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Discover our poem explanations - click here!Searching... 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 |
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