MIROSŁAW JAN GRUDZIEŃ

MIROSŁAW

JAN GRUDZIEŃ

Insomnia Before The Dawn

an empty garden

some black nettle

of  persistent interrogation marks

taken out of the package

I am sentenced to be

by myself

tête-à-tête

with myself

burning threads of the murk are tearing

the dawn

like a charwoman

is sweeping

the cobweb of the night

away

A Lesson

it’s so few words

that I wring out of myself

so much as some chalk dust

out of an eraser

after the blackboard

having been wiped clean

something still remains

is stuck like a bone in the throat

will not go out

on the school blackboard

an old beak is writing

an unintelligible text:

my life

it’s less and less time

until  the lesson end ring

less and less words

less and less chalk

held in fingers

Birth

the night is holding her breath

a pause in the song of world

colours are not enlivened yet

in the eyes of angels

dark wisdom of

setting apart

grape cluster squashing

black white and grey pathways

branch out  across

meadows barrens and swamps

the wind is asleep

in branches of an almond tree

and so is the fire

in a thornbush

from serpent’s teeth sown here

a human

and a  ruby star

are sprouting

For M.

an online cup of  coffee

an online café table

an online bistro at Montmartre

a Russian was playing

the seven-string guitar

the bistro was growing woods

ivy grapevine

who am I

without that place

nothing but a sack

of words

thrown by a road

and therefore

I have been still coming there

I have been sitting

at the empty table

in the online bistro where

a Russian with a guitar

is already absent

the silence

is in the colour

of your dress

While Stretched

while stretched between the moon nodes

I wake up in the night not able to sleep

the mill of the world is running in silence

that second I is treading on the walk

is carrying cellars left waste

broken chairs twist-image mirrors

frames to non-existing paintings

planks of boats from unrealized voyages

he is marching through growing drops

he is opening the door of his house

hanging his raincoat  and his soaked wings so heavy

in the hall

standing at a window watching the rain

through hunched drenched rainy window panels

at a bunch of flowers  dropped in a plash

under an old gutter full of rubbish

embraced by

a young  lilac bush

In My Dream

in my dream

your teats have been cast

in lunar silver

archs of hips

a call of the night

in the smell of wild mandrakes

black  horses are galloping

into  the marches  between

the light and the shadow

We Stood Up

we rose from a table

just for a moment

the same cup of coffee

the same glass of wine

are waiting but

a broken table top

is between us

like a bottomless lake

a cobweb thread is broken

and so is the world

one edge is where you are

the other is where I am

time has been wound out of a  hunk

there is abyss between us

trembling and shaky

a hardly visible small boat

goes on it

there and back

endlessly

The World In Your Hands

the world in your hands

is small

like a shell

the night is soft

like a cat

cuddled up to your feet

I am covering you

with a poem

as if it were

a warm blanket

It Was Heavily Raining

it was heavily raining as if in fear of the end

we were standing half a step

in a no-entrance gate

giving some  minor gifts to each other in a hurry

as usual the words were not as should be

the truth is nothing but your necklace

matching your eyes

was essential there

I watched little green balls  round your neck

green planetary globes surrounding a star

and myself on one of them so tiny smaller than a speck

dreaming of two twin springs of green water

The People On The Walk

For  Tadeusz Różewicz

they flee from the sunshine

to lancet-cool cellars

down breakneck stairs

casting shadows of wings

the next day they go out

they bang the doors dead

they bring the odour of rotten rags

and nausea

they buy

colourful twilights

at the bazaar

they walk the streets

MIROSŁAW JAN GRUDZIEŃ

MIROSŁAW JAN GRUDZIEŃ: [approx. pronunciation:  Groo-dzhien] born on 7th December 1951 at Starachowice, Central Poland is a Polish poet, essayist, and short story writer. Also: a literary historian/ translator/ critic/ publicist. He studied  the Polish philology at Lublin (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University) and the English philology at Cracow (Jagiellonian University). Graduated as M.A. (Polish Philology)  in 1974. His  literary press début was a poem published in 1972 in The KAMENA literary biweekly in Lublin. After the 1981-83 martial law state: an independent penman / a freelance journalist.  He has been publishing his poems, short stories, literary translations, reviews, essays, and other press articles in  several Polish cultural, historical  and literary periodicals, and in regional literary almanacs. His young poems appeared in the two  young poets’ micro-anthologies in 1981 (published by the  U.P.L. Lublin  Branch): GDZIE JABŁONIE SŁODKOPIENNE [Where Are  The Sweet-Trunk Apple Trees], and OKO, ANIOŁ, KRZYK  [An Eye, An Angel, A Shout]. He translated works of poets of  the former U.S.S.R. Ukrainian, Russian and non-Russian nationalities such as an Udmurt  poet  Wiacheslav Ar-Sergi. Also some of the old Armenia, Persia  and Kashmiri poets. Several translations and literary history articles on: POEZIJA – Portal Poezji Bałkańskiej [Balkan Poetry Web Portal]. His 5 poems appeared in the 2017 ANTHOLOGY OF POLISH POETS. Warsaw: Pisarze.pl, 2017.  He has published 1 book collection of his poetry: BEZSENNOŚC PRZED ŚWITEM. WIERSZE. [Insomnia Before The Dawn. Poems]. Sandomierz: ARMORYKA Publishing House 2014, ISBN 979-83-7950-355-1 (awarded by the U.P.L. Rzeszów Branch with the Best Subcarpathian Début Award). A poetry book Polish-English translation:  ,,RODZINNE SZCZĘŚCIE = FAMILY HAPPINESS'' (Wybór wierszy/ Selected poems). Rzeszów: RS Druk 2016. Translated into English and prefaced: Mirosław Grudzień. ISBN 978-83-65293-08-4.