Baczyński - war poet , diamond who defended barricades

[Bonobo]

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński was 23 when he died in Warsaw Uprising.
(1921-1944)

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, (Polish pronunciation: [ˈkʂɨʂtɔf ˈkamil baˈt͡ʂɨɲskʲi]; nom de guerre: Jan Bugaj; January 22, 1921 – August 4, 1944) was a Polish poet and Home Army soldier, one of the most renowned authors of the Generation of Columbuses, the young generation of Polish poets of whom several perished in the Warsaw Uprising and during the German occupation of Poland.





Baczyński was born in Warsaw in the family of renowned literary critic and soldier of Polish Legions in World War I, Stanisław Baczyński and school teacher Stefania Zieleńczyk. His mother was a zealous Catholic but with Jewish roots (like his father too), and as such was treated by the Germans as a Jew. His uncle, Dr. Adam Zieleńczyk, escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and was killed by Germans in 1943.[1]

Baczynski was baptized on September 7, 1922 in Warsaw. As a child, he suffered from asthma, his heart was very weak and he was in constant threat of tuberculosis. In 1933, he began education at Gimnazjum i Liceum im. Stefana Batorego, he graduated in May 1939. In his class there were future heroes of Szare Szeregi - Jan Bytnar (Rudy) and Tadeusz Zawadzki (Zośka). Baczynski debuted as a poet some time in 1938 in Strzała - a magazine published by Organization of Socialist Youth Spartakus, to which he belonged himself. After graduation, he was planning to continue education at Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts, but the outbreak of World War II ended these plans.

During the German and Soviet (until 1941) occupation of Poland, he continued to cooperate with the left-wing underground press, most notably with the "Płomienie" (Flames) and "Droga" (Way) magazines. At the same time he was a student of Polish language at the secret underground Warsaw University and the Armia Krajowa's "Agricola" NCOs School. He took up several jobs, and in 1943 joined Batalion Zośka, after which he gave up studies, committing himself to the Polish resistance activities. In his apartment, he hid several pieces of weaponry, including submachine guns and grenades.

On July 6, 1942, he married Barbara Drapczyńska, a university colleague. The marriage resulted in a set of erotica written by Baczyński, reputedly one of the most notable in the Polish language. Shortly before the Warsaw Uprising Baczyński gave a copy of all his poems to one of his friends, to hide in Żoliborz. Because of that, they survived the war.

As a member of Scouting Assault Groups (Harcerskie Grupy Szturmowe), Baczyński took part in many sabotage actions throughout the occupation. One of them was derailment of a German military train in August 1944, which resulted in a 26-hour delay of traffic on the strategic connection Warsaw-Białystok.

After the Warsaw Uprising broke out, he joined the "Parasol" battalion. He was killed in action by a German sniper at approximately 4 pm of August 4, 1944, in Blank Palace (Pałac Blanka) in the Warsaw Old Town area. He is buried in the Powązki Military Cemetery, together with his pregnant wife, who was killed on September 1, 1944. He was posthumously awarded the Armia Krajowa Cross in 1947[the award founded in 1966?].

In his poems and short novels, Baczyński demonstrated both romantic traditions and catastrophism. His poems depict the brutality of war, and suggest that love is the only force that can effectively defend a human being against it. His talent was highly appreciated by his contemporaries, Stanisław Pigon, upon hearing news of Baczynski joining the Szare Szeregi, said to Kazimierz Wyka: We belong to a nation, whose fate is to shoot at the enemy with diamonds.






Z lasu.

Las nocą rośnie jak jezior poszum.
Droga kołysze we mchu, we mchu.
Ciężkie kolumny mroku się wznoszą,

Otchłanie puste z ciemności płoszą
krzyk zły, wysoki jak ze snu.

A dołem potok ludzi i wozów
i broni chrzęst we mgle, we mgle.
Spod stóp jak morze wydęte grozą
nieujarzmiona piętrzy się ziemia
i głosy ciemne leżą w przestrzeniach
jak to, co czeka obce i złe.

Żołnierze smukli. Twarzyczki jasne,
a moce ciemne trą się i gniotą,
lądy się łamią, sypie się złoto
i chyba pancerz ziemi za ciasny
pęka, rozsadza i grzmi, i grzmi.

