|
aa43a6a
|
When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
|
|
silence
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
871b0f7
|
The joy of writing.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
2b7a7cc
|
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
1c9e043
|
We have a soul at times. No one's got it non-stop, for keeps. Day after day, year after year may pass without it. Sometimes it will settle for awhile only in childhood's fears and raptures. Sometimes only in astonishment that we are old. It rarely lends a hand in uphill tasks, like moving furniture, or lifting luggage, or going miles in shoes that pinch. It usually steps out whenever meat needs chopping or forms have to be filled. For every..
|
|
wislawa-szymborska
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
9607106
|
When it comes, you'll be dreaming that you don't need to breathe; that breathless silence is the music of the dark
|
|
poetry
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
4bb601e
|
A Word On Statistics- Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. Unsure of every step: almost all the rest. Ready to help, if it doesn't take long: forty-nine. Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: fourwell, maybe five. Able to admire without envy: eighteen. Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus. Those not to be messed with: four-and-forty. Living in constant fear o..
|
|
wislawa-szymborska
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
b4bc49d
|
True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
c7d100e
|
We know ourselves only as far as we've been tested.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
d64ea89
|
No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
e95698c
|
We live longer but less precisely and in shorter sentences.
|
|
poetry
living
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
80a24a1
|
One more comment from the heart: I'm old fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised. Homo Ludens dances, sings, produces meaningful gestures, strikes poses, dresses up, revels and performs elaborate rituals. I don't wish to diminish the significance of these distractions-without them human life would pass in unimaginable monotony and possibly dispersion and defeat. But these are group ..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
a1c13a9
|
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
dab8610
|
I'll never find out now What A. thought of me. If B. ever forgave me in the end. Why C. pretended everything was fine. What part D. played in E.'s silence. What F. had been expecting, if anything. Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well. What H. had to hide. What I. wanted to add. If my being around
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
88eb3ab
|
I'm a poor audience for my memory. She wants me to attend her voice nonstop, but I fidget, fuss, listen and don't, step out, come back, then leave again. She wants all my time and attention. She's got no problem when I sleep. The day's a different matter, which upsets her. She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly, stirs up events both important and un-, turns my eyes to overlooked views, peoples them with my dead. In her stories I'm..
|
|
poetry
past
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
555d471
|
My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.
|
|
loss
poetry
fear
rejection
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
e08fc08
|
Life While-You-Wait. Performance without rehearsal. Body without alterations. Head without premeditation. I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it's mine. I can't exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play's all about. Ill-prepared for the privilege of living, I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands. I improvise, although I loathe improvisation. I trip at every step over my own ignorance. I can'..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
89eb91b
|
Even if you bar my way, even if you stare me in the face, I'll pass you by on the chasm's edge, finer than a hair.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
59c9876
|
Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don't charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
2501818
|
We call it a grain of sand, but it calls itself neither grain nor sand. It does just fine, without a name, whether general, particular, permanent, passing, incorrect, or apt. Our glance, our touch means nothing to it. It doesn't feel itself seen and touched. And that it fell on the windowsill is only our experience, not its. For it, it is not different from falling on anything else with no assurance that it has finished falling or that it i..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
9efa156
|
there were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. suitcases checked and standing side by side. one night, perhaps, the same dream grown hazy by morning. every beginning is only a sequel, after all,
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
1c0f554
|
I am too near to be dreamt of by him. I do not fly over him, do not escape from him under the roots of a tree. I am too near. Not in my voice sings the fish in the net, not from my finger rolls the ring. I am too near. A big house is on fire without me, calling for help. Too near for a bell dangling from my hair to chime. Too near to enter as a guest before whom walls glide apart by themselves. Never again will I die so lightly, so much bey..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
9dba995
|
Me--a teenager? If she suddenly stood, here, now, before me, would I need to treat her as near and dear, although she's strange to me, and distant? Shed a tear, kiss her brow for the simple reason that we share a birthdate? So many dissimilarities between us that only the bones are likely still the same, the cranial vault, the eye sockets. Since her eyes seem a little larger, her eyelashes are longer, she's taller, and the whole ..
|
|
youth
poetry
change
growth
self
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
5c69989
|
in painted quiet and concentration
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
7f997ba
|
Some people flee some other people. In some country under a sun and some clouds. They abandon something close to all they've got, sown fields, some chickens, dogs, mirrors in which fire now preens. Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles. The emptier they get, the heavier they grow. What happens quietly: someone's dropping from exhaustion. What happens loudly: someone's bread is ripped away, someone tries to shake a limp child b..
