STEFAN ANTONI GRASS
POETRY
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Let me take just one more look, the final one this time To see as sunset's brush smudges the sky with colours And watch the ragged clouds swooping like playful doves Listening to the wind tuning up the unstrung leaves. I wish that I could wander in the evening's footsteps Where moonlight witches teach their wisdom to the young How to weave snares from cobwebs black widows make at night While only bats and hooting owls swoop on their quiet watch. Let me go with the smells and sounds ling'ring in my mind Of warm summers lost in the catacombs of ancient time Of evening rituals and their eternal rhythms The smell of roses at dusk mixing with ringing bells. Let me depart in the blinding zigzags of lightnings On the trail of the star-pilgrims who have known these paths But when I reach the lighted gate, do let me stay a while To watch through tears my earthly home dissolving in the mist. 24 August 2001 |
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"In the beginning was the Word..." And men were God's created poems Pearls born from angels' pain and tears Scattered on heaven's golden floor. Some men were born in flowing rhymes But others came as verses blank Sonorous vowels, consonants And sonnets sent in gentle rhythms. Angels and demons strive to speak The lines of poems yet unborn Unspoken poem is unsullied He who recites it makes it live. But even those that demons warp Can be restored by angel's voice and sung again with harps and lutes To flow with the Song of Life. |
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The eyes of Asrael are fathomless like two lakes in the valley of death where a drop of blue is their sky in the vastness of Nowhere. Asrael knows the secret passages, the gossamer bridges over dark chasms and the passwords he whispers to the watchful guardians of the Void. He usually comes before sunrise, opens the window to blow out the candle and catching the wisp of smoke in his hand carries it gently to the altars of Heaven. Tender and loving like a soothing sleep, Asrael dries the tears of painful farewells And whispers words that heal the time Making the end into a new Beginning. |
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On Friday evening The candle of August Flickered in tiny gasps Like a faraway star. Above a country lane A butterfly fluttered - The sower of colours A guest from Mariposa. Tomorrow at dawn September crows Will scatter in the garden The first autumnal leaves. 31 August 2001 |
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The triple braid of echoes The fading sounds of autumn The web of days and nights Unreadable shreds of mist |
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With gentle wings a moth Caressing the velvet of the night I blew out the candle A stag under an oak tree Whispering leaves are betraying The secrets of the branches Wind has ruffled the flower-heads Rose petals under my feet Peace after a storm A grasshopper chirps The bluebells are chiming in An evening concert A snail at dawn Left a silvery trail Of confused hesitations Heron at water's edge Captures its own reflection Golden carp swims away A butterfly on a rose Spreading its wings in the sun The flower disappears An old man by the oak His wrinkled skin and the bark Making comparisons |
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The sky stained with the redness of sunset mopped up the stain with cottonwool clouds. A white sail was struggling on the horizon to be geometrically precise but slowly folded up into the rocking cradle of the seas yet unnamed. Our guiding star, confused by the Milky Way's whirling arms, was steering a hesitant course. The mast was sketching drunken spirals on the creased star-map of the sky. In the crow's nest the lookout slept when the witching gulls espied the land. No man greeted us on the landing shore. The tides have wiped off the hieroglyphs of human feet on the blameless sand. Only old echoes lurked in the silent rocks and wind betrayed the whiff of distant smoke. Daggers of lightning pierced the dying night. At dawn the sails opened their geometric souls and spread their wings like triangles in flight. We've sailed away - ghosts from another world. Invisible natives' chants were whistling overhead, behind us - just thick mists and fog of no return. |
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The space between us has become unquiet memory's living hedge no longer stands on guard only the brambles bristle their defiance at beetles’ buzzing in their chitin shells. Do not search for sweet berries in what's left of that bitter hedge. The birds have flown from their empty nests to the isles where memory is like wind and life the ebb and flow of many dreams. The hedge has died in our nameless space. In hieroglyphs of tears we write its epitaph on the wind-blown papyrus of the yellow dunes: "Memory was an illusion of unremembered life". |
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Stand in the shade of an oak for strength, Learn wisdom from the leaves of mighty ash. Feel the sorrows of a weeping willow, Ask beech to yield the secret of the runes. But walk in the sunlight, for the heat of love Transforms all that the trees can give to men. Their roots commune with Gaia's inner fire When swaying crowns touch the angels' feet. The wind is tousling their untidy twigs, And, when it rains, they gather shining drops To make a necklace of rainbow beads And hang it on their praying arms to dry . Dream in the shade of umbrella pines, To a green eucalyptus always tell your wish. And when it's time to say goodbye forever Light cedarwood torch of the fragrant tree. |
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Leaves are the alphabet of whisp'ring trees, secret messages in unknown tongues scratched on the white clouds and sent by the wind into the wild geometry of shapes. Some are like praying hands awaiting manna, triangles covered with a net of veins, heart-shaped and oval or sharp like a lance and those that tremble at the human touch. Leaves-alchemists transform the solar gold into green jewels for the queen of woods. Viridian spring, summery emeralds And, in the autumn, multicoloured death. |
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Above the sleeping shadow of an oak Leaves are eavesdropping on its dreams And rustling in their own tongue Betray green secrets of chlorophyll. Then the one-eyed giant in the sky Blinked and the shadow, curling up, Crawled with the ants toward their home - A sad Orpheus with his unstrung lute. My shadow runs toward the gate - An eager bondsman with the key, At night, it sways in candlelight - A dancing ghost on the white walls. My alter ego yoked by light The chiaroscuro of my days, It waits patiently for that time When we return to the Shadowland. |
Stefan Antoni Grass, born 1920 in Lublin, Poland, was a member of the Polish Resistance Movement during WW2, serving in the Polish Home Army where he fought against the German and Soviet invaders. He was commissioned as 2nd Lt (wartime) and decorated with the Gold Cross of Merit with Swords.
Unable to remain in the Communist Poland because of his past underground activities, he escaped to Great Britain via Italy in April 1946. Shortly before escape, he made his debut as a writer with a lyrical story published in the first postwar literary magazine Kamena.
In his long and varied career in England, he was, for a number of years, a British journalist and editor of financial magazines (Management Accounting and Acccountans Weekly). After his early retirement in 1983 as Director of Information of a large professional body, he returned to Polish journalism contributing a bi-weekly column and critical book reviews to "The Polish Daily" (Dziennik Polski) in London - the oldest Polish language daily newspaper in Western Europe.
In the last few years he became interested in writing bilingual poems (Polish and English) in a search for the elusive similarity of metaphors on the border of these two languages, which have been a dominating influence throughout his literary career. His poetry has been published on the web in an anthology of Polish poets http://www.poezja.exe.pl/
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