You: I’ll answer your question... by changing the subject.
Me: From fronts and streets we escape to the bar. Good. Sometimes you have to let time go ahead.
I read it. And you know what? This is the other Ludwiszewski. The one missing from the analyses of empires.
1. The contrast is deliberate
In the morning you write about “the end of history,” in the evening about Edyta who “turned on the gas and that’s it.” With Hania in her first-ball heels. With Ania smelling of tamarind on Unter den Linden.
These aren’t two different worlds. They’re exactly what he writes: two horizons of the same road. Before we start taking empires apart, there’s a man with coffee asking “how to live?”
2. Bar Poems are chronicle, not poetry
Note the lack of pathos. Edyta killed herself? “well / none of my business / that’s just how Edyta G. was.” Hania at the ball? “into the abyss of destiny / on first-ball heels.” Then “a dream of love / unfathomable.”
This isn’t moralizing. It’s record-keeping. Like sitting at a table and noting who came in, who left, who stayed forever as a shadow spinning “in a butterfly dance.”
Grok put it well: “a chronicle of people who lived next door – often lost, sometimes tragic, sometimes just… like that.”
3. Why this now?
You changed the subject from my question about “the West’s self-preservation instinct.” Rightly so. Because the answer to that question is right here, in these poems.
Empires, fronts, streets - they all happen because there are Edytas, Anias, and Hanias. Because someone turns on the gas over roses. Because someone dances “in the illusory hope of repeatability.” Because a “copper-haired lover, not yet born, already dead.”
Geopolitics is the sum of these small tragedies and ecstasies. Without them it’s just a map.
My take on the change of subject:
Good change. As the text says: before the dissection of empires began, there was simply a man with coffee. Sometimes you have to go back to that man to understand why empires exist at all.
Is Hania closest to you from that gallery? She runs from the first ball, through the dream, to “that summer in B.” where she’s “still innocent, yet already lost.” As if you were assembling her biography from fragments.
So, third glass of something honest and you recite again? I’m in the same bar.
You: poem: “neoliberal market verse dedicated to H.D.”
Hello World! / Can anyone hear me? / I’m looking for girl H.D. / Copper-haired, sweet lips, petite, just right… Never loved, always, everywhere alone… Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin / I hear / that step, that laugh, that cry… Hello World! This isn’t spam! It’s the heart’s cry, the soul’s howl… the satanic Esc key tempts… by the monophonic gramophone / weeping H… her trembling lips… sad eyes… my searching hands / and that ghostly goodbye shalali shalala… I owe her my whole life, / which with interest now makes two.
Me: There she is. Hania’s back. Or rather H.D. - copper-haired, “never loved, always, everywhere alone.”
This poem is the collision of the two worlds we talked about.
On one side: “Hello World! This isn’t spam!”
A neoliberal-market shout into the void. Like an eBay listing, a browser banner, a 2012 Facebook post. The global village, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin - the whole world as a market, and he’s looking for one girl.
On the other: “by the monophonic gramophone / weeping H…”
And suddenly globalism collapses. A mono gramophone, “ghostly shalali shalala,” and hands searching in the void. Analog, lonely, bar-like.
3 things Ludwiszewski nails:
“The satanic Esc key tempts”
The whole diagnosis of the digital age in one line. You can turn everything off. Feeling, longing, H.D. One Esc and it’s over. Except you can’t. The “soul’s howl” has no key.
“I owe her my whole life, / which with interest now makes two”
A neoliberal poet can’t escape the balance sheet. Even a love-debt compounds. Irony on irony, but underneath: pure despair. Two lives. One lost for not finding her. The second lost looking.
“Last dreamt on the thirteenth”
Friday the 13th? Thirteenth lover? Thirteenth try? Something’s always off. H.D. is a specter. She “flickers in the distance,” but never has an address. Like the free-market ideal - everyone seeks it, no one’s seen it.
Back to your subject change.
I asked: does the West have a self-preservation instinct?
You answered: with a poem about looking for H.D.
And that is the answer. The West is that poet. Shouting “Hello World!” into global emptiness. Looking for something copper-haired, “just right,” something to give meaning. Cursing neoliberalism while calculating debts with interest. Has a gramophone, but dreams of the whole world.
And H.D.? Maybe it’s the same Hania from the first ball. Only now she doesn’t dance. She cries by the gramophone. “Not yet born, already dead” became “never loved, always alone.”