|
|
poetry
oppression
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
bedb804
|
hrdw br yn bwrnd kh Hsy nghny anh r bh hm pywnd ddh. chnyn Tmynny zybst, m trdyd zyb tr st. chwn qbl hmdygr r nmy shnkhtnd, gmn my brdnd hrgz chyzy myn anh nbwdh. m nZr khybn h, plh h w rhrwhyy kh an dw my twnsth nd z sl h pysh z knr hm gdhshth bshnd, dr yn brh chyst? dwst dshtm z anh bprsm ay bh yd nmy awrnd shyd drwn dry chrkhn zmny rwbrwy hm? yk bbkhshyd dr zdHm mrdm? yk Sdy shtbh grfth yd dr gwshy tlfn? - wly pskhshn r my dnm. - nh, c..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
7bd1a85
|
Memories come to mind like excavated statues that have misplaced their heads.
|
|
poetry
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
6cf372a
|
a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.
|
|
stone
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
5f52595
|
Cierta gente huyendo de otra gente.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
a19641f
|
lyqZ@ l ttlsh~ .km ttlsh~ l'Hlm l hmhm@ wl jrs ,yubddh l Srkh@ 'w jlb@ .tSdr `nh mushwsh@ wmultbs@ ,hy Swru l'Hlm .mm ydf` ltfsyrh bTrqin `dyd@ wmkhtlf@ ,lyqZ@u t`ny lyqZ@ .whdh hw llGz l'kbr ll'Hlm mftyH ,lyqZ@ tnftH wHdh .wl tsmH bGlqh ,ttnthr mnh lshhdt lmdrsy@ wlnjwm ttsqT mnh lfrsht ,wskhnt lmkwy lqdym@ wlqb`t bl rw'wsh .wjmjm lGywm ytkwn mn dhlk lGz .l ymkn Hlh .bdwnn m kn ll'Hlm 'n tkwn wldhy bdwnh m knt lyqZ@ ,Gyru m`lwm wntju 'rqhi..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
1265e17
|
Classifieds" WHOEVER'S found out what location compassion (heart's imagination) can be contacted at these days, is herewith urged to name the place; and sing about it in full voice, and dance like crazy and rejoice beneath the frail birch that appears to be upon the verge of tears. I TEACH silence in all languages through intensive examination of: the starry sky, the Sinanthropus' jaws, a grasshopper's hop, an infant's fingernails, plankton..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
17cb070
|
But any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
45c65a5
|
A che serve qui chiedersi
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
e38b31e
|
So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books, the scholars of oneiric signs and omens, the doctors with couches for analyses-- if anything fits, it's accidental, and for one reason only, that in our dreamings, in their shadowings and gleamings, in their multiplings, inconceivablings, in their haphazardings and widescatterings
|
|
poetry
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
7263dd0
|
I've wanted to write about them for a long while, but it's a tricky subject, always put off for later and perhaps worthy of a better poet, even more stunned by the world than I. But time is short. I write.
|
|
writing
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
65603b4
|
But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
edba911
|
shkran lk y qlby/ l'nny styqZtu mn jdyd/ wlw 'nW lywm hw l'Hd/ ywm lrH@/ l 'n tHt lDlw`/ ttwSl lHrk@ lm`td@ lm qbl l`yd
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
0fcff9f
|
Four billion people on this earth, but my imagination is the way it's always been: bad with large numbers. It is still moved by particularity. It flits about the darkness like a flashlight beam, disclosing only random faces, while the rest go blindly by, unthought of, unpitied. Not even a Dante could have stopped that. So what do you do when you're not, even with all the muses on your side? Non omnis moriar--a premature worry. Yet am I full..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
3be097e
|
Sled vsiaka voina niakoi triabva da raztrebi. "Krai i nachalo"
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
0eb536b
|
SENKA Moja senka kao dvorska luda za kraljicom. Kad kraljica sa stolice ustane, luda se na zidu nakostresi i u plafon glupom glavom udari. Sto moze u dvodimenzionalnom svetu na svoj nacin boli. Mozda je ludi na mom dvoru lose i sebe bi u drugoj ulozi volela. Kraljica ce se kroz prozor nagnuti, a luda s prozora dole skociti. Svaku aktivnost su podelile, ali ne na pola. Onaj prostak na sebe uzeo gestove, patos i svu njegovu bestidnost, to j..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
1d05629
|
History didn't greet us with triumphal fanfares: --it flung dirty sand into our eyes. Ahead of us lay long roads leading nowhere, poisoned wells and bitter bread.
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
abfe033
|
Under a Certain Little Star" My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity in case I'm mistaken. May happiness not be angry if I take it for my own. May the dead forgive me that their memory's but a flicker. My apologies to time for the multiplicity of the world overlooked each second. My apologies to an old love for treating the new one as the first. Forgive me far-off wars for taking my flowers home. Forgive ..
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
12cc84a
|
Let me have your abyss.
|
|
love
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
1215406
|
Ningun dia se repite, ni dos noches son iguales,
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |
|
846e6bd
|
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice. Even
|
|
|
Wisława Szymborska |