Read Online The Collected Poems by Zbigniew Herbert - Free Book Online

wilderness
    poems’ murmurs are worth no more
than the breath of others they carry
    he sits by himself at a little table
drums his fingers summons a void
5
    a well-meaning fellow comes up
sits down and says
I can’t bear to see how you suffer
    and your writing is getting worse
you’re being sucked dry
by the greedy mouths of the dead
    on your one string
you play a mosquito’s complaint
you will be cast off
by the greedy arms of the living
    I know
it’s hard to be reconciled
not everything is exactly
the way it ought to be
    but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope
    you tried to outyell time
addressing the dead
now try to outyell time
addressing the unborn
    no one wants you
to betray yourself
stick to your subject
write on what is not
6
    at night the poet reads
economics pamphlets
at night the poet builds
a paradise for his dead
    it is a white rectangle
like a block of cheese
where each has a hole
oily quiet and warm
    paradise will be finished
when the class struggle ends
and when from one hectare
we will get a given amount
    then a billion lightbulbs
will light up
and loudspeakers sing out
7
    again the poet is writing
summoning the unborn
to the future’s paradise
    over a rocky precipice
he spans a straw bridge
he runs across it
lighthearted as hope
8
    they rebuilt the poet
his table downtown
    they rebuilt the café
a fish tank for artists
    he’s no longer alone
sitting with him are
a young musician
a certain sculptor
a red-maned critic
and two girl models
    how great to march with the people
—the poet thinks—
and shuffles his feet under the table
    sometimes they discuss whether
the dictatorship of the proletariat
may exclude art in the true sense
    then they look at each other
with a burst of laughter
at not having kicked the habit
of rhetorical questions
    Â 
TO HIS FIST
    Five fingers straying over strings
and curling like iron in a flame
to a pomegranate dead embrace
    ten fingers page boys of caresses
kneeling and tearing tender silk
they will die the death of leaves
    a myriad fingers blooms of palms
weigh an open friendship a grain
and spin the cocoon of long days
    then comes a great ruler threads
turn opaque friendship ensnares
empty words rattle in poppy-heads
    then clotted blood in the banners
and the knot of fingers overhead
the same knot in the brain a fist
    Â 
REQUEST
    Teach us too to fold our fingers
to brace a door on the other side
of rooms of a love already lost
    may what dreamed of happiness
and shielded a slender flame
when the need arises form a fist
    and after the struggle is ended
allow us to straighten our fingers
even if it leaves us only a void
    taking defeat in an open hand
holding a skull in soft fingers
at that moment you start again
    the great cause of open hands
a playful traveling over strings
the ultimate grain of salvation
    Â 
ORNAMENT MAKERS
    Praised be the ornament makers
the masons and the decorators
the creators of flitting angels
    also the makers of ribbons
and on them hearty inscriptions
(fluttered by a great river-wind)
    flutists and fiddlers who ensure
that every note played is pure
guarding Bach’s
Air on the G-string
    and poets it goes without saying
the defenders of children playing
giving voice to smiles hands and eyes
    they’re right it is not art’s business
to seek out the truth is for science
masons guard the heart’s warmth
    so that there be a mosaic over the gate
a dove a branch or a sun amid daisies
(past the gate symbols’ strings are pulled)
    we already have words colors rhymes
that laugh and cry as if alive
the masons will preserve these words
    that by this dark mills are powered
we masons frankly can’t be bothered
we are the party of life and delight
    in a street with a joyful carnival
there’s the eyesore of a prison wall
an ugly stain on an ideal landscape
they called out the best of the masons
and all night they painted the prisons
pink even the backs