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Author: ZAGAJEWSKI, ADAM
Matches Found: 109


Zagajewski, Adam    Poet's Biography
109 poems available by this author


ALMA MATER       
First Line: Your alma mater. Red rock in a sea
Last Line: A different whisper, different alma mater


ANECDOTE OF RAIN       
First Line: I was strolling under the tents of trees
Last Line: #name?


ANTON BRUCKNER       
First Line: Dawn, and the scent of clover rises from low meadows
Last Line: Anton bruckner leaves home


APES       
First Line: One day apes made their grab for power
Last Line: Apes, it seems, made their grab for power


AT DAYBREAK    Poem Text    
First Line: From the train window at daybreak
Last Line: The train picking up speed
Subject(s): Railroads; Cities; Desolation


AT DAYBREAK       
First Line: From the train window at daybreak
Last Line: The train picking up speed


AT DAYBREAK       
First Line: From the train window at daybreak
Last Line: The train picking up speed
Subject(s): Identity; Morning


AT MIDNIGHT       
First Line: We'd talked long into the night
Last Line: A cloth on a feverish brow


AUTO MIRROR       
First Line: In the rear-view mirror
Last Line: Great things dwell in small ones %for a moment


AUTUMN    Poem Text    
First Line: Autumn is always too early.
Subject(s): Autumn; Fall


AUTUMN       
First Line: Autumn is always too early
Last Line: And her breath. Anonymous letter, terror, %red army


BALANCE    Poem Text    
First Line: I watched the arctic landscape from above
Subject(s): Air Travel; Landscape


BELLS       
First Line: We'll take refuge in bells, in the swinging bells
Last Line: In bells, those airy carriages, %those bronze balloons


BETRAYAL    Poem Text    
First Line: The greatest delight, I sense
Last Line: A god other than our own
Subject(s): Betrayal; Women


BETRAYAL       
First Line: The greatest delight, I sense
Last Line: A god other than our own
Subject(s): Betrayal; Women


BLACKENED RIVER       
First Line: The blackened river ran through the park
Last Line: In rain as benign as a tear of joy


BLACKENED RIVER RAN THROUGH THE PARK       


BREVIER       
First Line: All the great events of yours
Last Line: The tiny print in footnotes to the poems of norwid


BURGUNDY'S GRASSLANDS       
First Line: Burgundy's grasslands scale the hills
Last Line: Not as long as the lonely keep singing


CANVAS       
First Line: I stood in silence before a dark picture
Last Line: Could have become a winding-sheet, too


CLOSE OF SUMMER       
First Line: The commuter train speeds through detachments
Last Line: September approaches; war, death


COVENANT       
First Line: A moment of quiet covenant
Last Line: The sun rapidly wrote january's %festive proclamations


CREATION OF THE WORLD       
First Line: Mornings, curled asleep in our soft beds
Last Line: Means an ending, not every speech missing means silence


CRUEL       
First Line: In the parc de saint-cloud, birds sang
Last Line: I was impaled by sharp barbs of bliss


DAYBREAK       
First Line: At daybreak, from the train window I see cities
Last Line: At dawn, when stars pale %and the train speeds up


ELECTRIC ELEGY    Poem Text    
First Line: Farewell, german radio with your green eye
Last Line: When the next dictator-rooster crows
Subject(s): Radio


ELECTRIC ELEGY       
First Line: Farewell, german radio with your green eye
Last Line: When the next dictator-rooster crows
Subject(s): Radio


ELEGY FOR THE LIVING       
First Line: The joy of the moment turns suddenly
Last Line: And in the robinias, nightingales sang


ELIADE       
First Line: Romania, melancholy, long treks
Last Line: Laughed inaudibly, in admiration


ERINNA FROM TELOS       
First Line: She was nineteen when she died
Last Line: And an epigram about a grasshopper


EVENING, STARY SACZ    Poem Text    
First Line: The sun sets behind the market square, and the nettle leaves reflect
Subject(s): City & Town Life


FENCE. CHESTNUT TREES       
First Line: A fence. Chestnut trees. Bindweed. God


FIRE       
First Line: Probably I am an ordinary middle-class
Last Line: The arched skull of my country, its hard edge


FIRST COMMUNION    Poem Text    
First Line: Dark gray houses and triangular bay windows
Last Line: Even a second communion
Subject(s): Communions


FLAG       
First Line: In the morning I wake and try to check
Last Line: See it just as I can't see %my own heart


FREEDOM       
First Line: What is freedom? Ask the philosophers
Last Line: I know full well the meaning %of captivity


