Amnesty

Translated by Jarek Zawadzki

So many rhymes upon the festive tables,
Of metaphor: about big funerals, About the toil of flails, henhouses, stables,
Inquiries, jails within some pigsty walls,
In those amnesic times.

So much drab fate onto a paper sheet
Can he commit and tie it all with ink
Of proper poems in a cozy seat?
- For democrats that in the bushes sink
- The toady laureate.

With so much zest can he conjoin and talk:
Of children-angels on the Iraqi sky,
Thistles and goldfinches behind a mirage balk,
The stench of rotting guts and tux that lie
Upon the land unblest.

Copyright © by Wieslaw Musialowski 02/2012


Commentary:

On the festive tables of those who applaud the rulers. Amnesty - the title itself says everything. Amnesia about what they have forgotten. Torment of flails - we can speak about a man who is like a flail and there are also flails for threshing. The poem is about clappers, those who write at the dictation of the rulers. There are no sentences in the pigsties - a pig is slaughtered without a trial... there is no investigation. The second stanza is about political correctness in poems.