top of page

Poems and the like

1983-1986

I wake up, I hear ships at Schelde
are they honking? howling? signaling their presence
they say I am
like the neighbour’s dog yapping
I won’t bite him, now, will I
People have faces and suits, cars
and business cards, but they should play
each his own melody.
But it is difficult to play in one’s own soul I am such and not another
it is easier to roar, wail, bark, howl I am better
it seems to me this way sometimes but now I will occupy myself
with the dialectical materialism of my own pocket in the silence of the decision process
a bread roll or cigarettes?


***


The glass gives a sense of security
one silence – out there, there is noise the sounds of the city
two stability – there they move fast in some directions unknown to them
neither one nor two I have influence over I observe
here behind the glass almost everything is me; I can look more there,
or more somewhere else,
notice the elegant suits and the universally clerical pantsuits heels attaché cases and the
contentually mysterious black leather briefcases that when opened go click.
Or snap.
I will buy myself one some day
but what will I put in there? what mystery will I hide?
Here behind the glass almost everything is me.
Almost because the gaze of the girl from behind the bar and of every waiter bartender
salesperson worries always;
perhaps I’ve been sitting for too long over my single coffee?
They ask sometimes anything else?
Yes, I will sit here another moment and look through the glass.


***


Does out-of-place refer to the place, time or the person?

​

***


Can content replace emptiness?

​

***


Why do they say that dogs bark and people speak if the opposite happens sometimes? If I
smile at a dog, it will stop barking and wag its tail,
a person – not necessarily.


***


What does non-necessity look like? What colour is it?


***


What is it about a face that is important for the painter?
The eyes.
For the non-painter also.
Maybe.


***


Rhyming is usually pleasurable for the rhymer, but what about the rest of the people? For
whom is painting pleasurable? Non-necessity is not affirmative.


***


Painting needs a reason, and a person does not;
they have a briefcase or a handbag, and they carry it to work
in a suit or high heels.
Ladies first, the men are elegant, and they let them in first through the door,
but not before they talk about themselves.


***


A sudden is the colour of twilight.
Why do I prefer the word twilight rather than zmierzch?
I think I know; we talked about dolphins,
and dolphin is more precise than delfin.


***


Louis says that love should be made in French, and adds: listen to the word bird, it sounds
like a dog barking,
or Vogel, just add to that face the wall! and it’s an execution.
How do you say that in Polish? he asks.
I answer: ptak.
Louis breaks into laughter and repeats ptak, ptak, ptak, it’s as if you had hiccups.
And adds, in French it is l’oiseau.

​

***


What is more interesting in reality: its construction or how it works?


***


A new model of a sofa and a comfortable armchair,
patterned,
what is the point of painting
patterns.


***


The purchase of a sofa is (probably) engaging.


***


I am afraid that making a painting takes more time than manufacturing a sofa. Although,
sometimes, not necessarily.


***


Non-necessity is never final.


***


I suspect that there are words in every language which should (perhaps) be replaced with
new ones. Inflammable.


***


What would Mona Lisa look like if people had their lips on the forehead, and just one eye?
The eye – anywhere.


***


It does not befit to paint like this, I was told.
Befitting is a state between decency and non-necessity. Hence the conclusion that the term
non-befitting does not exist, or else it would be located between indecency and necessity.


***


Etymology, despite appearances, is not about catching butterflies.

​

***

​

Can a painting be long-winded?
I don’t know.


***


Picasso has painted two hopeless little paintings on war and peace.
Like children at kindergarten.
One depicts the sun, haystacks or some other rubbish,
and war is men armed with swords painted black. Believe me,
compared to Communism, lobotomy is like innocently picking your nose.
If Dostoevsky could see that, he would say
What the fuck!


***


Ever since Duchamp invented the urinal, easel painting has not sounded good.
Should I be squatting while painting?


***


Once, academicism was derisively described as containing “Munich sauces”.
Recently, I’ve been hearing about olive-oil hand-made painting.
I’ve got time,
I’ll wait until shitting at the art gallery as authentic form of expression is accused of academic
old-fashionedness.

​

***


Drawing lessons are about replicating the illusion of reality most faithfully.
And then unlearning it.


***


Owning a television precludes reading poetry.
Maybe.
I have never owned a television.


***


Why do people expect painting to be
dead serious?
It’s not a funeral
yet.

marcin osiowski

“I see art being practiced out of interest in the world and fascination with the magic of art itself, out of the handicap of how this world works, out of defense against the reality that wants to overwhelm us. Art as pure magic, the universe of the most important and ultimate things. Every picture, every work of art as an attempt to tell everything from the beginning, and painting pictures as a journey from which you never come back. "

​

© 2022, Marcin  Osiowski

photos: Adam Gut, texts: Katarzyna Piskorz, English translations: Aleksandra Paszkowska

bottom of page