Twarzyczki jasne! na widnokręgach
armie jak cęgi gną się i kruszą.
O moi chłopcy, jakże nam światy
odkupić jedną rozdartą duszą?

Kochać, a to się wydaje mało,
ginąć - to słabość tylko wyzwolić,
bo nie nadąża chłopięce ciało,
a ciemność stoi i grzmi, i grzmi.

Las nocą rośnie. Otchłań otwiera
usta ogromne, chłonie i ssie.
To tak jak dziecko, kiedy umiera,
i tak jak ojciec, który żyć musi.
Przeszli, przepadli; dym tylko dusi
i krzyk wysoki we mgle, we mgle.

27.VI.1944


From the forest

Forests grow nightly like lakes’ waves swooshing.
The road rocks on in the moss, the moss.
Heavy dusk pillars upward are pushing.
Vast hollow voids from the murk are flushing
shrill, evil crIes out, as from a dream.

Below, a stream of people and wagons,
a clank of arms in the mist, the mist.
From underfoot, like a sea by dread swollen,
unfettered heaves and piles up the earth,
while darkling voices lie in the ether
like an awaiting, strange, evil beast.

Slim soldiers. Faces so young and bright,
while forces of darkness jostle and strain,
continents shatter, gold pours like rain,
t’would seem, earth’s armour, grown now too tight,
bursts, splits asunder, and roars, and roars.

O bright young faces! On the horizon
armies like pinccrs wrestle and maul.
O bright young fellows, how can we ransom
the worlds with but one rent human soul?

By love? but this would not near suffice,
and dying – only sets weakness free,
for the boy’s body lags in the race,
darkness stays standing and roars and roars.

Forests grow nightly, the void gapes, opening
its mouth enormous, swallows and sucks.
They, like a child that’s helplessly dying,
father, who lives on, as live he must.
Have passed, are lost; is left choking dust,
And the shrill cry, in the mist, the mist.

27.VI.1944
(died 4. 8. 1944)
tłumaczył/translated by: Marcel Weyland (Sydney)
Dla upamiętnienia rocznicy Powstania Warszawskiego.
To commemorate the anniversary of Warsaw Uprising.

www.antoranz.net/CURIOSA/ZBIOR6/C0608/20060826-QZM01057_Baczynski-Zlasu.HTM

=============================================

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński

(1921-1944)



Elegia o chłopcu polskim

Oddzielili cię, syneczku, od snów, co jak motyl drżą,
haftowali ci, syneczku, smutne oczy rudą krwią,
malowali krajobrazy w żółte ściegi pożóg,
wyszywali wisielcami drzew płynące morze.

Wyuczyli cię, syneczku, ziemi twej na pamięć,
gdyś jej ścieżki powycinał żelaznymi łzami.
Odchowali cię w ciemności, odkarmili bochnem trwóg,
przemierzyłeś po omacku najwstydliwsze z ludzkich dróg.

I wyszedłeś, jasny synku, z czarną bronią w noc,
i poczułeś, jak się jeży w dźwięku minut zło.
Zanim padłeś, jeszcze ziemię przeżegnałeś ręką.
Czy to była kula, synku, czy ci serce pękło?




Elegy on a Polish boy

From your dreams they cut you off, son, fluttering dreams like butterflies,
they embroidered for you, sonny, with red blood your suffering eyes,
painted landscapes stitched and strung with streaming fires’ yellow motif,
and with hanged men ornamented seas of treetrunks floating.

And they taught you well, my sonny, taught you well your earth,
when you scythed a pathway through it cut with iron tears,
and they nurtured you in darkness, bread of fear fed to your lips,
and you measured your path blindly with most shameful human steps.

And went out, my sunshine bright, with black gun into night,
and each second's tick you sensed there - bristling evil's hate,
as you fell, the earth beneath you with your hand first blessed.
Was it bullets struck you, sonny, or the heart that’s burst?

tłumaczył/translated by: Marcel Weyland (Sydney)

Dla upamiętnienia rocznicy Powstania Warszawskiego.
To commemorate the anniversary of Warsaw Uprising.


----------------------------------------------------


www.sppw1944.org/index.html?http://www.sppw1944.org/poezja/poezja_baczynski_eng.html

The belowe poems are presented here thanks to the courtesy of Professor Bill Johnston, the translator of Baczynski's poetry. His translations of these and forty other Baczynski's poems were published as "White Magic and Other Poems" a bilingual edition



Rodzicom

A otóż i macie wszystko.
Byłem jak lipy szelest,
na imię mi było Krzysztof,
i jeszcze ciało - to tak niewiele.

