new poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz Page A

extraction
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    this Zarathustra of Naumburg
part Polish gentleman
part Übermensch
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    asks himself
his mother
his sister
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    why am I so wise
bold unique crucified
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    don’t trouble your head over it
counsels his mother
concentrate on those Greeks of yours
or compose something
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    His sister “liebes Lama”
is just back from South America
she’s a little anxious but proud
that her brother stands straight

and looks like a soldier (“fast”)
“auch Magen und Unterlieb in Ordnung”
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    Fritz left for the train station
carrying flowers but without the big sword
that he took to the photographer’s
and to the war (as a stretcher bearer)
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    then as befits an eagle
he sought out an eyrie
in Genoa and environs
“sono contento”
he wrote home
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    the good residents of Genoa
call him “il piccolo santo”
“il santo”
has regretfully given up
the notion of eternal return
he makes himself risotto macaroni
(without onion or garlic)
tomatoes artichokes with egg
diet is the essence of philosophy
what one eats is expelled
in the form of thought
“die ewige Wiederkunft”
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    he asked his mother what
“ordinary” “simple” people eat
what our poor eat

“solitary Nietzsche”
did not know “simple” people
had not encountered poverty
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    our people
dear Fritz
from morning to night eat potatoes
fatty meat
pigmeat
wash it down with schnapps
and drink a catlap
they call coffee
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    oh! Mama
just an endless round of pork
potatoes catlap
sauerkraut?
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    how little I know our nation
I’ve always eaten alone
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    but it’s all the fault
of the Social Democratic leaders
Mama...
a man ought to be
brought up for a soldier
a woman for a soldier’s wife
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    with tears in his eyes
he parted company with the idea

of eternal return
understanding
that eternal returns to Naumburg
are nothing special
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    the climate was “wrong” and the food
and the neighbors
and his sister Lama and his mother
however dear she was . . .
and his aunts!
can an eagle have aunts?
even if they’re kind and affectionate
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    â€œdas Meer liegt bleich
und glänzend da
es kann nicht reden”

philosophers
    â€œDas Wesen der Wahrheit
Ist die Freiheit”
wrote Martin Heidegger
in 1930
then he joined
the Nazi party
“Hampelmann der Nazis”
he was called
by the righteous among philosophers
Karl Jaspers
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    but he too was wrong
when he told Hannah Arendt
who was frightened by Hitler’s victory
“Das Ganze ist eine Operette
Ich will kein Held in einer Operette sein”
H. A. emigrated . . .
and he and Gertrude
his Jewish wife
realized
that this was no operetta
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    a crystal night fell
on Germany and on Europe
the starry sky dimmed
the moral law died

what Aquinas saw
    a note in the margin
of an article by Father Tadeusz Bartoś
“The Curious World
of Thomas Aquinas”
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    on December 6 1273
during mass he has an experience
that makes him give up writing
“I cannot write any longer,
I have seen things next to which
all my writings are as straw”
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    What did Aquinas see?
“I have seen things” he said
and stopped speaking
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    what things?
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    Aquinas did not understand
women children or art
–so they say–maybe he was afraid
maybe he didn’t want to understand
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    â€œI have seen things”
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    maybe he saw a woman angel
giving birth to a child

a god and redeemer
maybe he saw God
the Father and the Mother
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    maybe he saw
a woman priest
smiling at him
flirtatiously
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    maybe he saw his own
conception and birth
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    and understood that woman
is not a mistake of nature
but is nature itself
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    through Aristotle I feel
a certain indistinct connection
with this Father of the Church
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    I’m impressed by the weight
of his flesh spirit and reason
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    he reminds me physically
of Doctor Martin Luther
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    this