I saw
I saw American night in broad daylight I saw houses worth millions of dollars and houses
without windows on the outskirts Detroit I saw my ancestors’ American dream several
Mexicans cleaning in a hotel where I danced YMCA at a wedding reception acres of one-
armed bandits in Trump Taj Mahal people in eateries of the eat-as-much-as-you-like-for-
ten-dollars kind watching sitcoms and stand-ups listening to country and western
sometimes blues I saw American night in broad daylight I saw a white cross on Robert
Kennedy’s grave I saw thousands of American movies people chopped with saws or
knives loaded with machine gun outbursts smothered with pillows or strangled with
scarves turning into flies or androids high on coke dope heroin selling their souls to the
devil advocates brokers swimming in pools made of money people dancing non-stop not to die
losing it because of traffic jams on highways travelling in time to stop a war wrongly
convicted released years later I saw hell in a Woody Allen’s movie I saw American night in
broad daylight the first man the first blood three billboards four rooms five armies six feet
under seven eight MM twelve angry men twelve monkeys the last picture show on the
beach with a view onto a brand new day
Robert Kania is a Polish poet, author of four poetry books, of which the most recent one is noc amerykańska (American Night, 2021). Widely published in literary magazines and translated into Bulgarian and English. He is the former president of the Polish Haiku Association (2015-2018).
Anna Blasiak is a poet, writer, translator, journalist and managing editor of the European Literature Network in the UK. She has recently published a bilingual poetry and photography book (with Lisa Kalloo) Café by Wren’s St-James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime, as well as a book-length interview with a Holocaust survivor Lili. Lili Stern-Pohlmann in conversation in Anna Blasiak. More: annablasiak.com