Joanna Kurowska
(Poland – USA)
A House That Says Nothing
I’ve slept in a bed that remembers bodies
yours in particular, when it was dying;
It remembers your medications and moans
your courage and fear-and it says nothing
I’ve been in a room that remembers people
your father who was sent to a Nazi Oflag
your brother-navy captain, who took his life
and me-the little girl; and it says no word
I’ve seen a mirror that remembers faces
that others have forgotten; your guests
who were hopeful or drunk, passionate,
generous or foolish-and it keeps silent
I’ve sat at a table that gathered many friends
Kazia-the staunch fighter for a wrong cause
Stasia-the malcontent, kind hearted, boring
And Maryla, whose tragic love never died
The table too has joined the house’s silence
Only today I am venturing to hear it out.
I know, to understand nothing, I must yet
learn the silence of the chair and the lamp.
The End of the World-a Dream
Everyone hid in concrete.
Busy with final errands,
some remained out, in the streets.
They could see the sky above.
The sun, too close to the moon,
burst suddenly. We saw through
the concrete’s dirty windows,
it was dark and cold outside.
Dense fog came. If I must die,
I want to go out and see
how the world ends, said the child
in an old woman’s body.
The air was too pure to breathe
at first. She lay on the ground,
expecting death. The high sky,
the color of mud, bubbled.
Drops were falling like stars;
then burst into a vapor
Huge flowers formed in the air,
intensely green and solid.
A wall of fantastic shapes
unrolled. Her death behind her,
she only feared the woman
with a child, once seen on a train.
The child called “Let’s go and pick
dandelions!” The woman snarled,
“Sit down!” Their train keeps rolling
through a world that never ends.
This poem first appeared in Off the Coast
Encounters
You are asking me, daughter, why
my face, pensive and caring
appeared before your mother’s eyes
in her sleep? and where am I?
Why did I appear before her?
Why did I not come to you?
But what does it mean to appear,
daughter-and what is a face?
On all the roads I’ll be running
to you. I’ll beat in your heart,
fill your mind, dwell in your sight
but you will never see me.
Look at the honeybees dancing
around your friend’s grave, as if
the air contained some wax and milk;
as if some honey were in it.
A Dream House
There is a house, old and decrepit
I can take care of only in my dream
Here is the living room—or a bathroom—
The water on the floor must be mopped
Here is the kitchen with a tree in its midst
Oh, so many spider webs to remove!
Here is a drawer full of yellowed papers
in a desk, near the wall soft with mold
Each time I venture to walk upstairs,
my feet plunge through the cracks
Whoever distributes dreams, please
make mine last longer
so that I clean this house
before I wake up
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Joanna Kurowska is a bi-lingual poet-immigrant currently writing in English. She is the author of four books of poetry: Inclusions (forthcoming in 2013, from Cervena Barva Press), The Wall & Beyond (eLectio Publishing, 2013); Ściana (The Wall), 1997 and Obok (Near), 1999 (the last two books published in Poland). Kurowska’s poems in English have appeared in Apple Valley Review, Bateau, Christianity & Literature, The Green Door, Illuminations, International Poetry Review, Off the Coast, Oklahoma Review, Room Magazine, Solo Novo, and elsewhere. A Joseph Conrad scholar, Kurowska holds a doctorate in literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2007). Her critical works appeared or are forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, The Conradian, Joseph Conrad Today, NewPages, Religion And The Arts, Sarmatian Review, Slavic and East European Journal, Southern Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has taught at American universities, including the University of Chicago and Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JoannaKurowskapoetry?ref=hl
Photographs by John Brownell