I po kolana brodzący w blasku
ja miałem jak święty przenosić Pana
przez rzekę zwierząt, ludzi, piasku,
w ziemi brnąc po kolana.

Po co imię takie dziecinie?
Po co, matko, taki skrzydeł pokrój?
Taka walka, ojcze, po co - takiej winie?
Od łez ziemi krwawo mi, mokro.

Myślałaś, matko: "On uniesie,
on nazwie, co boli, wytłumaczy,
podźwignie, co upadło we mnie, kwiecie,
- mówiłaś - rozkwitaj ogniem znaczeń".

Ojcze, na wojnie twardo,
Mówiłeś pragnąc, za ziemię cierpiąc:
"Nie poznasz człowieczej pogardy,
udźwigniesz sławę ciężką".

I po cóż wiara taka dziecinie,
po cóż dziedzictwo jak płomieni dom?
Zanim dwadzieścia lat minie,
umrze mu życie w złocieniach rąk.

A po cóż myśl taka jak sosna,
za wysoko głowica, kiedy pień tną.
A droga jakże tak prosta,
gdy serce niezdarne - proch.

Nie umiem, matko, nazwać, nazbyt boli,
nazbyt mocno śmierć uderza zewsząd.
Miłość, matko - już nie wiem, czy jest.
Nozdrza rozdęte z daleka Boga wietrzą.

Miłość - cóż zrodzi - nienawiść, struny łez.

Ojcze, broń dźwigam pod kurtką,
po nocach ciemno - walczę, wiary więdną.
Ojcze -jak tobie - prócz wolności może i dzieło,
Może i wszystko jedno.

Dzień czy noc - matko, ojcze - jeszcze ustoję
w trzaskawicach palb, ja żołnierz, poeta, czasu kurz,
Pójdę dalej - to od was mam: śmierci się nie boję,
dalej niosąc naręcza pragnień jak spalonych róż.

30 lipiec, 1943



To my parents

And so this is all you have, then.
I was like the linden's rustle;
Krzysztof was the name I was given,
and my body-so very little.

And up to my knees in the dazzle,
like the saint, I was to bear the Lord across
a river of animals, sand, people,
wading in earth to my knees.

Why such a name for a child?
Why wings shaped in this way, mother?
Why a struggle, father, for such a fault?
The earth wet and bloody from my tears.

"He'll bear it all," you thought, mother:
"he'll name the pain, bring understanding,
raise within me what's fallen; o flower-
you said-bloom with the fire of meanings."

Father, it's hard at the war.
You said in your longing, your pain
for earth: "You'll not know human scorn,

Why should a child need such faith, and why
a legacy like a house of flames?
Before twenty years have gone by,
life will die in his glittering hands.

And why a mind like a pine-tree, too high
& the crown as the cut trunk crashes?
And how can the road run so straightly,
when the clumsy heart is all ashes?

Mother, I cannot name, the pain is too great,
death strikes too powerfully from every side.
Love-mother, I no longer know if it is;
From far away my flared nostrils smell God.

Love-what will it give firth to-hatred, streams of tears.

Father, I carry my gun in my jacket;
in the dark night I fight while the faiths all fade.
Father-like you-apart from freedom
maybe nothing else matters, or maybe my deed.

Day and night, mother, father, I'll endure
in the rifle-fire, I, soldier, poet, dust of time.
I'll go on-this I have from you: I do not fear
death, as I bear desires like burned roses in my arms.

July 30, 1943

[Bonobo]

www.sppw1944.org/index.html?http://www.sppw1944.org/poezja/poezja_baczynski_eng.html

The belowe poems are presented here thanks to the courtesy of Professor Bill Johnston, the translator of Baczynski's poetry. His translations of these and forty other Baczynski's poems were published as "White Magic and Other Poems" a bilingual edition





Night

To Basia

Madonna of mine, full of sin,
framed in sleep as in a cracked looking-glass.
A close night, on your shoulders the rock of the stars
and the terror that like you is undying.

Madonna of mine, conceived in sin,
these are not trespasses that want for tears.
Night, curled like a beast in the lap of fear,
night, that remembers everything.

