1.
we shouldn’t have moved from the Town
(Leopoldov)
 
Dad was promoted and transferred to another prison
(she said)
 
who eighty three years ago
(thirty thousand days)
 
was born in a city
(on Kapitulska Street)
 
in the Town I wouldn’t have lost my memory
because we had family there
 (you talk to each other you give life to memories)
 
all of them now are under ground
(she’d have met with the family’s children and grand-children
whom she’ll never get to know and they‘re not aware she exists)
 
now I’ve remained here alone
( it’s seldom that I meet the children of friends)
 
this is the worst imprisonment
(she was thinking of loneliness I think of the loss of memory)
 
 
2.
I tried
to remember
 
but those names kept 
changing vanishing changing
their crowds of people that incessantly
 
passed through and still pass through the city
 
with a perfect sense of the present  
they give the impression of permanent residents
 
(ability of the crowd
to create individuals
equal thanks to the single aim
     
of distinguishing themselves)
 
I don’t want to stop
naming in memory again
but again and again I lose the ability
to find my bearings in the days
that pass through the city
and
all appear as one
(according to statistics visitors to this city remain
on average one day)
 
3.
every city
where I live
lasts one day
 
a single-use city
 
for the second day
I consume another
 
a city should be healthy
clean and recyclable
 
so that the least possible rubbish results
 
so that we have
a clean and recyclable
 
conscience when we decide  
to consume another
 
to throw the last one
in
 
4.
days pass through the city
like images
 
I pass through the city
I assemble images 
I assemble the city
I record it on maps
 
I pass through the city like days
I record the days on maps
     
days as days
 
images as images
 
as I pass through from one street to the next
I decide
 
how I’ll speak what I’ll say what I‘ll do 
 
or
 
situations pass through the city like days
     
on the maps I record the situations too
     
action is
decision is
precedent is
 
images pass through the city like situations
     
they pass through the city according to the maps 
 
 
5.
here I have left my memory
 
these are remnants
of the former city
the city a few days ago
 
it is covered with other cities as upper floors
 
memory that depends on chance
 
may be revealed only
in the building of a future city
 
its creators are reburied
on the next underground level
memory that depends on the memory of others
 
6.
 
my memory will grasp nothing
the ivy tendrils remain powerless
     
a concrete wall is immune
to the organism of the urban plant
 
tones of grey surfaces are impressive from on high
two-dimensional transitions 
between vertical and horizontal
 
synapses
transposed by the mobile
shadow
 
my memory has nothing to grasp
 
maybe I forgot the essential
information which would
reveal in the disposition
 
of surfaces
 
the aim
 
maybe the information awaits me
around the corner
I would have found it
if I had managed
 
to go by the slippery vertical slope
but it is not certain if
it’s there
or
how I would afterwards
 
climb
     
down
 
it’s never certain even if I am fully
 
inside
 
it’s not certain how many floors are below me
 
I don’t remember which
the car is parked on
 
the lifts are full of people
passing through
     
the number of floors surprises me
 
someone stepped on my foot
     
I’m never the one
who presses the number
 
maybe that’s precisely what’s wrong
 
this way I won’t stumble
on
the information round the corner
     
if it were there
they’d trample it
     
the propagators
 
select buy and go
     
they know that nothing awaits them
they know which floor they’re parked on
 
they themselves await no one
accustomed to the dry urban storms 
they do not hear what
the thunders say
 
they do not distinguish
between exterior and interior
     
they do not await another day
they know it will arrive and they’ll be able
to choose for themselves
their nearest ones
 
to choose and buy
that right other
and new
day according to
their needs and thoughts
     
they need not seek
but avoid
 
learn get rid of
find
 
simple shapes and outer sides
 
alternation
of grey surfaces
 
Translated by John Minahane