FROM THE LIVES OF THINGS       
First Line: The perfect skin of things is stretched across them
Last Line: On the wall, the needle of a barometer dances


FRUIT       
First Line: How unattainable life is, it only reveals
Last Line: Swirling, unattainable, free


GOTHIC       
First Line: Who am I here in this cool cathedral and who
Last Line: I feel you, I listen %to your silence


GREAT SHIPS    Poem Text    
First Line: This is a poem about the great ships that wandered
Subject(s): Ships & Shipping


GREEN LINNAEUS       
First Line: Stockholm: green linnaeus in the trees
Last Line: Passerby, one word of live language, please


HE ACTS, IN SPLENDOR AND IN DARKNESS       
Last Line: Owls sometimes its dwindling trace %under their eyelids


HISTORICAL NOVEL       
First Line: Beyond the city limits, plotters scheme
Last Line: Demons sleep, and reason. So much for that


HISTORY OF SOLITUDE       
First Line: Birdsong diminishes
Last Line: High overhead, a small plane cavorts like a dolphin


HOW CLOWNS GO       
First Line: An old clown hands out fliers at the station
Last Line: Invades us, enters us bitterly, like lead between our teeth


I TALKED TO A FRENCHMAN       
First Line: The meaning of the word: independent country
Last Line: In a stony valley among the rocks


IN STRANGE CITIES       
First Line: In strange cities, there's an unexpected joy
Last Line: Of winding-sheets, dreams, and the imagination, %homeless, a


IN THE BRANCHES, WIND       
First Line: In the branches, the wind; lost, half asleep
Last Line: In parts of his requiem


INCORPOREAL RULER       
First Line: Who owns the earth, you
Last Line: Sly smiles, deceitful death


INCORPOREAL RULER       
First Line: Who owns the earth, you
Last Line: So many intermediaries, foxlike faces, %sly smiles, deceitful death


IRON       
First Line: Why it has to be december
Last Line: Only the iron has swollen


ISLANDS AND TOWERS       
First Line: Islands and towers I visited in the dreams
Last Line: Empty train, jail, lecture hall, mud


LATE FEAST       
First Line: Evening, the edge of the city, a whole day
Last Line: In the chinks of a cabin


LAVA       
First Line: And what if heraclitus and parmenides
Last Line: In the evening, and the dawn is hoary with dew


LAVA       
First Line: And what if heraclitus and parmenides
Last Line: And god is and dies; night returns to us %every evening, and dawn is gray-haired from dew


LIGHT OF LAMPS       
First Line: A dose of death occupied your body
Last Line: Since they so quickly find light


LIGHTNING       
First Line: We lived understanding little and craving
Last Line: East or west, mapping our %an escape route


LULLABY       
First Line: No sleep, not tonight. The window blazes
Last Line: Gathers in the room. No sleep, not tonight


MATCHES       
First Line: Nothing's final, not even
Last Line: Put gloves on their flames


MORANDI       
First Line: Even at night, the objects kept vigil
Last Line: The sorrowful hearts of the dying


MOSES       
First Line: Rivers rustling, martins preparing for flight
Last Line: Everything's boredom without you


MOTHS       
First Line: Moths watched us through
Last Line: Through the window, in august


MY AUNTS    Poem Text    
First Line: Always caught up in what they called
Subject(s): Aunts


MY MASTERS ARE NOT INFALLIBLE       
Last Line: I can hear their broken speech


NIGHT       
First Line: Because you're only dead
Last Line: Night passed through day


NIGHT IS A CISTERN    Poem Text    
First Line: Night is a cistern. Owls sing. Refugees tread meadow roads
Subject(s): Night; Walking; Bedtime


ON A SIDE STREET       
Last Line: Licked by pink tongues, infinitesimal orchids


PASSWORD       
First Line: Look, your life, too, is becoming
Last Line: The consoling lie, booze, not hell


PLANS, REPORTS       
First Line: First there are plans
Last Line: What really happens %doesn't attract anyone's attention


POLISH DICTIONARY       
First Line: Lances, banners, sabers, horses
Last Line: They'll become valiant as bronze and steel


POSTCARDS FROM GENOA: 1. IN A STRANGE CITY       
First Line: The light, nearly unreal
Last Line: I'm human, %I feel joy


POSTCARDS FROM GENOA: 2. PIAZZA VITTORIA       
First Line: Cars doze on piazza vittoria
Last Line: And yawns; clouds sail from west to east


POSTCARDS FROM GENOA: 3. COLUMBUS'S HOUSE       
First Line: This is the modest house of someone who
Last Line: Eating our sandwiches, %drinking coca-cola


