Free new poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz

of white sails
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    their bodies can be grafted
onto an olive bough
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    they sleep on the ceiling
they fall drop by drop
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    In cell no. 20
I’m the most senior of the condemned

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    I’ve been inside for 83 years (like
all the living I’ve been put away
for life)–with no prospect of
eternity I stare at the ceiling
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    Ryszard and Piotr are silent
how old are you Rysio? I lead off
Piotr is getting on too
he must be over six-ty?
I’m 69 says Piotr
69 is a magic number
and even an erotic
position
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    Piotr uses a cell phone a computer a virus
he’s the only one who
runs an auto-mobile
and also the Poza Theater
Piotr says worriedly
that Hoene-Wroński has sold Absolut
to some Frenchman
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    I gaze at the spines
of the books (Mandelstam Lévinas . . .)
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    slowly book after book
opens
Piotr says to Ryszard
“you know, Tadeusz told me today–
in confidence–that Copernicus’ theory

wasn’t just harmful for
the church, because people
lived on a flat and motionless Earth
and were happy
the revolutions of heavenly bodies need only
be known to a select group . . . of priests and politicians”
Here I broke in
please don’t tell this to Marysia
or to Hania or Jola or Ania . . . for me
the Earth was and is the center of the Universe
humans are the only creatures
who created God who created
humans
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    Ryszard cupped his hand round his ear
and whispered
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    â€œa monk who counted the number of beans
he’d eaten during the day, though he dreamed
of quickly becoming an angel,
deep down was concerned with his body . . .”
I shifted uneasily
in “Vršac Elegy” written for
the poet Vasco Popa I had said
“let’s go to dinner I like bean soup”
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    but Vasco died
and Yugoslavia was dismembered
the eyes of Orthodox icons
were once again gouged out

on Kosovo Polje
broad beans and French beans are
my favorites I’ve eaten many a bowl
of broad beans with Master Jerzy
. . . fasolka po bretońsku soup . . . a treat
from our youth . . .
youth give me wings
and I shall fly above the lifeless earth
together young friends!
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    Ryszard and Piotr looked
at each other and at me
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    I am he is you you are me (Lévinas is repeating on me!)
I started to talk with Rysio
about Mandelstam and Nadezhda
about Anna Akhmatova about the transit
camp of Vtoraya Rechka
I climbed on my hobby horse
spoke about Dostoevsky
about the acquittal of Vera Zasulich
about Semyonov Square
and how last year I had visited
Oreshek Fortress
and Walerian Łukasiński’s cell
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    red wine appeared on the table
bread cheese I asked for water
in vino veritas in aqua sanitas
in wine is truth in water is health

I began attacking Lévinas
who’s becoming “fashionable”. . . I was
annoyed... that he took away my
“faces” (a matter still to be cleared up)
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    Piotr knows what this is about and even
what it’s round-about
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    We fell silent after the silence
Piotr described a scene
that was “played out”
many years ago
in a Parisian café
between Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
and an unknown woman
who was sitting alone
at a table and weeping
no one was paying any attention
to this “occurrence”
it may have been a fashionable
café frequented by existentialists
by members of the “resistance” (ha ha!)
by collaborators
the woman wept
without hiding her face
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    Jarosław stood up
crossed to the woman
leaned over her
whispered something in her ear
put his arm round her and kept talking

the woman stopped crying
wiped her tears left
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    Jarosław returned to his seat
and said (to Piotr)
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    â€œwhen someone’s crying
sometimes they need
to be touched held”
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    We each drank a glass
of red wine
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    remember–began Ryszard–
how Nietzsche put his arm
round the neck of a cabdriver’s horse
and burst into tears? . . . was that in Trieste?
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    It was in