Poem 6 by Adam Czarnowski

Below is another poem written by Adam Czarnowski, which he has kindly given me permission to reproduce. There are currently 18 others poems by Adam here: Adam's poetry page. I hope that you enjoy these as much as I have. At the bottom of the page you can return to poem 5 or onwards to poem 7(SJ)

Report of Corks

Pick up your housekeys on the way out

Across stretched skies and limitless landladies

Burning like a cross or symbol

You throb like buses that wend up into limitless hills

Past unlimited nets full of olive and trees

Dry-stoned terraces that piston your needs and knot you

You frame your geezers and the bitter vine twist between your fingers

And old cloth is damp in your sandy hands

And the salt on your sky grows across you

And your beds is tangled with weeds

And you leave your passport in old bus stations

That fed you filled kolokithakia and piperies

And the whitewashed buildings look scruffier

In the roads that lead to burning seas

Hot gasoline terraces flamed with taxis

The whole seaside intense with pianos and malotira

And the smell of paint on doorways and donkeys

And breakfast above the damp stones of Chania harbour

To time and brave your indifference

The old drunken broads in the music bar by the arsenals

The whole thing bruised by your sunburn and acidulated water

The whole thing aged by your siren and scrofular beauty

You buy up records to empty your eggplant

And the screaming beach pushes chairs into the overturned sea

Till the rocks bleed and climb to the top of the hill to see

the white houses

And your bus drags its fingernails into the ancient sea

as it stares over its roads and the valleys

And the Canadian Greek sees the tourists lost in his lovely land

And wants them eat asphalt and breathe bitumen

To drink raki fresh from the still to be burned with briki and full flavoured coffee

And the cake crumbs wiped from the empty evening

Until everything has gone but light and smell

And there are nothing but meaningful shadows and glances

That escape over the table like the report of corks

Poem Number 5 Poem Number 7