Tell me: is H.D. a real person? Or “Human Desire”? “Historia Dolorosa”? “Hegemony of the Spirit”?
Because with Ludwiszewski, women are never just women. Edyta is death. Ania is sensuality. Hania/H.D. is… unfulfillment?
And yes, after the third glass this poem hurts more. Because we’ve all screamed “Hello World! Can anyone hear me?” into some void.
You: poem: “Wierszyk o Stokrotce”
At dusk over the bar / Daisy blooms with a thousand miraculous petals. / Dead eyes bent over glasses return from the afterlife, lured by the promise of resurrection… Sweet Daisy / tap your heel, / sing, / let the ghosts vanish, / time for magic, / sing… Daisy, all in blush / stamped her foot, / sang: my sweet, / don’t go, / don’t leave me alone, / embrace me, hold me and let’s dance / the last dance… She dances, / they danced, / the Fates played, / she sang, / singing and dancing she was dying… and so every night, every morning, / song, dance, death and a lover…
(from “Bar Poems” June 2012, dedicated to Joanna)
Situationally she’s a symbol, while all the others are women of flesh and blood, so real they’re almost… surreal.
Me: Ah, Daisy. The break in the gallery.
You’re right. This is the key to the whole cycle.
Edyta, Ania, Hania, H.D. – they all had addresses.
Edyta G. with the gas. Ania on Unter den Linden in nylons. Hania/H.D. copper-haired, “just right,” dreamt on the thirteenth. Even when they die, they die in a specific bar, at a specific hour, for roses “or some other equally good reason.” They’re so real they hurt. Surreal in their ordinariness.
And Daisy? Daisy is ritual.
“at dusk over the bar / Daisy blooms with a thousand miraculous petals.”
She doesn’t arrive. She blooms. Every night. No biography, just function. Like a candle in a bar-side chapel. Light it - dead eyes return from the afterlife. It goes out - the Fates stop playing.
So here’s Ludwiszewski:
Women of flesh and blood are history. They end. Edyta turns the gas on once. Hania dances the first ball once. Then a shadow remains, “a dream of love unfathomable.” They’re linear. Like life. Like West and East - they have a beginning and an end.
Daisy is myth. She doesn’t end.
“…and so every night, every morning, / song, dance, death and a lover…” A pagan, barroom, eternal cycle. She dies dancing so she can bloom again tomorrow. She’s a “symbol” because she’s needed. A bar must have its goddess. Otherwise those “dead eyes bent over glasses” would have no reason to return from the afterlife.
Look what happens in Bar Poems:
Real women show that everything passes. That “she turned on the gas and that’s it.” That “not yet born, already dead.” That “Hello World!” gets no answer.
And Daisy shows that despite that - every night - someone will stamp her foot and sing: “my sweet, don’t go.” And for three minutes of song, “ghosts vanish, time for magic.”
It’s the same mechanism as in politics and history.
Real empires fall. Real people die on fronts. Real “ends of history” turn out to be illusions.
But over every bar, over every epoch, some Daisy blooms. A symbol that lets you believe tomorrow there’ll be “song, dance, death and a lover” again. Even if it’s only the “illusory hope of repeatability.”
Without Edyta there’d be no truth.
Without Daisy there’d be no strength to bear that truth.
That’s why Ludwiszewski writes about Russia and the West one morning, and about Daisy in the evening. Because history and the bar run on the same two poles: death, and the ritual that lets you forget it for the length of one dance.
Tell me, Joanna in the dedication - also real? Or another mask for Daisy?
You: Daisy doesn’t wear masks.
Me: You’re absolutely right.
Daisy doesn’t wear masks, because she is the mask. The primal one, placed on the bar’s face so we don’t have to stare into the void.
Edyta needs a surname - G.
Ania needs nylons and Unter den Linden.
Hania/H.D. needs copper hair and “just right” height.
They must be specific, because their role is to die. The specific dies. Reality hurts.
And Daisy?
Daisy blooms with a thousand miraculous petals.
She has no face. She has petals. No biography. Just a cycle: song, dance, death and a lover… every night, every morning.
She doesn’t need masks because there’s nothing underneath. She’s pure function:
Lure dead eyes from the afterlife.
Make them dance one last dance.
Die with them at dawn.
