Bezpłatny fragment - Valentine’s Day and Other Works

Stanley Zaczek was born in Warsaw, Poland in 2005. Traveling his country and the continent for inspiration, finding it in people and libraries. Since the beginning of the '20s he's been involved in literary conversations and sharing artistic experiences with many, writing all along, he's created an impressive set of never-published texts. For the first time now the selection of his works written between 2022 and 2024, with the title poem Valentine's Day, are published in paperback form.

Valentine’s Day and Other Works

Stanley Zaczek

FOR MY PAST AND FOR SARA, MY FUTURE

Valentine’s Day

I’m swimming onto a vast ocean of freedom

Second by second, thought by thought

Like a jazz drummer sets up a beat

Like a fork finding its way to juicy meat

Beat full of improvisation and flow

though sounding just like a constant

I row and row, What do I want to find?

Even the breeze can’t slip through my crowded mind

The sound of the sax still lingers in my mind

Thanks for the warmth you did show

On this dead cold winter night

You seem to hold all my problems behind

Yet there goes another bottle of cheap wine

Help me, Jesus, help me find my way and my destination

I think gotta go north, seek realization

Check our bond

I ask for change, but I don’t wanna leave all my things down there behind

For I know they’ll be changing while I’m gone

I think I see a way out

I think after all I do seek a way out

They won’t let me go without a fight

But why would I fight if I’ve already given up?

I think I see a dimmed guiding light

I think I hear a trumpet blow

Is it a funeral pyre?

Or is it just my final song?

I drink my problems away

I hit the road again

Heart attack stepping on my shadow

But I’m staying far from hospitals

I laugh in Lazarus’ face

I’m pouring another bottle of cheap beer into myself

I wish it was Italy

I wish it were the Tuscany fields, the Irish meadows

Where maybe I was not happy

But where I was free

Left with the problems of my own

But now I carry yours

But instead, I am where I am

I get dizzy from having only coffee for breakfast

I see an old woman making rounds by the stopped cars beneath the red light

Begging for a dollar or a dime

But instead, I remember the ice skaters and the blizzarding snowfall

When we held onto each other so tight

That I forgot who you are at all

However, why would I bother to remember you if you didn’t even walk me to the door?

Maybe they were teachers of the ways of the heart

You say „might as well forget everyone”

But who am I without you

But a scum and a fraud

I gotta score

My hands shake and nothing I can take

Instead of loving I just feel dreadful patting on the back

And after the man, I loved went away and didn’t even leave me a letter

It really ain’t making it any better

Smack kicks into the bloodstream

Suddenly your face looks so sweet and naive

Your eyes bring me a smile again

You woman, feel like a dream

And I feel back on my throne and forget that this feeling will soon be gone

But you gotta love me, please

Put on a show

Show me the light of hope

I’m going far north, screw the south

Just for a day

I breathe to feel your mouth again

* * *

Father, change my name

I’ve been wearing it so long now, that it gathered up too much dust and pain

The owner changed so much to vainly please others that I and those others no longer do even recognize the man

When I look in the mirror

I see my eyes go from blue to gray with years

I see the face that belonged to a fool for too long

I’m on the edge of vomiting from stress

Still, I want to go on and experience more

But it all has been here before

Didn’t work out then why would it now

So many-a-times I’d rather leave it behind

It’s all so simple, that’s a fact

Well, how do you like that?

The question I was too scared to ask

I’m too poor to afford a change

So I keep my delusions in my way

I make them into daydreams and throw them under your feet

How are you supposed not to tread on them?

I can just hope my road for you will be too steep, so you’ll retreat

And you’ll leave me alone and I will rebuild

The time alone is the price I have to pay

Nothing more now can I feel

I took your suggestion, yes, but it leaves only questions and the question is

Will I come back again to you on Valentine’s Day?

* * *

Why do I fall in love with every woman I see around town?

Was it the way of my father, or did I get it from my mother?

I don’t want short romances and to pay the hookup fees

It’s trueness, that’s what I have to redeem

Love will set me free but is this freedom what I need?

