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grazyna wojcieszko

What do you think

 

 

what do you think Yurek

on the day bacteria give speeches 

will they choose

Chinese or maybe one of the Hindu languages? 

 

prosaic cheeks

even blushing ones

or red mouths

will they only remain in poems?

 

When those creatures

fill the planet and the cosmos with coloured balls

will they wonder where they came from

those empty towns pointless streets insincere houses? 

 

After their visit 

to the sewage plants and the crematorium 

will they discover the emotions 

of self-sufficient beings with limbs? 

Blue day

 

Yurek

the sea is talkative today

it's having a talkative blue day

and the waves brought in a stormy

rabble

 

on the beach a shocked herring

shocked that it's not working

its just not working for him at all

swimming

 

his mouth won't shut

his mouth won't shut and his lips

flap in the wind and remember

something

 

his tail records on the sand

on the sand it writes of the stomach

of the eaten-up bowels

of the liver

 

it gazes with an astounded eye

an ever paler eye 

it looks at the misty world

and the sky

 

the sky is azure blue today

he has an azure blue day of indecision

he doesn't know what to do what to do

with his memories

translations from the polish by sarah luczaj,
from the collection 'incantation'

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