Gratophoph

By Andrew Zawacki
This is not a waiting room
for souls. It is modern,
totally unwindowed.
 
The sun threw a ray away,
               lost two rays it’s
raining here in the room.
 
On the beach it looks very
evening already, money
removed from the world:
 
if one travels somewhere
and back again, one is
always different—we are not
 
separated on the journey.
My mouth keeps spr-
      inging open.
 
Everything does not
have to have
a limit
 
: varnish out,
dooryear—winter
ice is caught in winter,
 
I plunged myself but not
under. (I can’t
pull it out of my head,
 
      can I.) Godthrough:
a word with a star tied around
      it, it
 
has to hit someone.
Was such a storm
the trees fell over,
 
there was a storm
against. I have got a lot
more songs in my mouth:
 
Shudderhorror.
      Souldoll.
            Shiverbeard,
 
            is there much enough snow?
            is that supposed to be lakes
for the chessmen have
 
reached the bank?
Mother shakes the little tree.
Otherwise the darkness
 
will read it and will
remain dark forever.
A dream falls off,
 
a little shirt—
the sky is red. And
blue. How do the bones
 
get into my foot?
Ung-Ung-train,
                           Puff-Puff train
 
afraided me away.
No everything does not have a limit:
I saw that I lived
 
here. That there is a spider
      in the window here.
      That there is a mirror
 
here. Twinslight, the
      tongue, the garden flowers painted
      —almostyou: to
 
walk where it is very dark
and the small bell is
already hanging
 
in the air—
 

Copyright Credit: Andrew Zawacki, "Gratophoph." Copyright © 2017 by Andrew Zawacki. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2017)