GOSIA BORZESZKOWSKA

 

GOSIA BORZESZKOWSKA

The Summer’s Half

 

The summer’s half, in half, together

we want to enter, roll like a pebble

like some warm nuggets on the beach

to sink in summer. And we’re dreaming,

that while along the way through autumn,

the one with winds and mud and rain,

That we are wrapped in summer musing,

like in a scarf which soothes the chills.

In winter, when it snows or clods,

when you have wet slush in your shoes,

it's the recall of July that sweetens you

like honey does. The sun from windows,

that perched behind a percal curtain

and wove a nest of golden threads,

may it warm up and brighten time,

while out there, behind the glass,

it's cold and wet, wind-combed grass.

And then before spring’s in its full

swings in the whimpers, squeaks and trills,

before the blue bells and the larks,

let, let a summer’s speck be with us.

And we together and in duet,

though all in autumn auburn notes,

we'll roll harmlessly through the world

like two small pebbles, in golden shoes.

 

A Collector

 

I am a collector of abandoned landscapes,

places with empty, human-less spaces,

uninhabited sites,

I collect the remains of the walls stone by stone,

I supplement them with branches and wind, clay mixed with grass,

I accentuate the clouds on the sharp bends of the walls

 

I collect porcelain faces and names, sometimes I remove arid moss,

though not very often- it seems a reincarnation of stones,

I am a collector of voices among the bushes, green flashes

on rusty knockers of memory doors, windows with no views

for the future

 

with my knee I stuff the spectral souvenirs in the drawers

on time

after time

 

A Very Cold Spring

 

we're like this spring,

eternal, windy, old as the world,

and still in our infancy,

we slide our fingers out of our pockets to shake someone's hand and quickly put them back,

without warmth on your fingertips,

without other people's fingerprints - traces of a still-fragile hope

 

we're like this spring, putting our foot out the door

and we go back, take off our warm boots, put on our fears

on wrong feet, another way round,

we dabble in them like this spring that can't reach us for good;

camouflaged, she sneaks through the park's alleys

and throws us a glint of sunshine on the window frame like alms,

vaccinates us with hope—then comes just a brief post-vaccinal reaction--

afterimages of green reflected on the bottom of the eye

and whitened hair,

and we, the eternal followers of spring,

we know that only a grayish meadow, a forest

and the oblivious, singing tits

can immunize us

 

for everything,

even for life

 

GOSIA BORZESZKOWSKA

 

GOSIA BORZESZKOWSKA: A History and English teacher, born in Gdańsk in 1964, lives in Poland in the Pomeranian region by the Baltic Sea. She graduated from University of Gdańsk and Pomeranian Academy in Słupsk, teaches in primary and middle schools. In the past (1984) had an episode of being a political prisoner. She has been writing poems for nearly 20 years, being rewarded in many smaller and larger poetry contests. Her poems were published in three poetic books and in many anthologies of poetry. Poems were also printed in several literary periodicals such as "Akant" or "Neony", as well as in the online Helicopter, Fabrica Librorum or Pisarze.pl. The second volume of poems “Inscribed in the landscape” ("Wpisani w pejzaż") was published in 2019 year. The newest one "On the border of silence and light" (Na pograniczu ciszy i światła) has appeared this year, being awarded in the Contest of Pomeranian and Kashubian Literature. She belongs to the Gdańsk Poets’ Club (Gdański Klub Poetów) and Polish Authors' Association and sometimes works as a jury member in poetry contests. Accidently helps friends and recites their poems on the Internet radio. In her free time she paints as an amateur