NEW POLISH WRITING
which grow painful as a sty
under the eyelids of day; history is the work
of bunglers and scoundrels who don't even
know how to sit still in church; only those
history wishes to break and exiles to Siberia and who
then keep silent like men
above dishes bristling like scythes in an uprising,
only they would be able to save
history's reputation if they still cared about that
in their silence transparent as ice. Here
another music insinuates itself, motionless. Not
every ear can hear it. It stands vertically
above the steppe and the roofs of sleepy towns.
Irony naps in an old arm chair. Tanks
like great Tibetan prayer wheels
rush down streets and move through Poland
like Mayakovsky walking around his
room. The long-winded radio speaks
French and English, those voices arrive
like signals from a cosmic probe.
If
the fatherland has become a block of ice
and entreaty's damp and avid tongue
freezes to it, then breathe, breathe
rapaciously as a wise man. Now
the hour glass is on its other
end and the same sand falls
to the bottom again. Stubble grows
on the smooth cheeks of the exiles ,
the stubble of calm
anger.
COURT
The prosecutor (bald, speaks softly,
hard to follow), three judges (to amuse
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