What's the Frequency, Kasia?

In which, we continue our whirlwind tour through Polish poetry in search of references to the Car (in Polish, samochód, literally "self-movement"). Today's poet, Wisława Szymborska: witty, charming, emotionally disarming, a true Kraków poet. She won the Nobel for literature in 1996 and died in 2012. She also created collage postcards, like the self-portrait above (more here). We used Poems, New and Collected for our experiment. Here's the count:

Heart 21

Horse 2

Vodka 1

Death 19

Blood 7

Tears 11

Car 1

More heart than Herbert but the same amount of vodka and car. Szymborska's "car poem" is "A Film from the Sixties" (tr. Stanisław Barańczak & Clare Cavanaugh). The car experience here is more direct than Herbert's "automobile parts" but still not that of a driver or even a passenger, rather of one "checked out" by someone riding in a car.

The adult male. This person on earth.

Ten million nerve cells. Ten pints of blood

Pumped by ten ounces of heart.

This object took three billion years to emerge.

He first took the shape of a small boy.

The boy would lean his head on his aunt’s knees.

Where is that boy. Where are those knees.

The little boy got big. Those were the days.

These mirrors are cruel and smooth asphalt.

Yesterday he ran over a cat. Yes, not a bad idea.

The cat was saved from this age’s hell.
A girl in the car checked him out.

No, her knees weren’t what he’s looking for.

Anyway, he just wants to lie in the sand and breathe.

He has nothing in common with the world.

He feels like a handle broken off a jug,

But the jug doesn’t know it’s broken and keeps going.

It’s amazing. Someone’s still willing to work.

The house gets built. The doorknob has been carved.

The tree is grafted. The circus will go on.

The whole won’t go to pieces, although it’s made of them

Thick and heavy as glue sunt lacrimae rerum.

But all that’s only background, incidental.

Within him, there’s an awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy.

God of humor, do something about him, OK?

God of humor, do something about him today.