The mouth is bitter and dry, like stalks
burned while they're still young,
eyes by fire made barren,
a golden nut.

How to prise it from the husk of reveries?
After decease, how can faith by created?
I'm like the glow that you radiate,
which stinks like the earth in returning seas.

Madonna, with what will you save me from night?
With a curve of your lips will you bring back the child?
Will you let yourself through me be rolled by waterfalls,
By flowers, and by dreams that circle about?

Make the unmistakeable gesture, give name
to the cold winds that pour out of pitchers
a liquid like a flame.
Today's night, and I wake before I've matured
in the mirrors of your tears.


March 28, 1942

Stawisko

Noc

Basi

Madonno moja, grzechu pełna,
w sen jak w zwierciadło pęknięte wstawiona.
Duszna noc, kamień gwiazd na ramionach
i ta trwoga, jak ty - nieśmiertelna.

Madonno moja w grzechu poczęta,
to nie są winy, którym łez brak.
Noc jak zwierzę zatulona w strach,
noc, która zawsze pamięta.
Usta są gorzkie i suche, do łodyg
spalonych tak młodo podobne,
oczy ogniem niepłodne -
złoty orzech.

Czym łuskać z zamyślenia?
Wiarę uczynić po zgonie?
Jestem jak blask twój, co tonie
W morzach powrotnych jak ziemia.

Madonno, czym mnie wybawisz od nocy?
Czy dziecko przywrócisz wygięciem warg w dół?
Snom kolistym, kwiatom, wodospadom
dasz się przeze mnie toczyć?

Uczyń ruch nieomylny, daj nazwanie
wiatrom chłodnym, które z dzbanów leją
płyn, co jak płomień jest.
Dziś noc i budzę się, zanim dojrzeję
w lusterkach twoich łez.


28 marzec 1942
Stawisko




Love poem

In your hair's torrent, your mouth's river, in
the forest dark as evening
a vain summoning,
a plash in vain.

I'll enwrap yet in dusk, in night's rose-flower
and as branch, scrap, or gesture, the world will turn,
then it will mutely stagger,
pass through the eyes like a blur
and I'll say: not being-I am.

Flowing into you still, and bearing your reflection
in pupils, or like a tear from eyelids hanging,
I'll hear in you silver seas etched by a dolphin,
like sleep inside the shell of your body ringing.

Or in a grove, where you are
a birch tree, pure white air
and the milk of daylight,
a huge barbarian,
bearing a thousand centuries
I'll burst with the copse's noise
into your branches, birdlike.
Dedication:
one day-and a whole age in which to long,
one gesture-and endless storms at once come crashing,
one step-and here you are, and you alone
each time-a spirit waiting in the ashes.

To my darling Basia-Krzysztof

February 2, 1942




Erotyk

W potoku włosów twoich, w rzece ust,
kniei jak wieczór - ciemnej
wołanie nadaremne,
daremny plusk.

Jeszcze w mroku owinę, tak jeszcze różą nocy
i minie świat gałązką, strzępem lub gestem,
potem niemo się stoczy,
smugą przejdzie przez oczy
i powiem: nie będąc - jestem.
Jeszcze tak w ciebie płynąc, niosąc cię tak odbitą
W źrenicach lub u powiek zawisłą jak łzę,
Usłyszę w tobie morze delfinem srebrnym ryte,
W muszli twojego ciała szumiące snem.

Albo w gaju, gdzie jesteś
brzozą, białym powietrzem
i mlekiem dnia,
barbarzyńcą ogromnym,
tysiąc wieków dźwigając
trysnę szumem bugaju
w gałęziach twoich - ptak.

Dedykacja:
Jeden dzień - a na tęsknotę - wiek,
Jeden gest - a już orkanów pochód,
Jeden krok - a otoś tylko jest
W każdy czas - duch czekający w prochu

Mojej najdroższej Basi - Krzysztof

2 luty 1942




Generation

The wind whips the trees to foam. The earth
has matured. Corn-spikes raise heavy bellies
And only the clouds, rapaciously-
like fingers or hairs-cross into the darkness.

The earth is brimming with fruits, and boils
like a giant bowl in plenitude.
Yet from the spruces standing outside
hangs a severed head that haunts like a cry.

The flowers are drops of honey that burst
compressed by the swollen earth; underground,
bodies twisted like roots are crammed
alive beneath an unlit vault.