I’m used to hustling to live, you see

I would do it all again for thee

I’m glad you’re here but unlike you

I was never a hustler for free.

Thinking of you, my love

Makes me sometimes feel I’ve encountered a walking disease

I’ve suffered so much that to forget it all

Puts my mind at ease

But while you are here

We’ll bounce and twirl around the place

We’ll go on in our little whiskey dance

Remember Paris, remember France

Drink the night away

* * *

I don’t know whether just to hope it was my fault

That I was unkind

Untrue

Maybe that would be easier

than living with an answer from you

The answer of dire

That you cannot love

You have no feelings to forward to others

I would rather tell myself I’m blind

That I’m just a coward and a liar.

It’s 2 pm here but 8 in the morning on the East Coast

There is no snow in New York

Excuse me now, I gotta say hello

To lovely Emily, for this brand new day

It has to a be completely different finale now,

to the same old game…

right?

We’re here again

People say I’m not to blame

At least they know that I’m not scared

Well, I have a tattoo showing that I’ve once lived that through

I’m swimming onto a vast ocean of freedom

But I am not afraid

Why should I be frightened of dying?

I accept my lonely fate

I’ll fly like a bird

Lingering

Why do I get so easily attached?

Why do I feel my heart needs a patch?

I move from door to door

I cling to every sensitive one

I meet people day and night

I dream to find more of my kind.

I read and write to express myself

Speak and talk, share my love

For beauty and those who wear it

Lots of talking really no action

Hardly any satisfaction

But when I’ll finally go down to it

And book a table for two

You won’t be worried

Cause damn, you’ll know

Even when you’ll see me married

In the end, you know

That I only want you.

The Hills of Assisi

As I drove by Assisi’s hills

You must’ve been deep in your sleep

I have thought of many things

Thought of you and me

How we cannot be

Old Dylan has told me

To save a hello for thee

And I would’ve taken this to heart

If we’d ever been apart

But your head is just resting on a pillow of feathers

That’s why you don’t answer my letters

It’s been sixteen days and two months

The sun hits my eyes

Another day more miles

Don’t know how much more I can take

Before you’ll finally awake

Park of Needles

Love me

Hold me in your arms

No matter what kind of shit we’re in

Make me feel alright

No matter how, how dark the clouds are

In the lust for love

In the hunger for opioids

In the sea of dreams

In the park of needles

Come closer just a little

You’ve been brave, girl, but now you’re lost

Should you follow this man?

The bloody ghost

My brother is in Korea

My father long gone

The sun’s coming up

Let’s go, darling, before the morning fog

Christ died on a cross

And he loved us all

If I am to die on this crossroad

I would really

I would really like to be like him too

In this beautiful time of fall

Remember when I stepped into the chapel?

Fell on my knees and plead

Screamed Hallelujah

Begged the Lord

To make me the better man

For the pain to stop

To love no more

But then I got brought out again

All by the smell of alcohol

Despite that, we hurt together

I always thought it would be for the better

In the end for us all

For those who believe in Jesus too

Drunken boat in the city of love

On which I take whoever for I care

That ship is taking on water fast

There’s not much risk I can take

If I choose you

You know too well, our baby can’t be blessed

If my choice is you

The baby cannot even be made

The free walk through the park of needles ends

We step out to the street’s light again

At least me

You go and pretend you were never anywhere

Fix your eyebrows

Comb your hair

I know that you’ve been there

Go and be a good girl

This is the last time I swear

You’re wrong, this shirt fits you just right

Love your pants, how much you earn?

I’m really glad you came, man

You know

Some girls will just never learn

Thanks for the head you gave

I have lost mine miles away

Before I even left my home

Far before we sat on that park bench

I’m just sad that after it all

we just pat our backs as if our team just won

In the end, I’m glad we made it to the mess

In the end, I know we will face the law

In the end, I will cry that I never knew where you came from

In the end, my brother died in that war

In the end, I’m not feelin’ blue

And yes, I know,

In the end, you may ask, „Who even are you?”

