People Without Eyelids

Written by Tomasz Marek Sobieraj

Translated from the Polish by Erik La Prade

Narrated by Bill Wolak

Poland

In this city

people don’t have eyelids.

They are sentenced to look

even in a dream.

Wind squeezes their tears,

through which they see

pictures of the ocean,

a big animal

slobbering with foam,

spitting seaweeds.

And they

sacrifice their bodies

for him

in a last will,

and watch how the waves

blur the footsteps

on the sand.

 

Tomasz Marek Sobieraj is a Polish writer and photographer. He received M.A. degree in hydrology from University of Lodz and statistics-informatics from the University of Lisbon. His poetry has been translated into English, Russian, Spanish, Danish, Kurdish, Italian, Korean and Ukrainian and published in international magazines. Sobieraj’s photographs have been exhibited widely in Poland and abroad. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Krytyka Literacka, a literary and arts magazine.

Erik La Prade is an American freelance journalist, poet, photographer, and non-fiction writer. He was born in New York City and received his B.A.degree in English in 1978 and M.A. degree in Comparative Literature in 1990 from City College of New York. His poems, articles and interviews have appeared in The Siense Shredder, The New York Times, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail and many others magazines.