Huge skies drone overhead. People
call out in oppressive dreams like cages.
We have pursed lips and wolflike faces,
watching by day and listening by night.

Underground, streams are heard carving their way,
while blood gathers in the veins of silence;
the roots draw up blood, and from the leaves
a red dew falls. And the distances sigh.

We learned our lesson. There is no mercy.
By night come dreams of the brother who died,
his eyes put out while he still was living,
beaten until his bones were all broken,
deep and painful the chisel's carving,
his eyes bulging like bubbles with blood.

We learned our lesson. There is no conscience.
buried by fear, we live in pits;
in terror we carve out our dark loves,
statues of ourselves-evil troglodytes.

We learned our lesson. There is no love.
How could we then escape into darkness
from the sail of the nostrils sniffing us out,
from the staves and hands in their spreading net,
when the mothers and children would never come back
to the hollowed out pod of an empty heart.

We learned our lesson. One must forget,
so as not to die imagining it all.
We rise in the dark and slippery night.
We look for the heart, take hold of it, strain
our ears: the pain will be extinguished,
But stone-yes, a rock-will still remain.

And so we stand on tanks and on trucks,
on aeroplanes and in the rubble,
where the serpent of silence will crawl over us,
where the ice-cold torrent will cleanse us, not knowing
if time is standing still or flowing.
Like foreign cities dug from the depths,
human strata turning to ashes
lying on their backs or standing straight,
not knowing whether we are the pages
of a fire sculpted Iliad in shimmering gold,
whether, if only from pity, they,'' build
a cross over our grave.


July 22, 1943




Pokolenie

Wiatr drzewa spienia. Ziemia dojrzała.
Kłosy brzuch ciężki w górę uniosą
i tylko chmury - palcom czy włosom
podobne - suną drapieżnie w mrok.

Ziemia owoców pełna po brzegi
kipi sytością jak wielka misa.
Tylko ze świerków na polu zwisa
Głowa obcięta strasząc jak krzyk.

Kwiaty to krople miodu - tryskają
ściśnięte ziemią, co tak nabrzmiała,
pod tym jak korzeń skręcone ciała,
żywcem wtłoczone pod ciemny strop.

Ogromne nieba suną z warkotem.
Ludzie w snach ciężkich jak w klatkach krzyczą.
Usta ściśnięte mamy, twarz wilczą,
czuwając w dzień, słuchając w noc.

Pod ziemią drążą strumyki - słychać -
krew tak nabiera w żyłach milczenia,
ciągną korzenie krew, z liści pada
rosa czerwona. I przestrzeń wzdycha.

Nas nauczono. Nie ma litości.
Po nocach śni się brat, który zginął,
Któremu oczy żywcem wykłuto,
Któremu kości kijem złamano;
I drąży ciężko bolesne dłuto,
Nadyma oczy jak bąble - krew.

Nas nauczono. Nie ma sumienia.
W jamach żyjemy strachem zaryci,
w grozie drążymy mroczne miłości,
Własne posągi - źli troglodyci.

Nas nauczono. Nie ma miłości.
Jakże nam jeszcze uciekać w mrok
przed żaglem nozdrzy węszących nas,
przed siecią wzdętą kijów i rąk,
kiedy nie wrócą matki ni dzieci
w pustego serca rozpruty strąk.

Nas nauczono. Trzeba zapomnieć,
Żeby nie umrzeć rojąc to wszystko.
Wstajemy nocą. Ciemno jest, ślisko.
Szukamy serca - bierzemy w rękę,
nasłuchujemy: wygaśnie męka,
ale zostanie kamień - tak - głaz.,

I tak staniemy na wozach, czołgach,
na samolotach, na rumowisku,
gdzie po nas wąż się ciszy przeczołga,
gdzie zimny potop omyje nas,
nie wiedząc: stoi czy płynie czas.
Jak obce miasta z głębin kopane,
popielejące ludzkie pokłady
na wznak leżące, stojące wzwyż,
nie wiedząc, czy my karty iliady
rzeźbione ogniem w błyszczącym złocie,
czy nam postawią, z litości chociaż,
nad grobem krzyż.


22 lipiec, 1943



More poems

allpoetry.com/Krzysztof-Kamil-Baczynski






In 1965, Polish singer Ewa Demarczyk sings Baczyński poems on LP "Wiersze wojenne" (eng. "War Poems") [2]