a raven soars beneath the summer sun.
The elder chłopi say none have appeared
for many seasons, having understood
at last the ways of man. For on the flanks
of the old hill, no hare or vole had run
across the plush green grasses. Drought had seared
the soil; and industry had promised gain.
The young and able have moved far away,
and now the hamlet is bereft of people,
the houses bare or full of rotting hay.
The lone hope is to wait for acid rain,
or for a sign above the Łemko steeple.
will some victorious Socrates crawl—out of the depths, like a most secret self—beholding all things as they really are?Then, apostolic, but shunning the smell,will he crawl back down inside—to pole-starand enlighten the blind monkeys in hell?Fettered to our forefathers’ desiresand at odds with the light, no doubt those apeswon’t listen, for madness never tires,storming through…
—W.H. Auden, from *Musée des Beaux Arts*He rose to the caws of housewives, the joyof rooks. And before he could unglue his eyes,he whistled a prayer to the cold grey wind,high on years of scrumptious insanity.The Bagman in the gutter, the Hunchbackon the bench, the Scarecrow under the news,watched him take off through the willows,past…
of Zeppelins that flew abovethe Kaiser’s sky of soldat grey,his tome forgotten in the atticof 13 Wilhelmstrasse, dustthick on its cover like the staticof yellowed years? Or did he thrusthimself into a muddy trenchas salvos burst near the latrine,filling his nostrils with the stenchof urine, feces and gangrene?No matter now. He lies beneathunconquered soil, aloof…
the summer of 1934.It was a place where Germans dranktheir märzen, pilsner, kölsch. The buzzof saws in their ears, they would lookout windows on the raised ground floor,at ducks on the canal, a rookatop a branch. The barges passedweighed down with lumber, coal, and steelon to the Oder railway line.They drank as long as moments…
as swarthy Syrians push and shove,like Moors of old, determined, feral.They’ll raise the crescent, kill the dove,till “Allah Akbar” drowns our carol.Our children will learn soon enough,in Europe, foolish, vain and sterile.
awake in a grey roomwhere there’s no night or day—a Swedenborgianself-sentenced heaven-hell.I stand nearby the window.He says: “I’ve always knownI am the greatest poet.”I answer: “I feel the sameabout my humble self.And what about God? ”With stern hawkish eyes,he looks at me and says:“Electricity! ”
