People in Strokes and Words

portraits and poems

by Wis - Wieslaw Sadurski

there is a poem on a sheet of paper
beside it a knife on the table
down in the street yesterday a boy stabbed a man with a knife
great is the power of association

I can link one with the other
but see just one everywhere
being a particle of dust I boil water for tea
then glance at myself and
there in an uncreated brightness
the universe is laughing at me

no I don't go for a drink tonight
have a little pain in my throat
hope this is not tonsillitis

when I opened my eyes for the first time
in the amniotic waters of my mother
sailed the ship
above it floated a bird
so high that it must have been in a heaven

when I was born I forgot everything

only so many years later
when for the first time I opened my thighs
for a chance meeting by the way
I saw the bird was still circling

that's why I didn't agree to have an abortion
I will deliver despite everything

once upon a time I was a boy playing ball games
now I know that man is a factory of shit

once I was on a galloping horse on a sunny morning
vaguely I remember that all this was different
but the cruel
wind blew
thirty forty years were whisked away
I work on a machine and produce shit
take part in elections and vote for this shit

I do not complain
my old age is safe
and I have everything for life that's needed so much

only that this kind of everything
is soft warm and stinking
in one word: shit!

before I leave my house I scrutinise everything carefully
to make sure the gas and lights are off
that there is no stub smouldering anywhere

I had an infectious disease in my childhood
stayed a long time in hospital
one night went over to the window
the whole horizon was glowing
the warsaw ghetto on fire

I kept on looking at it for many nights
and took it for a beautiful scene
but now that I know both beauty and ugliness
are human excuses
I even look in my waste bin
to check that there is no forgotten spark

I wouldn't like it to happen again

I will never forget how you crucified Jesus

through all your speeches prayers songs
I hear the coarse breathing
I see
the bleeding sweating
still trembling
body

it's not my affair to judge or forgive
because I do not believe in your good or evil

one thing i'll never forget
is that
I see
all around me
your immortal lying
undying falsity

no I can never forget
how you crucify Jesus

I am being born
in a place
where colours and forms
hands and tools
individual existence and the world
meet each other

simple as a breath
complicated as a breathing one
no more understandable
than a drawing on a cave wall

my only secret is the secret of being

my name is Painting

I laugh!
what else can I do
when I look at you

your love is riding on a horse of gold
your rainbow is made of silk
just look at yourself when you're shutting the door
see those solid locks

possibly i've gone mad
but I prefer poverty
when one has nothing at all
one is closer to the truth
and the truth here is to be called pain
humiliation hunger despair

go on!
you'll see for yourself!

only half a century ago I was just incredibly young
unusually beautiful
never slept alone

today life is one long night
only death keeps on coming to my bed
tells me stories of the ones long forgotten
looks deep into my eyes
or checks
my pulse with his fiery finger
shaking his head letting me
breathe the whole night through
and
even possibly longer
then goes away
to visit my neighbour

many of us are living here in sheltered housing
no-one's talking to me except mister death

I do not recognise my own face
nor know where I come from

I am from here:
the wind and eagle
call me brother

I went through time
saw from the other river bank:
people in their innermost cores
carry domesticated beasts
and forms
are not really what they seem to be

but everywhere
I can see you
and am warmed up by your light

how delicate
it shines through open jasmine petals
in the eyes of a woman when she's blooming with me

nascent vibration
flickering sparks
night coolness
unfettered walking
from nowhere to nowhere

almighty flame

we were children of concrete
gathering together at the carpet beater
to throw stones against a wall
or at each other

my mother
meeting me sometimes
says that I got hit on the nose

blood was flowing
when we were children

but if my daughter were a boy
I would never buy him a pistol
or gun

it might be as though I
were killing him

I'm simply not connected
to the law of common gravity
and they say I am crazy

maybe it's right to say so!

I've never killed anybody
never believed anybody
never lied to anybody

I let the bees pollinate me
I change autumn forests into violins
that which is above me is in me -

the sun! ladies and gentlemen!

can't laugh
can't weep
the sky was torn into pieces
I went sightseeing
to a concentration camp
there was one barrack
filled with children's' shoes
I was weeping there

don't know how to tell you
I understood my tears were blasphemous
and
that I was murdered as well
as a boy

don't laugh
don't weep
wherever I tread
I walk in the footsteps of those children
the sky is scarred
how long one can live on?

it's almost unbelievable but when the years pass by
I remember more and more

it seems like yesterday
when moments from the past were coming back to me
and I was without name

there colours were signs of the invisible
and sounds
emanated with the mute

I feel I am returning to the source
when I think over what is no more
and I tell you my young friend
weird is my certainty
of going into death without closing my eyes

sometimes I believe the last judgement
has already been passed
the division between the damned and those condemning
decided
and all were sent down to the earth
for life eternal
until awakening

sometimes
I've no more power to go on
but I can't die! I
am not born yet!
my aura is made of rust flakes
but I can't get lost! I have not been found yet!

sometimes
no face seems to suit my face
and I doubt
the legal position of the sentence

no
I have not awakened yet

I let dreams lead me
wherever they fly

and I long

oh! I am longing so dearly and not knowing what for
but it must be for something delicate
like spring twigs in a glass
something as simple
as life
that I dream of

in precognition
that an awakening awaits me

my dog was called rex which means king

I was five years old
when I had my last dog
a black hole sucked him in
he was bound with an iron chain to the tree
and shot

one has explained it all to me

I saw it then and now
when I look back
and see something strange there
it was my lack of emotion

I was five
and already had a full understanding

nothing has changed to this very day

do I have enough time to tell you?

I can soon disappear so
want to be comprehensible

borders classes poverty richness
are all illusions

do I not care about the future of the world?
nuclear rockets? eternal peace?

I tell you honestly - I sustain in being
no single policeman nor soldier
and not a single paragraph of any of your laws
affects me
and all your discussions cares fights ideas
- no more than nothing

I don't criticise you
I almost envy you
you've so much time
for all and everything
and I am sentenced to death
live with the feeling
that this is my last word last second
nothing strange I seem to be funny

if it were my last hour!
I would have still time
enough for my mother and father memories an ocean
but this is literally the last breath
infinity is wholly unknown
there are no more excuses!

actually
I am no more human
having more in common
with life itself