46:3 & 4           (FALL 2000)
"NEW   POLISH   WRITING"

 

ZBIGNIEW MACHEJ
 
 
 

SONG OF THE PRAGUE METRO

The day before Christmas I returned home
on the metro. It was rush hour.
I stood in the accelerating car
from Central Station to

Muzeum, squashed against
the door, my nose to its dark,
cold window. People were pushing
against me from the sides and from behind. 

All at once some calves, buttocks,
and a back got stuck to my calves,
buttocks, and back. 

I turned my head and saw out of the corner 
of my eye that it was just some short-haired
blonde woman being kissed

by a red-haired guy with a beard and an earring,
leaning against me as if I was a wall. 
I could feel her body--

arcing, giving in to him, impatient--
although I was separated from her
by several layers of winter clothing. 

It lasted only a moment (no longer
than it takes to read one stanza
of a sonnet out loud) and it aroused me,
it even gave me an unexpected

erection. Full-blooded, if pointless, 
and all over by the next station,
where a lot of people got out
and there was a lot more space free. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ITALIAN CHRONICLE

Yesterday NATO air forces attacked Serb positions in Srebrenica. 
They bombed two Serb tanks... All participants in the attack 
returned safely to the NATO base in Aviano, Italy.
    --news agency brief
Exhausted by the sun and the boredom of the beach
we sat on the terrace at twilight. 
We had salt in our hair, the heat continued to scorch
our skin, encrusted in places with sparks of sand. 
Supper was over and we were drinking wine.
We did not want to think, or talk, or even dream. 
Digesting, and happily vegetating (and isn't being with one's family
on vacation
the happiest, most divine sort
of vegetation ever?) we were looking out in front of us:

       on the greyish-red roofs the daylight was fading
       and pines with grotesquely twisted trunks
       were darkening in a maze of hedgerows, cedars,
       poplars, and cypresses. Beyond the trees and roofs

       a sea lurked, reflecting the darkness
       that was thickening in the sky. 
       And the world was almost ready
       to receive the night. 

       Since only owls were supposed to begin their screeching,
       shrill and sharp and rather somber, 
       in order to repeat it all night over and over,

       and so the darkness could once again erase the contours
       of all things, beginning with those most distant,
       like the horizon... 

And it was there, in the distance,
over a sea that was more conjectured
than actually seen, that we spotted a sudden flash...
A flash of light from the Croatian side.
And then, there, on the horizon,
the night released
a radiant caterpillar...
A double collar of white lights...
There, there, it was nothing, just an enormous
cruise ship.
 

Translated by Elzbieta Wójcik-Leese
and W. Martin

 
 
 
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