Nie płacz, Ewka [English translation]

Don’t cry Eva since there’s a lack of space

for your feminine tears.

Down Love Street the wind howls

among shattered panes.

Look: Poets’ exquisite truths

have dissolved in games.

In empty liquor bottles S.O.S. notes

are sent out to the world.

Farewell to You. Now I know

urgent tasks will remain when I die.

I go alone, indeed where

other souls await me.

For years I’ve had a few friends there--

for them I always sing, I play for them.

One more time: Farewell to You.

We won’t meet again.

The prose of life’s a friendly creeping death;

the thin thread snaps.

TV, furnishings, a little Fiat—

behold the summit of dreams.

Hey prophets of my angry years,

You’re overgrown with fat.

Now wealth has You in its claws.

Betrayals flow from your mouth.