Edyta Geppert - Gdy mówię nie

and I say no
and I say enough
and I spit over my left shoulder
this bottom like pepper
sucked bone
and when I say it
I know that I lie

and I don't want to take
and I don't want to play
for any pure gold diamond
and within me, Hamlet
his mother
and I lie even
when silent about it

and again I wake with the pale dawn
and I don't know which gods to call
when I hold my own skull in hand
and ask again—
to be or to appear

so God save
from lofty matters
from the tinsel of insulting masks
from paper wreaths, applause
euphoric "corpse looks alive"

this white orchard,
it's snow, it's a flower
I don't know
though I understand with age
that one may come into the world as a God
but dies as a human

and again I wake with the pale dawn
and I don't know which gods to call
when I hold my own skull in hand
and ask again—
to be or to appear

you'll be Hamlet,
you'll be a tower
a weather vane on the roof in seventh heaven
I beg
—I was last season
and still can't come to terms with it

so God—defend,
so God—protect
this is my child
—I have no more
this little hand, it's his hand
a little dumpling of warmth in my hand

I wanted with him in this gray smoke
with the good-natured human menagerie
don't look there, it's theater
in it, mother dies quite seriously