Dear ones, may the hard times, come again no more

Let them hang us on their cross

Though we suffered much

We truly lived like tsars

Please wipe the tears from my cheeks

And take me into your arms

Where it is warm

No matter the dark

No matter the snow

And in Cohen-like words

Hereby I pray to

Start again

And I announce the death of the loving man.

Kind Of A Poet

What kind of a poet who can’t write?

What kind of a poet who lives only by night

What kind of a poet who is lost in his pride

Who is among the very last of a dying class

One who wanders by daytime

One who can’t stand up and doesn’t bite

One who missed the light

Who has crawled into his cave

Not many in his enclave

Who can’t prepare bricks to build a wall

To protect his dear ones galore

Friendships built on clay

The friendships built on clay

One whose pages of work are being torn

The master on their own

Who navigated thousands of other men

Out of the storm to his aid

Who gave them a weapon

Upon whom they’re now taking aim

A ship captain who’s led the clipper to the drain

Down to the drain

Now the end will come

To the poet who has lost his mind

Who has traveled very far

Under the bridges of Babylon with his Arc

One whose great macroscopic plan

Has dissolved like butter in the pan

Like butter in a pan.

What kind of a poet who cannot write

One who you don’t hear about

One who lives only in his dreams

One who shows his fears

One who shares his truest fears

It surely is a refreshing change from ones like thee.

A collaboration request in the poetry area

Introduction

All the so far mentioned poems were written in a short period of time. At that time after discovering his developing literary potential, Stanley Zaczek wrote two emails proposing cooperation to the famous French magazine Love Love, curated by Gerard Malanga. By then he was an unpublished author, and his submitted poems Lingering and Park of Needles had never been seen by anyone else.

Stanley Zaczek [Warsaw, Poland]

to Lisa Marie [Paris, France]

29 Jan. 2023

Hi there,

I just read the newest issue. I absolutely loved it! I really can’t tell you how much I admire your work and everybody behind Love Love. It’s really an amazing insight into the underground, niche, and all of the artistic underdogs.

And that’s the reason why I decided to write you. Well, I do have a passion for writing, mostly poems, lyrics. I haven’t published them anywhere yet, only showed them to my friends. Including one who studies writing arts — got a positive review so I’m optimistic hahah. I’ve attached some of my works to the email.

They’re all poems, the longer one, titled „Valentine’s Day” expresses feelings of being overwhelmed by hard emotions connected with love and hate towards a partner, trying to escape, and eventually getting lost in them by craving both. That’s the general idea, but of course the magic of art is freedom of interpretation, so I hope you’ll have some fun with this one. The shorter one, „Lingering”, covers similar topics but looks at them from an easier viewpoint, making it falsely seem more optimistic. The third one „Park of Needles” is just a classic good old junky love story.

I think, read together, they make the best work I’ve done.

If there would be any chance for a collaboration by featuring my work in your amazing magazine it would’ve been an absolute honor and an achievement for me.

I’m constantly writing more stuff so anytime you’d need a little extra poetry piece in the issue I’m absolutely there.

Looking forward to hearing from you, and wishing you all the best.

From Warsaw with love for Love Love,

Stanley Zaczek

Stanley Zaczek [Warsaw, Poland]

to Lisa Marie [Paris, France]

Bon après-midi,

I have some more pieces of my writing [Kind Of A Poet, The Hills of Assisi], which I am attaching to this email.

Please let me know if you’re interested in collaborating, it would mean a bunch to me.

If not, I would’ve appreciated it if you could just let me know.

Hope you have a good day,

Stanley Zaczek

Both proposals were left unanswered.

The Reflections On Some Chapters Of Life Of A Hopefully Fog Lifted Mind

Amsterdam has played an enormous part in my life. Surprisingly.

I think everyone should have an Amsterdam of their own in their lives.

Over a week, 11 days or so of binge whisky drinking in the hazed mind full of love, looking inside of self, musical, creative, procrastinating visions and discourse with myself and my phaneron. Never-stopping binge.