Ryszard Krynicki (poetry from Poland cycle)

 

When I lived in Poznan, in the communist Poland, Ryszard Krynicki was one of the dissidents there. He was a friend of Stanislaw Baranczak, who also lived there at the time. Once Baranczak wrote a poem about an underground poetry reading where police entered and arrested everybody; Krynicki had similar underground readings although the police did not enter those meetings (I know because I was there too). His poetry, though, is very different from Baranczak's, very short poems, almost haiku-like, but his haikus are not about whether or nature. Instead they are observations that show absurdity of certain reactions that most people would consider normal. Most of them, unlike haikus, have titles. Some of those poems seem to have a kind of transcendental dimension to them.

Below are the poems that made such impression on me that I decided to write their English versions. In fact the first poem here, the one without a title, I remembered all my life (I saw it first in 1970s, soon after it was published) and recalled it whenever I had a difficult decision to make. It did help. 

* * *

Who chooses loneliness – will never be alone

Who chooses homelessness – will have the roof of the world over his head

Who chooses death – will not cease to live

Who is chosen by death – will die

only this

WHO DOES NOT EXIST

fear God

who does not exist

in your heart

HOW TO WRITE?

To write so that the hungry

think it is bread?

The hungry have to be fed,

you have to write so that the hunger

is not wasted

NOT ALL

Do we really learn to live only after the defeat?

Not all: whoever does not live for victory

cannot live in defeat

YOU HAVE TO BE

You have to be free

to learn

from your own mistakes

WHEN

When a clown gets to power

he is no less ridiculous

but who wants to laugh then?

SAYING

Saying – How can I fight

for human rights

when I have a wife and children?

you yourself pronounce a sentence on them

but even the executioners do not know

how severe the punishment will be

UNFORTUNATELY

Bad poems won't convert a despot

unfortunately this can also be sait

about good poems

VERTIGO

Those in power are afraid of hights

The higher they climb

the more afraid they are to come down to earth

INSIDE

Look, the real light

a stained glass window has only

inside the church

* * *

Blind? Deaf? Mute?

Incomprehensible?

It is there. It hurts.

AMONG THEM, IN THE CENTRE

Twelve men at the table set for destinies; by now they know that one of them will betray him and another will betray him thrice (or twice, it won't be clear till the end) before the cock crows. With them, in their midst, at the centre of his own infinite oneness, he – their master and teacher. He, the one beyond numbers. The son of the unutterable Name. The Son of Man. Having just finished breaking the unleavened bread for the last time ever, he lifts a cup of wine. His face is hidden to us. His hair anointed with precious oil shines with unearthly light. His few words reach us only in translations. Laborious translations, constantly improved, so many wars have been fought and we still don't know how faithful the translations are.

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"