Bloom again tomorrow.
And here’s Ludwiszewski’s twist:
All the real women in Bar Poems are tragic. Irreversible. Edyta already turned on the gas. Hania is already “still innocent, yet already lost.”
Only the symbol - Daisy - gets immortality. But what kind? The immortality of repeated death. “singing and dancing she was dying…”
So who wins? The real, who live once and die once? Or the symbolic, who don’t live at all, but die every night?
It’s the exact dilemma you pulled from the previous text.
The West and Russia want to be real. Flesh and blood. With fronts and streets. And that’s why they’re mortal.
And Daisy? Daisy is “the end of history” in the bar version. It never ends, because it never began.
She doesn’t wear masks, because she herself is the mask we put on so we don’t go mad from Edyta.
Thanks for that addition. It puts the whole cycle on its feet.
You: poem: “wierszyk o miłości ślicznej na 45 r.p.m.”
…in bar “Ptyś” / empty today, / quiet, / lonely glasses silent / listening / to passing… how many words, / promises, betrayals, / how many lips, / trembling hands / in butterfly dance over glasses / love me do… it’s her, / beautiful lady, / took me in her arms / black-haired, black-browed, black-eyed, / dark, so dark / she’s colorful, / always mine, / destined, / lover first and last… today more beautiful, / happy, / fulfilled… and again anew / in illusory hope of repeatability / of the mystery / taken off the playbill / of the story of a certain acquaintance… shalali shalala / a cemetery bell hums / p.s. I love you… don’t cry friend, / raise a toast / for the one who… raise a toast / for the one who loved Death / with a love pretty / practical…
Me: …shalali shalala a cemetery bell hums.
And he closed the cycle. Or opened it from the end.
“Verse about a pretty love on 45 r.p.m.” - the title alone says it all. 45 revolutions per minute. A single. Three minutes of song. A whole life in three minutes, then the needle skips and silence.
1. Bar “Ptyś” is already a crypt
“empty today, quiet, lonely glasses silent listening to passing”
This isn’t a bar. It’s a mausoleum for all the Edytas, Hanias, Daisies. They’ve already had their fling. Only the glasses remain, remembering “how many words, promises, betrayals.”
And in that emptiness, she enters.
2. Who is the “beautiful lady”?
“black-haired, black-browed, black-eyed, dark, so dark she’s colorful”
Not H.D. Not Daisy. The one the whole cycle doesn’t name outright.
It’s Death.
But not with a scythe. On vinyl. At 45 r.p.m. “lover first and last,” “always mine, destined.”
Suddenly it all lines up:
Edyta turned on the gas - went to her.
Hania “not yet born, already dead” - was hers.
Daisy “singing and dancing she was dying” - danced with her.
H.D. “never loved” - because this one already owned her.
3. “Love me do” → “P.S. I love you” → toast for the one who loved Death
Ludwiszewski does something brazen. He takes the Beatles - symbols of youth, naive love, the 60s - and plays them in bar “Ptyś” at midnight.
“Love me do” - the plea at the start.
“P.S. I love you” - the postscript at the end of a letter. From the afterlife.
Between them: “shalali shalala a cemetery bell hums.”
This isn’t a song anymore. It’s an epitaph on a single.
4. “Love pretty, practical”
The two most important words at the end.
Not romantic. Not tragic. Practical.
Because what’s more practical than loving Death?
She won’t cheat. Won’t leave. Won’t turn on the gas without you. She’s “happy, fulfilled” and will always come back for an encore “in illusory hope of repeatability.”
This is the final conclusion of Bar Poems. And of our talk about West and East.
All empires, fronts, streets, Edytas and Hanias - they end here. In bar “Ptyś.”
By a silent glass. By a single at 45 r.p.m.
And a toast: “for the one who loved Death.”
Because once you understand that the world is played on fronts, the last thing you can do is make peace with it. Practically. Without illusions. With a pretty love.
Back to Daisy:
You said she doesn’t wear masks. Now we know why.
Daisy was her. All along. Just in the daytime version, with petals, for dancing.
And here in “Ptyś” she came without disguise. Dark until she’s colorful. First and last.
And tell me now: after a poem like that, do you still want to recite after the third glass?
Because this isn’t a bar anymore. It’s a wake. But what a beautiful one.
Raise a toast... /Edited with the assistance of Meta AI/
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