Ilya Kaminsky > Quotes

“Author's Prayer

If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,

I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.

If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man

who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.

Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking "What year
is it?"
I can dance in my sleep and laugh

in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,

I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition and the darkest days
must I praise.”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa

“But in the secret history of anger--one man's silence / lives in the bodies of others.”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa

“One would think of a boy laying
syllables with his tongue

onto a woman’s skin: those are lines
sewn entirely of silence.”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa

“I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition, and the darkest
days must I praise.”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa

“A Ballad of Going Down to the Store

First I went down to the street
by means of the stairs,
just imagine it,
by means of the stairs.

Then people known to people unknown
passed me by and I passed them by.
Regret
that you did not see
how people walk,
regret!

I entered a complete store:
lamps of glass were glowing.
I saw somebody - he sat down -
and what did I hear? what did I hear?
rustling of bags and human talk.

And indeed,
indeed,
I returned.

--Miron Bialoszewski (Poland, 1922-1983)”
― Ilya Kaminsky, The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry