TIME

No I’m not dead (unfortunately in some ways) I just haven’t posted for a while. Thank you those of you that stopped by and inquired as to how I was going and what I was doing.

I haven’t been feeling the best both mentally and physically recently. On top of that something I helped organise recently drained me emotionally. All of which made me feel, despite the fact that I got to speak to the sexiest woman alive the other day (Kerry Nettle), like “The world is fucked and I hate the human race”. You know, my usual thing. However I decided to spare you from listening to this. Well until now.

A few days ago I almost got hit by a van. You know, one of those things were the van screeches to a halt a few centimetres away from you (the driver wasn’t looking where he was going). It started me thinking, if the van would have hit and killed me what would have happened? Would the world have been worse off without me, or would it have been better off without me?

Now if I died, obviously (well I hope) my family and friends would have been upset. But would my death have made the world a worse place to live? And thinking about it, I couldn’t see how my death would make the world worse.

However given the fact that I live in a first world country and consume way too much crap I don’t need, which adds to the scarcity of the world’s resources and increases pollution, the reality is that the world in some small way would have been better off if I had died, which quite frankly isn’t a great thing to realise.

Some people may say “cheer up, things could be worse” which always pisses me off. How is thinking things could be worse meant to cheer me up? Firstly it makes me feel guilty about the privileged position I have as someone in the developed world, and secondly it makes me feel terrible thinking that things may end up getting worse for me.

Well enough of my depressing ranting.

In Polish poetry, with it’s Slavic melancholy, I find a reflection of my own feelings, as well as a measure of comfort. The three poems below are examples.

DEDICATION

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another
I swear, there is no wizadry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws scream of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this ad only this I find salvation.

They used to poor on graves millet or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.

By Czeslaw Milosz


FREEDOM

What is freedom? Ask the philosophers.
I, too, wonder; at one time I maintain
That it means guaranteed liberty
In the face of the power of the state, or else
I emphasise that it is the strength of convictions,
The sovereignty of spirit
And the loyalty to one’s own conviction.
But even when I am at a loss to define
The essence of freedom
I know full well the meaning
Of captivity.

By Adam Zagajewski


MY LONELINESS

My loneliness finished Valedictorians School.
It’s punctual and hardworking.
It’s been given orders and awards.

My loneliness
Is peopled.
Several Thousand readers walk across it.
It’s been written down.
Crossed out.

It’s tired of ruling
Like Frederick the Great.

It’s starting to have it’s disciples.
Its timid slaves.

My loneliness is public.
It lies at the bottom of the cage
With its silent flight feathers
Plucked out.

By Ewa Lipska