Two Poems by Krzystof Siwczyk (b. 1977)

A Distillate

Small facial bones pointing at. 
Here rests the kingdom of this world.

The infiltration of trees increases, it overtakes the camp,

Behind which the sun fades, chaffs and

All of that sees us.

Most clearly.

The monk’s blue jeans whisper in the light

Windward, when the voice implodes

Over the plain, the one we are thinking about now

Without us, as if anything took place,

Had its time and could exist

In our form.

Nothing exists in our form.

The blue jeans are silent about it, the plain is thinking about it,

Time sees it. Here in this place moves

The infiltration, the bones scatter down the steps,

Which lead upward.

Thirty-three.

Translated by Kacper Bartczak

Description of a Human Figure 

A figure strung blindly 
Along a malarial river,

Channeled in a ditch toward

Stagnant water, where it fades out like mud.

A hearth of rather loud bones,

A rice paddle, paper made directly

From the source of experience with no participation

Of the subject or object of its reflection.

A road paved across a plain

Cuts through the wood in which it will find nothing

But the sawing of the cicadas and the dust

It was not made of, there being no such need.

A colony of ponds, a house on palings,

An awning protecting a place to live in.

The road that leads nowhere.

Its goal shines on it from there.

Translated by Kacper Bartczak