POLAND

greg.spis@wp.pl

four seasons jazz quartet
for my mother Angela

I wish I knew
what you were thinking about
before the tree of your life
burnt out
before the last leaves of your thoughts
slightly glimmering in the air
touched the ground
one after another
did you have a picture of me
in your mind
maybe I shared that picture
with god
I don’t believe in
with those you always loved
a lot of the leaves fell down
got deep inside in me
some of them
were a scattered vision of me
like in a broken mirror
reflecting the single moments of your life
our life
I never let you put it together
you could catch but the dropping bits of me
that terrible fight
for hope
you didn’t see us the last time
I was the only one
who turned around
to have a glance of you once more
still remember
the pale stuffy room
face in tears
turned to the window
we seemed to be the last
to leave an ancient city
desolate and calm
breathing in the rest of sunset
yet still full of inner sounds
of yesterday
mingling and echoing around
in the streets
now abandoned

son gregory

thrown out of the cocoon

the day got angry with the dawn
instilling the eyes with the grey light

thrown out of the cocoon
I don’t believe in my own wings
which colour has rubbed into the blood
into the rough skin of the tree

there’s left but a piece of me
a bit of warmth in the palm of time
that’s gonna close up
when
I don’t know

thrown out of the cocoon
I know
the birds cannot so easily
paint the freedom of the blue sky
at sunrise

let me have another dream
the silence of stars
the calm of leaves
flowing in my veins with ease
like a hot wind]

Venetian thoughts

I pegged out my thoughts
white
colourful
clean & chaste
just like laundry
on the rope
after a suicide
without a loop
slackly
like in Venice
and they
in the sun
like a colourful rug
on the water
rubbing against
the edges
of the houses
the boats
people

Katowice, Summer ‘99, Saturday, 19.26 p.m.

...sitting at the table in the open air under the great umbrella
in front of the frog fountain, in the Bodega restaurant, Stawowa
street, I was drinking a beer and ...

two
junkies
stuck
in the dirt of the wall
raising in their hands
the white flames of their ice-creams
like triumphant torches
in the fragile cornets of time
of wafer
their bodies of wafer
soaking in the cool glow
the fire is leaking fast
scorching their palms
burning out their thoughts
in the wafer
like a short-feature tattoos
until it stops burning
together with them
leaving the sticky trace
on the low wall
that will be licked greedily
by the rain

on the booze

the morning sun
has bitten
a piece of the communist
block of flats
there were some Catholics’ heads
starring taken aback
out from the ferro-concrete hole
poor & browbeaten
like a church thought
at the altar
scared
of the glitz magnitude

I’ve crossed the highway
quite easily
into the unbelief of the mist
it was stronger
than the astonishment of the tenants

like a grey cat
the gloom’s creeping
stealing the shapes
of our bodies

I light my face
over the calm of stars
spelling the colour’s heat
in my palms

like a sad beggar
playing with starlight
the sharp moon
cutting your breast open

I’m growing into your flesh
like a bird into the sky
you’re growing in me
like a silence sound

to your heat of mouth
like a bird’s blood
in your nudity
I’m under arrest

two drops of lips
ease the heat
I could drink you up
‘till the end of greed

naked sword of dawn
cut the night off
the heavy daydrop
fell upon us

like a human scream
the glare’s got crazy
the wild warm sun
bursting out in us

July, 26th. for Carmen
...from a journey to the USA
that has never happened

I was lying on the beach
holding a plastic
sandwich bag
in both hands
over my head
I wanted to catch
the sun going down
and when it slid slowly
right inside
I got up quickly
to take it home
for ever
but it burst out
through the bottom
and sank softly
somewhere in the European sea
this is what the American sun is like
always free

© All Copyright, Gregory Spis.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.