Because 88 is a good age to die

"Of course, life crosses politics," she said in an interview with The New York Times after winning the Nobel in 1996. "But my poems are strictly not political. They are more about people and life."--quote from news article "Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-Winning Polish Poet, Dies at 88"

this is life & people as i know it, ms szymborska

trying to read or write through the shrill
volume of "willing willie", an evening
program, where the toothless
the thin the overweight the lame
the halt the innocent catapult
their bodies & voices for a
few thousand pesos or more,
dignity be damned

transacting business through SMS
because as you may not know it
many writers in my country
have mastered the art of compromise

they are classified as "vendors" in
some official contracts,
short of calling them hacks
and/or intellectual prostitutes
to fill in the spaces between
the ears of the powerful
the ears of the entrenched,
whether high low middle level,
just so the rapid flapping of bats
in their mental belfry
are not within hearing range

beyond that mercantile existence,
the other way is clandestine propaganda,
an activity for which you face the risk
of landing in a dank cell
in some godforsaken island
sharing space & pallet of a bed
with petty thieves swindlers illegal gamblers

integrity in my country
& years of any kind of commitment
to art to craft to what our own szymborskas
call the expression of remembered pain
are rewarded with the complex
labyrinths of red tape

one cannot even march up
to a bank manager & claim integrity or
recommendations on the goodness or
even credibility of your person
as collateral for a loan

in my country, without an ID
(a passport, preferably,
with your complete name
--first second middle married name--
or an affidavit of inconsistency if you use
two three names)
you don't exist in this world
you are left holding a check
not worth the half bucket
of blood you sweated
while you labored
over words words words
or restringing another's
words words words

gentleness has no place in our country,
kind lady

although ours has been compared to poland
& our people power revolt
inspired your velvet revolution,
the true poets writers in general
are better off shipped
to some gulag

that way their gentleness is totally
dissolved
it is allowed to dissipate
with decades
of cold indifference from
those who matter in their lives

resentment at,
rebellion against authority
will be stamped out

if they are not yet dead by then
they can be rehabilitated
into efficient cogs in
the government's propaganda machine
professors fighting tooth & nail over sinecures
or just functional doormats
for others to
step on & wipe their shoes with

good journey to you
you who has just been welcomed in paradise
where the "un-photogenic poets"
need no film to commemorate
their hellish earthly lives.


--Babeth Lolarga

sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/books/wislawa-szymborska-nobel-winning-polish-poet-dies-at-88.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

http://payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/11/18/three-poems-by-wislawa-szymborska/