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The Warsaw Chronicles 6

Dmitry Shiskin 390

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Dmitry Shiskin’s Performance of Chopin’s E Minor Concerto

Within the interlacing elements
Strong are the columns
your love—my death
rise from the bowels of sound
Chopin in protest
upholding angels
playing his Death March
letting in ethereal light
at a university’s workers demonstration
revealing heaven
a pot of fire next to the amplifiers
in all its wonderment.
burning contracts that were signed in blood
and the smearing cold rain of Warsaw.

“I think that I’m going off to die,” Chopin predicted
before leaving Poland, “and how awful it must be
to die somewhere else than where one has lived.”

Remnants of Syrian migrants passing through,
The train station has been swept clean.
Police walk through each compartment, looking
for a certain color—

“A gloomy harmony” with a legato
smooth as the erasure of history.

*

Note: “A gloomy harmony”—Fryderyk Chopin.

Photo from PhotoTelegram on Twitter

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The Warsaw Chronicles 4

Chopin's house in front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chopin’s birth place, Żelazowa Wola, was about an hour train ride west of Warsaw. Dominating this tiny village of 65 people (according to Wikipedia) is the historical museum with a visitor center. Chopin was six months old when the family moved from Żelazowa Wola to Warsaw. The house lay in ruins for many years and was rebuilt into a nobler house to commemorate the composer in the 1930’s. It was a chilly autumn day with sun and rain intermittent. There were many spiky shells and what appeared to be chestnuts on the ground. We were overjoyed! Gathered a whole bagful and took them back to cook. Alas the inside was bitter.

The Rebirth of Żelazowa Wola

Romance, laced with purpose
handles nature with white gloves
so that each utterance
whether a splatter of rain
a fiery bush among golden willows
or fallen leaves masking an autumn stream
is as delicate as the man—
his curled hair
his distinctive nose
his melancholic eyes
—is as sensitive as his fingers caressing the keyboard
as if it was a woman’s breast.

The house that was
burnt down ages ago.
It sheltered him as an infant
and bore the rawness of his cries.

The house that is,
a black and white elegant period structure
situates at the back of a reflective pond.
The immense garden, sloping hills,
his statues, now pensive with his hand on his heart,
now with a wing-like cape,
all bear semblance to the unattainable.
Piano music flows in the air, in a minor key.
Serenity, in this manifestation
seduces the pilgrims,
star gazers of the imagination,
they sleep walk
from one dream sequence to the next.

But for the lover who left his homeland
beauty was the clump of soil he held in his hand.

*

Photo by Millie Siu.

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The Warsaw Chronicles 3

Ksiegarnia Cafe Reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The taxi driver was friendly but a little scattered brain. He took me for a long ride to another part of town before realizing that he had misunderstood the address that I gave him. I arrived at the reading 40 minutes later to find a beautiful duet of violin and guitar playing. Without entering the performance space I asked the people at the counter if there is a poetry reading. The girl said no. I was greatly disappointed but decided to go into the space anyway and listen to the music. Then a man came forward and told me that there is indeed a reading but in Polish only. I said YES! That’s what I’ve come for.

The man in the middle (of the photo) read very well and the music that accompanied him enhanced his voice and was never intrusive. I found out at the end of the reading that he was actually an actor reading the poetry of the man on the far left. He had a rehearsal with the musicians the day before.

Poetry Reading at księgarnia Cafe

You ask me how I can listen
without understanding.
I ask you what ‘sex on the beach’ has to do
with a Polish cocktail?

Meaningful words.
Meaningless their meanings.

The poet at the mike mumble-jumbles
mumble-jumbles
“Catastrophe!” cries the taxi driver,
“You want Grochowska, but we’re on Grójecka.”

Meaningless words.
Meaningful their meanings.

It won’t matter as long as I get there,
to hear a different sound in a different place,
where meaning, although meaningless
is rich in its meaninglessness.

*

Photo from Ksiegarnia Cafe

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The Warsaw Chronicles 1

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Image from http://www.ztm.waw.pl/aktualnosci.php?i=438&c=100&l=2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going to Warsaw, Poland and attending the final round of the Chopin International Piano Competition was an enriching experience. To begin from the beginning, my friend Millie Siu and I hopped illegally on the local bus. (We wanted to pay but didn’t know how to work the machine!) Without knowing exactly where our apartment was, we got off at Warsaw Central:

Home

Home is the big downtown
hurried rhythm
cold-shoulder shrugs.

Home is the big signs
flashing neons
malls and hotels.

To go away is to arrive at familiarity,
the comfort of international chains
global logos.

Indoor heating systems provide the warmth.
Glass revolving doors recycle tourists.
Warsaw Central
the heart is the place of exchange
mechanical valves opening, closing.

Home is where businesses get done.
Home is traffic jam.
Home is everyone talking in a foreign language.
Home is—

Give me a map, please.

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