Swampy Area of East End Park, Kingwood, Texas (December 28, 2022) — Image by kenne
The world still grows it grows relentlessly
And yet there is always less of it
— from The Old Painter on a Walk Adam Zagajewski
Archive for the ‘Adam Zagajewski’ Tag
The World Still Grows 1 comment
The world still grows it grows relentlessly
Artist Painting In Sabino Canyon Leave a comment
Artist Painting In Sabino Canyon — Photo-Artistry by kenne
In The Beauty Created By Others
Only in the beauty created
by others is their consolation,
in the music of others and in others’ poems.
Only others save us,
even through solitude tastes like
opium. The others are not hell,
if you see them early, with their
foreheads pure, cleansed by dreams.
That is why I wonder what
word should be used, “he’ or “you.” Every “he”
is a betrayal of a certain “you” but
in return someone else’s poem
offers the fidelity of a sober dialogue.
— Adam Zagajewski
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HOUSTON 6:00 P. M. Leave a comment
Sam Houston Park in Houston — Image by kenne
Poetry summons us to life, to courage
in the face of the growing shadow.
Can you gaze calmly at the Earth
like the perfect astronaut?
Our of harmless indolence, the Greece of books,
and the Jerusalem of memory there suddenly appears
the island of a poem, unpeopled;
some new Cook will discover it one day.
— from HOUSTON, 6 P. M. by Adam Zagajewski
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Lucid Moments 1 comment
Costa’s Hummingbird Outside Kitchen Window – Image by kenne
Don’t Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve
Don’t allow the lucid moment to dissolve
Let the radiant thought last in stillness
though the page is almost filled and the flame flickers
We haven’t risen yet to the level of ourselves
Knowledge grows slowly like a wisdom tooth
The stature of a man is still notched
high up on a white door
From far off, the joyful voice of a trumpet
and of a song rolled up like a cat
What passes doesn’t fall into a void
A stoker is still feeding coal into the fire
Don’t allow the lucid moment to dissolve
On a hard dry substance
you have to engrave the truth
— Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Renata Gorczynski
Translated by Renata Gorczynski
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Stary Sacz, A Poem by Adam Zagajewski Leave a comment
Red-bellied Woodpecker (Kingwood, Texas) — Image by Hugh Poland
Stary Sacz
A woodpecker in his red cap suddenly brought back
the stationmaster in Stary Sacz.
Over the station rose a little town,
that is, an enormous market and convent of Poor Clares;
each house had one window holding jars of borscht and pickles.
The innkeeper’s daughter was so thin
that she kept bricks in her backpack to outwit the wind
when she crossed the viaduct above the train tracks.
The wind never got her, but other elements weren’t idle,
especially Nothingness and her rich suitor, Mr. Time.
******
Robert Pinsky wrote in The New Republic: “[In the poetry of Adam Zagajewski] the unmistakable quality
of the real thing–a sunlike force that wilts clichés and bollixes that categories of expectation–
manifests itself powerfully . . . Like a fish breaking water . . . the achievement of these poems [“Without End”]
is partly in that act of rising above a lived-in element. In Zagajewski’s work, the engulfing, ferocious
historical reality appears as our habitat–not a well of horrors to be borrowed for rhetorical thunder,
not an occasion for verse punditry, not a mere backdrop for sensibility. And the perception of that habitat
has a mysterious, elating power.”
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Life Is All About Perspectives 1 comment
‘Weed’ On the Patio — Photo-Artistry by kenne
I have subscribed to The New Yorker for years and find it helpful to see things from different perspectives; some I like, some I don’t. Many great writers, some of which I agree with, some I don’t. It’s all a matter of perspective, which is what this poem is all about — It’s only boogie-woogie.
BOOGIE-WOOGIE
You shout from the other room
You ask me how to spell boogie-woogie
And instantly I think what luck
no war has been declared
no fire has consumed
our city’s monuments
our bodies our dwellings
The fiver didn’t flood
no friends
have been arrested
It’s only boogie-woogie
I sign relieved
and say it’s spelled just as it sounds
boogie-woogie
— Adam Zagajewski (The New Yorker, July 5, 2021)
Becoming is Superior to Being 