Poetry in Translation Issue
Volume 16:3, Summer 2015
Rolls
tomorrow
I’ll arise and go
go to the corner store
to get some rolls
or maybe not
maybe I won’t rise
which means I won’t go there
or anywhere
in which case, Oh God
don’t summon me
to Heaven
for rolls—
here’s my beloved
corner shop
where I want to stay
with the articles of my unbelief
for just a little longer
but if I don’t get summoned
I will go to get some rolls
in the morning at the corner store
where the sales clerk
is also worth consuming
she has such a serious way about her
just like my first girlfriend
she can hardly keep from laughing
at the stupid expression on my face
I wonder if she’d feel anything
while I take off some of her clothes
while asking her for four rolls for breakfast
I can hear her thoughts:
just an old man
and what’s more he looks old
yet she doesn’t know
inside I have new teeth
from the Internet
and I’ve downloaded the program
to retrieve my young days
from ancient photos and films
believe it—years don’t matter
I’ve got the teeth
I can bite
but I don’t fancy what my wife
my timeless lover for so many years
would say to that
the plain life
discovers such pearls
on Terre des hommes
amongst the trash
Bułki
jutro
wstanę i pójdę
do pobliskiego sklepu
po bułki
lecz może nie wstanę
i wtedy nie pójdę
tam ani nigdzie
bo może – boże
nie powołuj
do nieba
po bułki
tutaj jest mój sklep
ulubiony
chcę tutaj
z artykułami niewiary
jeszcze trochę
pozostać
więc jeśli się uda
pójdę po bułki rano
ekspedientka w sklepie
też warta jest konsumpcji
ma taki poważny sposób bycia
jak moja pierwsza dziewczyna
ale pewnie i tak
śmieszą ją moje głupie miny
ciekawe czy coś czuje
kiedy wzrokiem ściągam z niej to i owo
prosząc o cztery bułki na śniadanie
słyszę jej myśli :
stary w dodatku staro wygląda
a nie wie że
w środku mam nowe zęby
pobrałem program z Internetu
do odzyskiwania młodości
ze starych zdjęć i filmów
naprawdę
lata nic nie znaczą
zęby mam
potrafię gryźć
ale nie chcę
bo co by powiedziała żona
co mi kochanką jest
przez tyle lat
rano po bułki
oczywiście jeśli
proste życie
odnajduje takie perły
na Terre des hommes
wśród dziadostwa
Translator’s Note: Although Polish is my first language and the only one I spoke for my first five years, translating from Polish into English is not easy for me. I’m 67 now, and I haven’t spoken Polish since my father died twenty years ago. The spoken Polish I have left is “kitchen Polish.” I can tell you it’s cold outside, but I can’t tell you about the brilliance of Milosz or the beauty of Warsaw. So how can I translate Polish poems into English? I’ve been blessed to know Polish writers who have the gift of poetry and patience: Feliks Netz, Janusz Zalewski, and most recently Henryk Cierniak.
Henryk Cierniak was born in 1956 in Bielsko-Biala, Silesia, Poland. He is the author of a book of poems entitled The Believer of Skin (2011). He is also the poetry editor for the popular socio-cultural monthly Śląsk and appears frequently on Polish Radio Katowice.
John Guzlowski's writing appears in Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, The North American Review, The Ontario Review, Salon.com, Rattle, and Crab Orchard Review. His poems and personal essays about his parents' experiences as slave laborers in Nazi Germany and refugees making a life for themselves in Chicago appear in his book Echoes of Tattered Tongues (Aquila Polonica Press, 2016). His novel Road of Bones (Cervena Barva Press, 2015), is about two German lovers separated by WWII.