Autoportret Witkacego [English translation]

I look at the world – one of habits

so far away from the narcotics

I have the red eyes of experimental rabbits

I'm sat up from the tables

so not from pangs

I have the Mongolian lips clenched hungrily

I listen to words, not the sounds

So not from bloated thoughts

I have the ears of naïve collaborators

I keep smelling bastards

so not for tale's colours

I have the typical nose's shape of victimised Semites

I see the form of things in their being existential

and that makes me great as well as singular

in contrast to you, my lordships, who must forgive me but

you are an idiot verse's facsimile copied over and over

I have a neck quite stiff

's why I still live

that politics is hogwash in a crystal dish

I have a mind as tough as elbows

so don't kick me, lords

that revolution, for me, is red nails

Responsive as a membrane

therefore in the morn and eve

I tremble like the spleen – ripped out of an eel

I fear the world's doom

so to lift the mood

I scream! Like a child in a completely dark room

I, more than any of you, choke and suffocate

I, more than any of you, don’t wanna live but must

But I am untouchable and that is why

when the time comes I will deprive the world of

Witkacy

• Artist:Jacek Kaczmarski