This poem is taken from PN Review 119, Volume 24 Number 3, January - February 1998.

Dinu Lipatti Plays Chopin's Sonata in B minor

Marius Kociejowski

'What harmony is this?'
The Tempest, III.iii.19


'...an Hieroglyphicall and shadowed lesson of the whole world, and [the] Creatures of God...'
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici



            Says God the plumber comes,
A pair of oily cloth gloves, asks her what the
   problem is.
Answers she, the ghosts banging in the pipes,
   saying come,
Our heaven's a Magyar village.

      Ah yes, God replies, those Chinese again.

                               Are you there, hello?
The woman from Budapest blindly fumbles for
   a cigarette,
A slow poison the quickest cure.
Likewise, she says, the men who spread ordure
   with their shoes,
As puzzled in their world as she is wise in hers,
...
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