Between Poems
Here in this moment before the perfect poem
Capable of explaining everything
I’ll write for you something make-do about the god of love and death
But not for awhile because now I must hold this cat on my lap
Who when it finally wakes up will describe its latest dream
And then as usual will disappear without saying goodbye
To do the same thing it does every day
Leaving behind just a single white whisker
From which I might decipher my own future
Między wierszami
Zanim powstanie utwór doskonały
Który wszystko wytłumaczy
Napiszę wam na razie wiersz o bogu milości i śmierci
To za chwilę bo teraz trzymam na kolanach kota który
Kiedy się zbudzi opowie mi swój sen
A potem jak zwykle bez pożegnania odejdzie
Do swoich zwykłych codziennych zajęć
Zostawi mi biały wąs z którego
Spróbuję odczytać swoją przyszłość
It Was
You tell me my friend that it was yesterday
In the room with the blue light from a quiet lamp in the corner
Okudzhava* whispering magic spells from Georgia in our ears
The blind Brandenburg Bach and the deaf Beethoven
Vying with Handel in a holy polyphony
Old marches and waltzes blaring out in brass
Medals swords and sashes blinding all our eyes
A fiery gramophone spitting like a hearth
Wandering the spirals inside a dark galaxy
Mother downing a whole glass in order to keep the heads
Of young lads who too easily hit their amber fifths
Jan cradling an angel inside his evening prayer
His knees cracking open the hard shell of repentance
We were characters of Chagall with hearts of pierogi
Flying on our sides as heaven opened above us in the ceiling
*Bulat Okudzhava (Bułat Okudżawa, in Polish) was born in 1924 in Moscow of Georgian and Armenian parents. He is probably the most well-known of the Russian guitar-bards of the 20th century, roughly the equivalent of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen all rolled into one. That his songs were mainly non-political in their content actually politicized his music, causing the authorities to reluctantly recognize Okudzhava while at the same time increasing his true popularity in the U.S.S.R. and neighboring countries.
Było
To Antoni
Powiadasz że to było wczoraj przyjacielu
W pokoju pod błękitem z lampką cichą w rogu
Bułat szeptał do ucha gruzińskie zaklęcia
Ślepy Bach brandenburski i Beethoven głuchy
Prześcigali się z Händlem w polifonii świętej
Stare marsze i walce huczały w mosiądzu
Medale szpady szarfy raziły nam oczy
Płomienisty gramofon trzaskał jak kominek
Przemierzając spiralę czarnej galaktyki
Matka szklankę wypiła by oszczędzić głowy
Młodzieńców którzy łatwo brali złote kwinty
Jan anioła kołysał w wieczornej modlitwie
Kolanem rozłupywał orzechy pokuty
My postacie z Chagalla z sercami z pieroga
Lecieliśmy na boku pod sufitu niebem
Translator: Daniel Bourne has recently spent over a half-year living in Poland in order to continue his translation work with Polish poets as well as to pursue some writing projects involving environmental issues and investigations into place, including the primeval forest of Białowieża in eastern Poland and the island of Sobieszewo on the Baltic Coast just to the east of Gdansk. His books of poetry include The Household Gods (Cleveland State University Press, 1995), Where No One Spoke the Language (CustomWords, 2006) and a collection of translations of the Polish political poet Tomasz Jastrun, On the Crossroads of Asia and Europe (Salmon Run, 1999). He teaches at the College of Wooster, where he edits Artful Dodge. His many trips to Poland include a Fulbright fellowship in 1985-87 for the translation of younger Polish poets. His poems have appeared in such journals as Plume, Ploughshares, FIELD, Guernica, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, Salmagundi, Tar River Poetry and Seneca Review. His translations of other Polish poets such as Bronisław Maj and Zbigniew Machej appear in FIELD, Boulevard, Mid-American Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Last July, Plume printed as its Special Feature his translations involving another Polish poet, “The Angel’s Share: Six Poems by Krzysztof Kuczkowski.”
