Poetry Books
By
Kritya publication
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This second volume
of Kritya - May 2009 following the April 2009 issue also
dedicated to Polonia - with the voices of the "other" Europe, or
its descendants, raised after a long time away from stare kraju
– the old country – or in many instances the voices of those who
have never journeyed to Poland, but still have much to say about
what it means to be Polish, are given the task, again in Milosz'
words, "…'to see'…not only to have before one's eyes, but also
to preserve in memory."
The Polish Diaspora is akin to the traditional definition of
what a Diaspora is: epic/plague-like/genocidal/terrible wars and
famines/ almost biblical in scope. But when a land - and here I
am not only thinking of Poland - is not inhabitable by many who
had once lived there or would live there again if they only
could, then these people are also part of a Diaspora, whatever
the initial event/events that triggered their exile. he fourth
definition in my American Heritage dictionary comes closest to
this more inclusive meaning of Diaspora and has an interesting
Greek, then Indo-European root, which includes the words sperm
and spore as well as sprout, spread, sprawl, and "that which is
scattered.” So, it is the fourth definition I will adhere to I
think when contemplating the poetry and poetic world view of the
myriad voices appearing in Kritya.
Christina Pacosz
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One thing we
can all count on is loss.
Nothing lasts. Every gain has a cost.
Rich or poor, high or low, we all have
it coming in the end. One thing we can
count on loss. Expect it. Bet on it. Loss
will visit us and leave us with an absence,
deeper than death, to never be filled.
Phil
Bioarski
*
Named for those messy birds,
those lilac roosting birds,
your balls of beef and pork
wrapped in cabbage lips
stink up the flat.
Karen Kovacik
*
Foolish to feast on your work
in bed at night with wine of candlelight,
savoring dark Slavic recipes
of your life. For little pieces fall
each time I turn a page --
sharp crumbs of insomnia.
Ron
Offen
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as a boy he slept
with bits of wood
between his fingers
to increase their span
now he plays
to breathe to last
past this country house
under the chestnuts
taming the keys
of Madame Skarbek's piano
pouring notes
against the night
Elisabeth Murawski
*
Goodbye Sharlotta
gold is running in the streets
send for you when I can
kiss the kids.
Is that what he said in his note,
my mother's handsome father,
when he left my grandmother in Hungary
to wait for him?
Well, something of the sort.
Dori Appel
*
They put him
into the room to die.
Before they closed the door,
he memorized the map
of water damage,
Ed Budzilowic
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Inadequate
Representations
Poland, 1984
They wait for one pound
of coffee, in a line that moves
like an ancient animal. Babcia
clutches ration coupons-flimsy
potential for the coffee smell
that permeates the pantry,
the beans hard, glossy marbles
under her fingers-Dziadek's
eyes-closed smile as he sips, rolls
the blackness in his mouth.
****
Yes, I will bear arms in defense
of my country-my mother, fifty-two,
five-foot-two, has never held a gun.
Her eyes flash shell shock when police pepper
protestors downtown remind her
of communist Poland, where guns performed
interrogations in concrete cells.
Citizenship waned through bruised craniums
Dominika Wrozynski
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Nothing has
changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.
Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown
smaller,
and whatever happens seems right on the other side of the wall.
***
Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.
Wislawa
Szymborska
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