Poem of the Day

Happy Pi Day! Because I’m a nerd I baked two pies to take to work and found a pi poem to post. 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288…

Pi
By Wislawa Szymborska

The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also just a start,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can’t be grasped, six five three five, at a glance,
eight nine, by calculation,
seven nine, through imagination,
or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison
four six to anything
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth ends at thirty-odd feet.
Same goes for fairy tale snakes, though they make it a little longer.
The caravan of digits that is pi
does not stop at the edge of the page,
but runs off the table and into the air,
over the wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, the clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bloatedness and bottomlessness.
Oh how short, all but mouse-like is the comet’s tail!
How frail is a ray of starlight, bending in any old space!
Meanwhile two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size
the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three sixth floor
number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade and a code,
in which we find how blithe the trostle sings!
and please remain calm,
and heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not pi, that won’t happen,
it still has an okay five,
and quite a fine eight,
and all but final seven,
prodding and prodding a plodding eternity
to last.

This one was also mentioned by a reader. It’s a horrifyingly matter-of-fact description of people’s last moments, before the bomb goes off.

The Terrorist, He Watches
By Wislawa Szymborska

The bomb will go off in the bar at one twenty p.m.
Now it’s only one sixteen p.m.
Some will still have time to get in,
Some to get out.

The terrorist has already crossed to the other side of the street.
The distance protects him from any danger,
And what a sight for sore eyes:

A woman in a yellow jacket, she goes in.
A man in dark glasses, he comes out.
Guys in jeans, they are talking.
One seventeen and four seconds.
That shorter guy’s really got it made, and gets on a scooter,
And that taller one, he goes in.

One seventeen and forty seconds.
That girl there, she’s got a green ribbon in her hair.
Too bad that bus just cut her off.
One eighteen p.m.
The girl’s not there any more.
Was she dumb enough to go in, or wasn’t she?
That we’ll see when they carry them out.

One nineteen p.m.
No one seems to be going in.
Instead a fat baldy’s coming out.
Like he’s looking for something in his pockets and
at one nineteen and fifty seconds
he goes back for those lousy gloves of his.

It’s one twenty p.m.
The time, how it drags.
Should be any moment now.
Not yet.
Yes, this is it.
The bomb, it goes off.

Thank heavens my poetry buddy bailed me out again today! I seem to have too many things to do which trump sitting around beefing up my poetry file, but I still feel lazy.

Some People Like Poetry
By Wislawa Szymborska

Some people—
that means not everyone.
Not even most of them, only a few.
Not counting school, where you have to,
and poets themselves,
you might end up with two per thousand.

Like—
but then, you can like chicken noodle soup,
or compliments, or the color blue,
your old scarf,
your own way,
petting the dog.

Poetry—
but what is poetry, anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.

—Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Well, since I had time to look up PotD links, I have time to post a poem that caught my eye at Poetry 180 (since I couldn’t just “recommend” the site without even checking it out a little).

The End and the Beginning
By Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

A friend just sent this to me, so here you go…

ABC
By Wislawa Szymborska

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
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.)