Magdalena Bielska war born in 1980. She is a poetry writer and short children stories. Her debut, Brzydkie zwierzęta (Ugly Animals) poetry book, brought her Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna Prize for best debut in the poetry category in 2006 and a nomination for the Gdańsk Literary Prize “European Freedom Poet”. Before that she published in Odra and Studium. In 2009 her second poetry book was released Wakacje, widmo (Holiday, ghost). The third poetry book is under way. She lives in Kraków.
Under a sugar rock
Under a sugar rock various affairs:
a rounded island, a liquid planet that came into view in the sky one day.
Never to vanish again.
Later we lived on for many years, falling asleep to the sound of songs from a time gone by:
sorrowful melodies chanted by young and agreeable Korean boys,
once we went to drink some coffee,
we rinsed our swollen eyes with fireflies;
death was beautiful and harmonious
like the paintings of the great masters,
still, everything gets boring at some point.
Even falling in love: I was permanently in love,
I licked up sugar and dewdrops,
forever hungry,
now I go by on what’s left from the atmosphere,
I don‘t know the scale of damage,
the new landscape doesn’t change at all:
it looks as if it’s f r i e n d l y towards man.
Echoes
Here’s where we’ll play us some music.
I also think that we’ll drink some plain vodka;
I’m rather reconciled, I will not convulse with pain.
We complain that they don’t come out
While in fact
It’s hard to squeeze through the crowd.
It’s just that some can hear while others can’t, it’s a matter of chance and inexorability.
If we diverted sounds to suit me exclusively
then I would also hear:
the breathing, the constant buzz, the hum,
as if someone in space had left the radio on.
It’s boredon and patience for now,
careless postcards from a holiday.
translated by Ola Bilińska
