Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Another Look at Pornography There’s nothing more debauched than thinking. —Wisława Szymborska, “An Opinion on the Question of Pornography” Reading the Polish Nobel Laureate’s opinion on the question of pornography, a question that much obsesses me, I was disappointed by its sidestep into the airy realm of thought, as if viewing smut has no traffic with thinking. Wandering round a Chelsea flea market today, I chanced upon a box of yellowed porno mags. In one called Don , dated 1974, fully pictured with twenty-something boys doing the nasty, was a report on “Homosexualität in Singapur.” Not knowing German, I could only make out two names, New Nation and old Bugis Street. What would the Nobel Laureate make of that happy coincidence of knowledge, home and sex? Or my refusal to pay $20 for that piece of luck?

Black Cloud My identifying features are rapture and despair. —Wisława Szymborska, “Sky,” translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh The very tall chimney on the very tall building had been glumly silent all winter. This morning, finally, it had something to say for itself. Whatever it said shot up so quickly that it was lost in the space behind the sky. The black smoke flew after it, half-heartedly, then spread out like a net that catches nothing but its own unknotting. It tried to keep some kind of good form by pretending to be a wispy cloud but the wind, or else its own smoky nature, wouldn’t let it. It tinged the real clouds black for a bit and then the description was gone.

Almost Nothing In It The Great Mother’s visage is her bulging belly with its blind navel in the middle. —Wisława Szymborska, “A Palaeolithic Fertility Fetish,” translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh After we are gone for a very long time, our archeologists will discover a tube of lubricant in the ashes of the fireplace while digging for the silver music discs we played. The tube, the length of a hand, makes no sound even when it is shaken vigorously. It goes thud , thud when it slaps the fired bricks. It hardly squeaks when it is rubbed. It must be inserted into a slightly bigger cylindrical slot in a machine like the juice maker unearthed yesterday. Its top comes off, the plastic screw threads worn down like teeth. It smells like adhesives. There is almost nothing in it, but the boys at the lab will make sure. Then it will be cleaned and classified and labeled in a traveling show that will attract a heated ephebe to compose a poem. He will, o...

from The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry : As an "unsurpassable model of the writer's craft and a constant encouragement to trascend the obvious with thought," she has cited Montaigne's adage "See how many ends this stick has!" Here's one that fits, despite such different circumstances, Singapore, as well as Poland: Unexpected Meeting We are very polite to each other, insist it's nice meeting after all these years. Our tigers drink milk. Our hawks walk on the ground. Our sharks drown in water. Our wolves yawn in front of the open cage. Our serpents have shaken off lightning, monkeys--inspiration, peacocks--feathers. The bats--long ago now--have flown out of our hari. We fall silent in mid-phrase, smiling beyond salvation. Our people have nothing to say. Translated from thye Polish by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A Maguire