management error

I'm not brave enough to wander off into time. I can't help holding on to the dining times, still of the night and three calendars. This is what we are taught: the prison mode. And then when the walls are gone, there's a feeling as if the space has set its dogs on me.
When I can't tell a chance from danger, I run away from myself.

matters of the heart, T.C.

come down to me
with your voice
support me from underneath
I can smell cinnamon and wood
come
we'll walk away
barefoot
and we won't hurt anybody

hermit style

I'm writing from Warsaw. Although officially I'm a martyr to the cause of mental health who rides every week 200 km to see her doctor that doesn't seem to be helping much, a part of me still savors the time I have to kill down here. No internet, no CD player. Empty rooms. I read "Biała gorączka" aloud to myself in the light of just one bulb – the other one doesn't work since I remember. I slowly smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and tea from the same cup. In the middle of the metropolis I've become a hermit that keeps away from technology and to whom a woman pays a visit from time to time. She comes to talk till late in the night and to smoke thin cigarettes.
Last night I slept with V. and although I didn't even touch her hand I felt warm and safe. My sleep was long and blissful. All night long she slept with her face turned to me as if she knew I hate having someone's back in front of me. In the morning she poured some juice into the glass for me. And then we smoked.

Gemini poem

JOHN LEHMANN

"To Penetrate That Room"

To penetrate that room is my desire,
The extreme attic of the mind, that lies
Just beyond the last bend in the corridor.
Writing I do it. Phrases, poems are keys
Loving's another way (but not so sure).
A fire's in there, I think, there's truth at last
Deep in a lumber chest. Sometimes I'm near,
But draughts puff out the matches, and I'm lost.
Sometimes I'm lucky, find a key to turn,
Open an inch or two – but always then
A bell rings, someone calls, or cries of 'fire'
Arrest my hand when nothing's known or seen,
And running down the stairs again I mourn.

postcards from the seaside

for Marek

a neurotic mouth dryness
huge feminine legs
as if seen through Schulz's eyes
a symphony
the bows slide on the veins
deep inside
a sultry smell
of a brilliant madness
until everything is flooded by the water
and only the Slavic soul
- the phantom at the opera

for Nina

on spec
'cause why not
breast, blush, a sip of champagne
sea breeze
shout
slamming of a limo door
the earrings are there to glitter
and to be

for Daria

the tide woman
the juices of life
red and orange with the flow
along the spiral
higher and higher
to the face close to which
many wanted to get warm
a pulsating sun
from the inside a small silver Tosia flows out
the eyes of the Aquarius

the tide woman
sunflowers
in the window of a lighthouse

for Vixo

those waves over your head
amniotic fluid
green shoots up your legs
underwater orchestra
threads of cigarette smoke
warm tides
champagne bubbles from the lips
you dance on the bottom
to "I Put a Spell On You" by Nina Simone

is it the ocean
or is it an aquarium at an amusement park

spinning July

Every day falls deep into my stomach. The chakra gets satiated but it also expands. What happened a week ago now seems whole light years away. Literally, these are the years full of glow with Tracy's concert at the Forest Opera being the brightest point. The air smelled with humidity and her voice was clear and warm. I felt like going home with her, I didn't want that energy to leave me. The sweetest. The strongest. I don't want to walk away. I took deep breaths to inhale as much as I could, but it was only a moment anyway. I raised my head and the stage was dark and cold again.
I went down because the yearning got swollen. I found a hollow and I was hot and wet from my tears. My temple, as if magnetized, sought for another one to cling to. The next morning was rainy and cold, and the streets of Sopot were pale. The sand was still damp since the night, far away some sails undulated on the horizon. The wind blew warmer and warmer. Strawberry M. joined me, it began to rain and she danced in the sea with an umbrella in her hand. There was a good laugh and a hypnotizing conversation that we sank into with hunger for words and attention. I laid my head on her knees. I was safe.
Another cut, I'll see D. today, for the first time since almost four years. I'll see the face of the woman that wants a divorce and I'll try not to show how the mere thought about it makes me internally contracted.
For now I wouldn't be even able to recognize her walk on the street. I don't even know what color she is. Four years.

the next morning

It's all the same fucking day, Janis was right
you open your eyes but the day hasn't stopped
the demon still weighs on the breast
hours grow stronger, the body falls down
uniformly and invariably
what's empty won't fill up
legs lead to a dead end
or along a circle
you can undertake to do something
you can stand still to the very end
the stigma remains on the forehead
movements make you forget only for a while

----------------------------------------------

Raise your head, look. Nothing's going to change for you, there is no you and there is nothing that you're not a part of.
That moment was beautiful, behind it you could see happiness that will never come true. The next morning you can only cry, coldness, the way to the sea. There is no solace, but on the foggy background the sails bend, look. Between you and the sky there is enough space for your yearning, for all your heart.

my mantra

On July 5th I was at the concert of Tracy Chapman.
I was at the concert of Tracy Chapman.
The concert of Tracy Chapman.
Tracy Chapman.

echoes in the summertime

summer makes me bend my head down
a drop on my nape
the hair fall in a fan
sultry, sweet
shadows when the sun is fading away
like a gong
echoes undulate over the yellowed grass

hot heart beats under the thin layer
of the soil

let it rain

Today was totally untypical.
I met with J., with whom I hardly ever, well, make a real appointment with a clear purpose to turn out at the same place and time. Usually, we see each other in a bigger circle of people or we just accidentally run across each other. We smoked slims though we're both non-smokers, especially when there's only the two of us. J. drank bear, I drank coke while the usual scheme is that I look around for alcohol and she gives nothankyous all night long. But the most weird is that we talked about ourselves for real. For the last two years I met her once in six months and today in just three hours I told her more than I've ever told people I meet everyday. (Now that's mathematics.) And I found out about things I never knew or even suspected. And we agreed on most of the stuff. We hugged. I guess we'll see each other tomorrow again.
I came home. For a half an hour a storm raged. Now I'm looking at the torn cotton of gray-blue clouds through window pane covered with rain drops. It's a calm evening.
Sometimes I feel so mentally balanced.
Sometimes life seems simple and spacious.

dobranoc

When Jeanette Winterson appears in my dream, speaking Polish fluently and kissing me on my forehead, I wonder what's the probability that she really... well, that she really does speak Polish.

When a few days later I dream of Tracy Chapman holding my hand, I begin to think I'll start sleeping like my cat, 18 hours a day. And just dream, and dream, and dream...