Waiting for the Aliens
What are we waiting for in front of the big screen?
Soon the aliens will appear,
the senate just disclosed a report
about flying objects whose velocity
and turning speed defy explanation.
On the fields with unmown turf,
why are the players sitting instead of shooting goals?
Because the aliens are on their way
and chasing a ball would be rude
to someone who might not have legs.
Why hasn’t the president left his residency
for a week, hasn’t named new generals,
hasn’t even strapped on skis for the weekend?
Because any second now the aliens
might land, the president’s waiting
to welcome them with a Tweet.
Why all the variety on the shelves,
every product multiplied sixfold?
It’s because the market is also waiting for the aliens,
the global companies are jockeying to find
their soft spot.
Why have they stopped their ambitious
geoengineering projects, why is the temperature
soaring, why are the poles irreversibly losing their ice?
Because sooner or later the aliens will appear
and no one knows their preferred climate.
Why is biodiversity in a tailspin,
and species dying like bugs on flypaper?
Because the aliens are on their way
and they’ll be needing environmental niches.
Why the sudden diffusion, everyone’s surfing their
own web and there aren’t any more things
we’re all discussing about at once?
It’s because the new photos that show
the edges of the galaxy don’t confirm
there are any aliens there at all.
The Perseids
In August we watched the Perseids, in the still, in the silence
of the night, believing we were alone. But something past
the forest was still shining, it turned faster
than a wheel. Swarming from a hidden
source the light of galactic dust
it inaudibly
collided with a galactic fog, causing not
the slightest damage. Except finally
a hare ran out and with enormous
bulging eyes it stared
and stared
at us and it saw
no one.
Land of Plenty
Under flight paths of machines crammed to their cockpits
with so much grub. Little islands of meat slowly
melt from underneath the snow. One reads
they’ve found hypertrophic
bones freshly gnawed by polar
foxes and those didn’t belong
to no fashion models.
Michał Sobol was born in 1970. He graduated in philosophy and church history and worked in the monastery library for many years. He made his literary debut in his thirties, publishing seven volumes of poetry, for which he received the Gdynia Literary Award, the Zbigniew Herbert Foundation Award and was nominated for the Wisława Szymborska Poetry Award. Since 1998 he has been living at Zabierzów Bocheński on the edge of the Niepołomice Forest.
Soren Gauger is a Canadian novelist, translator, and essayist. He has translated such Polish authors as Bruno Jasieński, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Anna Arno, Stanisława Przybyszewska, Tomasz Szerszeń, Jerzy Ficowski, Dorota Masłowska, and Wojciech Jagielski into English, and freelances for wide array of theaters, art galleries, and cultural institutions across Poland. He has published two volumes of his own short fiction in English (Hymns to Millionaires, Quatre Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus), and three novels in Polish (Nie to/nie tamto, Rzeczy niewysłowione, Imitacja życia), co-translated by himself. His essays have recently appeared in books on Andrzej Wróblewski and Paweł Bownik, and Opera Buffa Theater’s experimental travel magazine. In 2023, he received the Witkacy Award for promoting Polish theater and joined the jury for the Kapuściński Prize for literary journalism. He lives in Krakow with his wife, Magdalena.
(Translator’s photo credit: Adam Stępień /Agencja Wyborcza.pl.)
