Thursday, April 20, 2006


Where? Over there. There, other than here, and yet not far from here. Where inhales, there exhales. Overhear. Over there. Not too far. However near. Insecure. Breathe, grieve. Sigh. Reprieve. Rhyme, skip. Wherever. While not here. It goes. It works. There, appears, separate. Nouns here, there verbs. Heave. Over. Here, hover. Breathless, lung pumps, bleeds air, or leaks, over there, closer, separate. Where? There is no from there to here. Here and there. Or here. Candor. Overly. Heft. Here is as it is. Leave. Go there. Work. Their blood is heavier than her lung. While not here. Blind. Strong verbs command. Nouns move. Then and now. As if. Where here, there hither. Laugh. Lash. Nearer than there. Not entirely here. Laugh is there. Over there. Under work. Under. Lung sings, blood stains. Underheard. Her ear.

Sunday, April 16, 2006


in my dream, a priest wearing a plain mask of clay, colorless and without any features, barely with narrow slits for the eyes and a wider one for the mouth. behind the mask, deep darkness. the priest was giving a sermon to adolescents. i had followed him there (why in a church?). only i knew there was nothing under the mask. he gestured with his long fingers and, suddenly, addressing me, said: "those whom truth has repelled." the sentence sounded as a portent. something about  went so much against the grain of everyone's expectations that no one even noticed what he said. the palm of his hand turned downward like a flailing leaf, the priest flicked his middle finger as if he wanted to drive me away with it.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006





i think one's life is in fact resistance to life. what i mean is resistance to its fragility, to its failure. in common terms, to poverty, to intertia as sheer existence, to this unwillingness to step out of what suffices or forgetting it in excess of things which efface that memory. everything self-destructs. i am not sure whether it is an instict of self-preservation or desire for suicide that forces one to transform deadly declensions into generative interrogations.

Saturday, April 08, 2006


intymność chmury na wysokości jedenastego piętra staje się w nieosiągalnej, złośliwej wręcz, chęci dotyku, poślizgu, niewyobrażalna. jak może być niewyobrażalnym coś co znajduje się tuż, co ociera się o drugą stronę muru, do szyby łasi się bezdźwięcznie, a w czego chwilowej szczelinie znajduję się właśnie? są słowa, takie jak to ostatnie, które czynią świat prostszym, słowa, które się zapominają i zapominają również, że tutaj wiatr jest dachem, a przez wyrwę w chmurze wydostaje się mglista noc. ciemność widnokręgu to usta, a ja głową haczę o szept. północny wiatr spłaszcza wszystko i możliwe jest, że i nas zmiażdży. wtedy i ty i garnek z herbatą spulchnimy podbrzusza efemeryd. i jeszcze usłyszę: dzisiaj. dzisiaj się tak już nie pisze.

Friday, April 07, 2006


Isabelle, the child story-teller, you must wonder what happened to her, after watching attentively Trolösa, Liv Ullmann's dream of Ingmar Bergman. Isabelle, who never really speaks, a child dancing on the margin of a motion picture, or weeping, or curled up in fear, not a thread that holds the story together; rather unravels it, undoes everyone's stories they tell of themselves.

There is in the midst of happiness an empty point, a speck of nothing, like the period of a sentence (you thought it was what came at the end, but the period is right there in the middle, even before the beginning, a bud of a phrase) into which it slowly folds, coveting the bitter taste of this nothingness that makes happiness, suddenly, incomplete.

A jealous story is haunted by the knowledge of its ghost. Jealousy holds on to empty points, to loose threads, and has this uncanny knack for turning the hero out of his own story, for kicking him out the door, and making him watch, with perverse satisfaction, another take the place he gave up for the sake of setting watch.

A dying vision of a stage director. You didn't believe in his existence, at first. It was only the asymetry of a window that made real the invention of his memory.

Actors playing actors: you doubted their fidelity to the script until you realized that it was up to you to write it.

Isabelle left the room in order to retell the story in a different color.

Thursday, April 06, 2006


sny do ciebie pisze, śnią mi się jak długie listy, jak listy sprawunków na podwieczorek w sobotę, albo listy składników do ciasta drożdżowego; głaszczę je, puchem pokryte liście, palczaste i zaokrąglone; ślę je z wiatrem, i na przełaj, śnią mi się polecone; nie przeczytasz ani ich nie złapiesz, chyba, że za ogon, który rozpłynie ci się w reku jak chmura; mglą się i lgną do ciebie, żarliwe sny podlistne, nie zakorzenione myśli krzaczaste, kłębią się wzdłuż rowów twego porannego czoła, i nic im nie stawisz; listy bez znaczków, sny w kratkę i na przełaj ślę do ciebie nim przysnę nad ranem.

Sunday, April 02, 2006


in my dream, i ride a half-empty university shuttle that is forced to stray from its regular route because of an accident. the first scene takes place in Chicago, where Sheridan Road bends at Loyola, but soon the detour leads into less familiar places: a New York highway, perhaps. places I recognize within the dream but which, at waking, seem merely typically American: forking roads, orange barrels dividing lanes under construction.

the bus is now riding on a shaky wooden bridge. did we take a wrong exit? the bridge is in fact part of a decrepid system of elevated streets, winding around desolate buildings. we are in a different city. the bus is suddenly completely empty. the driver informs me with sadness that all these buildings are now marked for destruction. perhaps he grew up here; he seems to know what all these buildings are.

it is impossible to continue driving. even walking is difficult. smaller passways, providing shortcuts between the larger streets, are rotting, covered with a safety net, its threads also rotting. the buildings are traditional wood-panelled structures. their painted façades make me think of New Orleans. i have a sense of being at the threshold of an event whose outcome i might help determine if knew what to do.

the driver's foot slips, and he almost falls down with the putrefied planks. i don't even know how high we are. it's a separate world up here.

we enter an abandoned restaurant. silent workers sweep algae-covered floors with root-like mops. a souvenir kiosk is open without an attendant or anything to sell; only a rusty postcard rack.

there is something i am trying to remember, but my memory fails.