Free new poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz Page A

Turin
and it wasn’t quite like that
the cabbie was beating the horse about the head
Nietzsche embraced the suffering creature
and wept
wenige Augenblicke später
taumelte er von einem Gehirnschlag gerührt,
zu Boden
Nietzsche knew that the horse
would not utter platitudes
would not console

the superman and philosopher
sought consolation from a horse
and not from Plato
Ryszard says: what are you two laughing at?
Nieztsche went mad but what
became of the horse?
I know . . . the horse
was eaten by the Italians they
eat Polish horses and even
larks (I wrote about it in my play
“Spaghetti and the Sword”) they need to be
converted . . . all of them . . .
Moscow . . . Rome . . . Paris . . .
    Â 
    we were supposed to be talking about God
I reminded them
    Â 
    do you know what Mickiewicz said
to a French writer
who invited him to his salon
for conversations about God?
    Â 
    â€œI don’t discuss God over tea”
    Â 
    surely that’s a lot wiser than
Nieztsche’s dictum “God is dead”
or Dostoevsky’s “if there is no God
everything is permissible”

    Â 
    Hora est . . . we were told by Quiet
    Â 
    I’ll return the Lévinas
before I leave for Warsaw
    Â 
    God is fashionable Also fashionable is Absolut
God is invited to appear on television
the God of Lévinas the God of Buber
the God of Hegel Pascal Bloch
Heidegger Rosenzweig
he’s on between an Argentinean soap coffee and tea
    Â 
    Lévinas thinks that God
can be inflected like a noun
they’ve turned theology into grammar
    Â 
    Lévinas!
Lévinas learns that he must die
from Jankelevitsch
if God exists philosophy is unnecessary
the philosophy of Heidegger and Rosenzweig
    Â 
    Hora est . . . silence set in
(there’ll be no continuation)
    Â 
    but Piotr stirred the waters
and quoted Hegel in a whisper
in German . . .

“es ist der Schmerz, der sich
also das harte Wort ausspricht
daß Gott gestorben ist”
    Â 
    [Konstancin–Wrocław
January–March 2004]

knowledge
    cogito and dubito
share a house you know
mr cogito above
mr dubito below
    Â 
    having lived a rich life
they switched you know
dubito above
cogito below
    Â 
    both of us are old
and we’re aware
for some unknown reason
that we have to die
    Â 
    we’re also aware
that the shortest road to the Lord
is Hard Times
    Â 
    as the saying has it
when times are hard folk turn to the Lord

searching for keys
    Lord! I left the keys
to the Heavenly Kingdom
in my car
    Â 
    cries a young priest
who lacks a calling
but has good intentions
    Â 
    someone opens up anew
but looks for roots
    Â 
    though a wise old Jew
who sought to be a German
said that humans
have legs not roots
    Â 
    the third lady of Polish theater and film
is searching for her identity
but she can’t find the key
to herself
because she left it with the first husband
of the second lady who wrote a book
    Â 
    another lady is searching for the key
out of herself and cannot
find it at home
so she flies to Tibet

as if she couldn’t satisfy
this minor need
in Pińczów
    Â 
    a “likeable home-bird”
(as the small ad said)
is searching for her key
in the handbag of a mature lady
with house and car
and “independent” (sic!) garden
she may be a well-padded
Catholic
    Â 
    the merry wives of Warsaw
are turning into
miss-sticks
they jabber away like coffee mills
that have to be from Tibet (etc.)

conversation between father and son about killing time
    poor B. B. said
before he died
“Und nach uns wird kommen
nichts Nennenswerts”
    Â 
    I don’t get it, Daddy!
    Â 
    Learn German, son
it’ll come in useful
Zeit ist Geld!
Time is money
    Â 
    So why do people
kill their time?
    Â 
    Because when they have time
they get bored, son!
    Â 
    I get bored too, Daddy!
    Â 
    We all get bored
children get bored
and grownups get bored too
    Â 
    Grownup to what, Daddy?

    Â 
    That no one knows
    Â 
    But soccer fans