As poet and constant wanderer John Gallas continues his adventures around the globe, here are some poems inspired by his latest trip to Poland:
I. Fryderyk Chopin Airport
Along the board
and quiet keys
of escalators
our baggages and we
pass like fingers
travelling
from memory.
 |
| Ghetto |
II. Sunday in Łazienkowski Park
The factious King’s estate
remains
his houses, lakes and lawns.
The space left by the Jews
has been
described, and occupied.
 |
| Pretty Wroclaw |
III. The reconstruction of pretty Wrocław
Before the Heritageous Piles
o tell thyself
that Everything is Interesting.
Two fat angel heave
a burning and a fallen
spire back home.
 |
| Brzeg custard ratucz |
IV. Small town Brzeg
The custard Ratucz bongs at ten to two.
A Fiat flaps across cobbles.
One cab sleeps on the Square.
Der Burger Ionas sleeps with God.
And I snap the Odra
with a fisheye lense
where it shifts between
oak trees and green wheat.
 |
| Reconstructing Angels |
V. Hordes in Kraków
Taranta –
and the Watchman
tower-trumpet
be shot.
Clippety-clop,
Chingis takes the town !
and General Degustation.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul play
chess for time,
hid behind a hail of
luminous helicopters.
 |
| Salt Mine Virgin |
VI. Even down the Salt Mines
Here be no monsters.
A taste for salt
and driven delve
suffice to occupy
salt Virgins, salt Popes,
salt Battles, salt Hopes,
salt Cabbages and Kings,
and all the usual things
season the usual Man.
 |
| Auschwitz Document |
VII. Grater on display at Auschwitz I
Bobo brought
the grater
because he thought
he would grate
potater
later
make dumplings
or sumplings
Ah, he is gone.
Some things remain :
how little it behoves us to complain.
*
 |
| Fisheye Odra |
John Gallas was born in 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand. He came to England in 1971 to study Old Icelandic at Oxford, and stayed. He has worked for many years as a teacher with the Leicestershire Behaviour Support Team. He has published ten collections of poetry with Carcanet Press and edited the anthology of world poetry The Song Atlas (2002). Swims like a fish, cycles like a windmill.
www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk
www.johngallaspoetry.co.uk
The Carcanet Blog Sale
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With every blogpost we offer 25% off a Carcanet title, or titles by a particular author or group of authors.
For the next two weeks, we're giving you 25% off John Gallas' Forty Lies
