Rafal Wojaczek - ON ONE RHYME

                                              for Jadwiga Z.

As many worlds as flowers in this one world

As much light as eyes in this dark world

As many voices as bells in this mute world

As much faith as fear in this faithless world

As many poems as truths in this uncertain world

As much glory as suffering in this temporal world

As many nooses as defeats in this temporal world

As much happiness as death in this miserable world

Translated by W.F.

Rafal Wojaczek (pron. Rafa'w Voyachek) (1945-1971)

Although born after the end of the war, so he couldn’t have witnessed the Nazi atrocities, Wojaczek is a poet of despair. He suffered from depression, some time he spent in a psychiatric hospital. In the end he took his own life. Although full of desperation, his poems are also very poetical and very musical. After his death he gained a large following. 

Ryszard Krynicki - WHO CHOSES LONELINESS

* * *

Who choses lonliness – will never be alone

Who choses homelessness – will have the roof of the world over his head

Who choses death – wil not cease to live

Who is chosen by death – will die

only this

Translated by W.F.

Ryszard Krynicki (pron. Rishard Krineetzkey) (born 1943)

Born in Austria, most of his life he spent in Poznan, where he was a friend of Baranczak. A few years ago he moved to Cracow. Like Baranczak, he is considered a poet of the “Generation ‘68”, but his poetry formally is very different. He is a master of a short form, like haiku, but he doesn’t write about nature. Instead, his poems are like short thoughts with some kind of transcendental dimension.