♥ 8
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12 May 12 at 2 am
Excerpt from “Notes from a death cell”
Rafał Wojaczek 1966 // trans. J.A.Nowak
(c’est moi)
"MARCHE FUNÈBRE
I am violence, but I’m rotting
The heart is a stain on the mind
The air is rotting like blood
I am indistinct as if spat upon
I make gestures as if I were playing the violin
I always wanted to be a Jew
"
♥ 6
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29 Nov 11 at 2 am
Czesław Miłosz- My Faithful Mother Tongue, 1969. [Originally written in Polish, obviously.]
One of my favorite poems, as I personally find it to be an accurate description of both the Polish language and “Polishness.” The self-imposed victimization, the xenophobia, the feeling of entrapment within a culture of deeply rooted nationalism. Pious and debased. “Hating themselves even more than they hate other nations…. ill with their own innocence.” Truly distilled down to the most pure truth, a rare moment for Miłosz not necessarily in subject matter but in the sheer violence of his language…
"Faithful mother tongue,
I have been serving you.
[…]
Now, I confess my doubt.
There are moments when it seems to me I have squandered my life.
For you are a tongue of the debased,
of the unreasonable, hating themselves
even more than they hate other nations,
a tongue of informers,
a tongue of the confused,
ill with their own innocence.
"
