Ticks from Hareskov: A Selection of Grzegorz Wróblewski’s poetry
Written at different points in Grzegorz Wróblewski’s life, these poems connect with each other in unexpected ways. “Seven Years” and “Place” are studies of personality in extremis. “Ticks from Hareskov” and “Dead Cod” reflect on interspecies strife. The wistful “End of the Season” and the satirical “BEVERLY SMILE” engage with the concept of mimesis. This selection fully represents the thematic and formal range of Wróblewski’s work.
TICKS FROM HARESKOV
Why did they have to choose you?
Is it because I was wearing
a plaid flannel shirt you bought me
for my thirty-first birthday?
PLACE
I will return, after all
I haven’t gone anywhere, this place has been created
entirely
only here I experience the feeling of
and
the eyeball rotates, the feeling of, feeling they say
is enough because a certain woman, I may know who she is or was
has she written?
the eyeball again, don’t see the birds
in her letter
she may already be in the neighbourhood, did she finally
think of me (yes, me! do you hear? do you hear the conspiring
walls, shadows, walls, and?)
letter?
moon?
no, she hasn’t
mailed it yet
dates
impatience and she, what does she plan to do with me?
this too is unfulfillment
don’t see the moon
but she will mail it shortly for sure
she will
(don’t see the birds)
so I must believe, it’s the feeling!!!, and wait
shortly
moon
and
not reveal
this place by mistake, it is my last
I will return
only here I experience the feeling of
this place
has been created entirely
I must believe and
hear the conspiring walls
and wait
DEAD COD
They stare as the sweating pedestrians
complain with disgust:
“Such revolting fish . . . Why hasn’t anyone
gouged out their eyes?”
END OF THE SEASON
Empty boats . . . Kids are playing with pebbles.
Dry seaweed and dormant silent seagulls.
The rains are coming.
On the pier, two late swimmers are drinking wine and eating grilled
meat. They are waiting for the sun.
The tide rises slightly. On the horizon, two indolent
yachts.
SEVEN YEARS
Mr. Jensen shows me the furniture and curtains.
There is no sign of struggle.
No farewell letter.
I am the new tenant.
Here I’ll compose volumes about the end of mankind.
The room is cold,
horrifyingly cold and empty.
I begin by batting away the flies.
Anything but the flies!
Flies take away creative energy.
I must stay focused.
This thing will be stronger than existentialism.
After seven years I open my empty notebooks,
stroke my thinning hair.
Time has gone by quickly.
Flies frolic above the lamps.
I have become an old and experienced tenant.
It’s my turn: the only way out of here is the grave.
There will be no sign of struggle.
I will leave no farewell letter.
BEVERLY SMILE
Your life can improve dramatically
when you start taking care of your mouth.
Our company has whitened the teeth
of the world’s greatest stars, for instance David Beckham.
Everyone loves shiny molars.
You can’t whiten your teeth just by using toothpaste.
Corporations deceive people. The only product that works is
BEVERLY SMILE!
It contains carbamide peroxide.
Lemon juice is not effective:
it merely causes irritation
of the trigeminal nerve in the dental pulp.
Our company has whitened the teeth
of the world’s greatest stars, for instance David Beckham.
If you want a snow-white smile,
the only smart option
is BEVERLY SMILE.
Remember, individuals with yellow teeth
suffer from social anxiety and never laugh spontaneously.
Grzegorz Wróblewski was born in 1962 in Gdańsk and grew up in Warsaw. Since 1985 he has been living in Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, drama and other writings. As a visual artist, he has exhibited his paintings in various galleries in Denmark, Germany, England and Poland. English translations of his work are available in Our Flying Objects (trans. Joel Leonard Katz, Rod Mengham, Malcolm Sinclair, Adam Zdrodowski, 2007), A Marzipan Factory (trans. Adam Zdrodowski, 2010), Kopenhaga (trans. Piotr Gwiazda, 2013), Let's Go Back to the Mainland (trans. Agnieszka Pokojska, 2014) and Zero Visibility (trans. Piotr Gwiazda, 2017).
Piotr Gwiazda is the translator of Grzegorz Wróblewski’s Kopenhaga (2013) and Zero Visibility (2017). He is currently working on a volume of Wróblewski’s new and selected poems. He is also the author of three books of poems, Aspects of Strangers (2016), Messages (2012), and Gagarin Street (2005) and two books of literary criticism, US Poetry in the Age of Empire, 1979-2012 (2014) and James Merrill and W.H. Auden (2007). He is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.