POSTCARDS FROM GENOA: 4. THE SEA TALKS TO ITSELF       
First Line: The sea talks to itself
Last Line: The sea talks to itself %and us


PRESENCE       
First Line: I was born in a city of wild cherries
Last Line: I know only the mysteries are immortal


R. SAYS       
First Line: Literary rate -- says r. -- that's us
Last Line: Or a tax inspector makes the sign of the cross


RUSSIA COMES INTO POLAND       
First Line: Through meadow and hedgerow, village and forest
Last Line: Russia comes into my poetry


SAILS       
First Line: There were evenings, as scarlet as phoenician sails
Last Line: What a teacher of history you are, earth


SAILS       
First Line: Some evening, scarlet like pheonician sails


SEA WAS ASLEEP       
First Line: The sea was asleep, only occasionally
Last Line: Enveloped us like the future


SELF-PORTRAIT    Poem Text    
First Line: Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
Subject(s): Self


SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON IN THE ABANDONED BARRACKS       
First Line: The sun, the opulent sun of september
Last Line: Autumn fades, %war dims


SEVENTEEN       
First Line: The adolescent franz schubert
Last Line: Meine ruh' ist hin, mein herz ist schwer


SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD       
First Line: Franz schubert, seventeen years old
Subject(s): Composers; Schubert, Franz (1797-1828)


SIMONE WEIL WATCHS THE RHONE VALLEY       
First Line: Suddenly she doesn't comprehend
Last Line: The olive tree of nothingness


SO LOW       
First Line: So low, so low, under the flat
Last Line: Creeping upwards like a grapevine's tendrils


SPIDER'S SONG       
First Line: All the life that once was is where
Last Line: What is, waits for destruction


STONES       
First Line: Now you live behind the black door
Last Line: Is swaddled in longing and fog


SUBMERGED CITY    Poem Text    
First Line: That city will be no more, no halos
Subject(s): City & Town Life


TALK WITH FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE       
First Line: Most highly respected professor nietzche
Last Line: And the great ones keep growing


THAT DAY       
First Line: That day, infinity, as though in sheer fun
Last Line: And, changing shape, pirouetted over the grass


THORNS       
First Line: If, also, the dictators wanted
Last Line: Thorns don't drink blood


TIERRA DEL FUEGO    Poem Text    
First Line: You who see our homes at night
Subject(s): Conduct Of Life


TO GO TO LVOV    Poem Text    
First Line: To go to lvov. Which station
Subject(s): Lvov, Poland; Travel; Lviv, Ukraine; Lemberg, Austria; Journeys; Trips


TO GO TO LVOV. WHICH STATION       
Last Line: It exists, qiuet and pure as %a peach. It is everywhere


TO MYSELF, IN AN ALBUM       
First Line: The grayish cloud flows fast
Last Line: In the earth, in the earth, in the earth


TRIAL       
First Line: One prosecutor (bald, speaks in a low voice)
Last Line: The common divine rosy fire-resistant life


VACATION       
First Line: The dark hair of summer. Beech leaves as tense
Last Line: Bearing the sugared bread of forgetfulness, exaltation


VAPORETTO       
First Line: In the windbreaker's pocket you find
Last Line: The needles of a compass lost at sea


VERSES ABOUT POLAND       
First Line: I read verses about poland
Last Line: The third reich and the third rome


WARM, SMALL RAIN       
First Line: Night, an alien city, I roamed
Last Line: Epoch -- a pilgrim trekking to rome


WATCHING 'SHOAH' IN A HOTEL ROOM IN AMERICA    Poem Text    
First Line: There are nights as soft as fur on a foal
Last Line: We have nowhere to go
Subject(s): Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews; Shoah; Judaism


WATCHING 'SHOAH' IN A HOTEL ROOM IN AMERICA       
First Line: There are nights as soft as fur on a foal
Last Line: We have nowhere to go
Subject(s): Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Jews


WHEN DEATH CAME    Poem Text    
First Line: I wasn't with you when death came
Last Line: Sparrows fighting for crumbs
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


WHEN DEATH CAME       
First Line: I wasn't with you when death came
Last Line: Sparrows fighting for crumbs
Subject(s): Death


WILD CHERRIES       
First Line: Wild cherries sprout on slim
Last Line: By day, sweet when asleep


WIND AT NIGHT       
First Line: The wind rose at night
Last Line: Turned again to sleep, and to love


WITHOUT FORM       
First Line: If there was just this
Last Line: And the weather, which changes, and I, myself, mature, %with


WITHOUT SHAPE       
First Line: If only this exists