci zostanę

                     choćbyś martwy i go wydrapał

                                na pozór.

Sonnet: The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles―once your indisputable pride―
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.
Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.
The ancient Greeks set shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.
Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798-1855) is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet and as the national poet of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He was also a dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor and political activist. As a principal figure in Polish Romanticism, Mickiewicz has been compared to Byron and Goethe. Keywords/Tags: Mickiewicz, Poland, Polish, Balaclava, Crimea, war, warfare, castle, castles, knight, knights, armor, Greeks, Rome, Romans, Mongols, Mussulman, Muslims, death, destruction, ruin, ruins, romantic, romanticism, sonnet, depression, sorrow, grave, violence, mrbtr