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Poetry

Good Later

By Marcin Sendecki
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

“Uh huh” says the streetcar, or it seems to say.
When did the clock with the tune get here, it’s getting harder
to hear. Wrong: tremors should be caught, fixed, accommodated.
How far we’ve come, my dear Statistics, vanilla sugar,

three waters and pudding responds to the deep needs
of the reader, invites him to an exchange, embodies
a philosophy of dialogue. Is there “incomprehensible”
poetry? Of course there is! Incomprehensible poetry

is egocentric poetry, based on adoration of self,
poetry that gets off on itself – narcissistic poetry.
It’s poetry that doesn’t want to share anything
with the person reading it, it only wants

to dazzle the reader, shock, imprison him – floor him
with cascades of metaphors and other smart moves.
It’s essentially laboratory poetry, created for
the admiring eyes of others in the field, in the lab,

laboring over their own fireboxes filled with words
which nobody cares about sugar, water on sale, pudding
not. The other day I found a leaflet in a track suit pocket:
“Come again? To load up on beer, you had to get cheese?”

 

English

“Uh huh” says the streetcar, or it seems to say.
When did the clock with the tune get here, it’s getting harder
to hear. Wrong: tremors should be caught, fixed, accommodated.
How far we’ve come, my dear Statistics, vanilla sugar,

three waters and pudding responds to the deep needs
of the reader, invites him to an exchange, embodies
a philosophy of dialogue. Is there “incomprehensible”
poetry? Of course there is! Incomprehensible poetry

is egocentric poetry, based on adoration of self,
poetry that gets off on itself – narcissistic poetry.
It’s poetry that doesn’t want to share anything
with the person reading it, it only wants

to dazzle the reader, shock, imprison him – floor him
with cascades of metaphors and other smart moves.
It’s essentially laboratory poetry, created for
the admiring eyes of others in the field, in the lab,

laboring over their own fireboxes filled with words
which nobody cares about sugar, water on sale, pudding
not. The other day I found a leaflet in a track suit pocket:
“Come again? To load up on beer, you had to get cheese?”

 

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