***
Somewhere deep inside the crystal ball, in concrete
groves,
in the country of quartz, salt
water,
someone felt an urge to pay me a visit.
When eventually he drops by, during an autumn
storm, it turns out he speaks no Danish whatsoever.
What’s more,
he doesn’t know Mongolian which I have no idea about
either.
My guest looks like a big hairy
hen.
We sit in the kitchen for a few days. In silence
we eat cheese, chasing it with cannabis
smoke.
Understanding without words is possible — the smoke
offers amorous solutions…
Our stash on the window sill
dwindles fast. Eventually the visitor
disappears for good.
The old people were right when they twisted
their lips funnily over my oak
cradle.
The crystal ball, the groves… Yes, certainly
understanding without words is possible.
Grzegorz Wróblewski was born in 1962 in Gdańsk and grew up in Warsaw. Since 1985 he has lived in Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, drama and other writings. A renowned visual artist, he has exhibited his paintings in Denmark, Germany, England and Poland. English translations of his work are available in
Our Flying Objects (trans. Joel Leonard Katz, Rod Mengham, Malcolm Sinclair and Adam Zdrodowski, Equipage 2007),
A Marzipan Factory (trans. Adam Zdrodowski, Otoliths 2010),
Kopenhaga (trans. Piotr Gwiazda, Zephyr Press 2013),
Let’s Go Back to the Mainland (trans. Agnieszka Pokojska, Červená Barva Press, 2014),
Zero Visibility (trans. Piotr Gwiazda, Phoneme Media 2017),
Dear Beloved Humans (trans. Piotr Gwiazda, Dialogos Books 2023),
I Really Like Lovers of Poetry (trans. Grzegorz Wróblewski and Marcus Silcock Slease, Červená Barva Press 2024), and
Tatami in Kyoto (trans. Grzegorz Wróblewski, Literary Waves Publishing 2024). Wróblewski is also the author of
Shanty Town (Post-Asemic Press 2022), a book of asemic writing. He has been awarded scholarships from the Danish Literature Council (Litteraturrådet) and the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond).
Ben Borek grew up in South London. His previous novel in verse,
Donjong Heights, published by Egg Box, was a cult hit back in 2008, and his poetry has been published in the anthologies
City State (Penned in the Margins),
London, A History in Verse (Harvard University Press), and
Dear World & Everyone in it (Bloodaxe). He has read his work at festivals throughout the UK and Europe, and audio of his work is available at the Archive of the Now (archiveofthenow.org). He lives in Warsaw with his partner and son and is employed variously as a copywriter, editor, translator and voiceover artist.
Adam Zdrodowski is a writer, translator and musician (recording under the moniker Moon Machinery) working in English and Polish. He is the author of four collections of poetry:
Przygody, etc. (2005),
Jesień Zuzanny (2007),
47 lotów balonem (2013) and
Moon Machine (2019). He has translated authors such as Sarah Perry, Gertrude Stein, William S. Burroughs and Grzegorz Wróblewski, among others. His poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including
Jacket, Past Simple, 3:AM Magazine, the Danish
Polsk poesi (trans. Frej Larsen and Paweł Partyka), and the Swedish
OEI. He lives in Warsaw, Poland.
