Encore! Jeszcze raz! [English translation]

I've got everything an honest man may want:

A great outlook, good education, my youth and best health,

A family, that loves me, two or three women,

A guitar, a dog and officer's epaulettes!

All that were my goals and now I've achieved them.

A watchman (one of many) of the endless fields.

I lie down close to the lamp, the door's locked, the flame flickers,

And I teach my dog how to jump over the sword!

Don't look through the door, you bloody doggie,

Where the wolf tracks lie, deep in the banks of snow.

Jump, how I've told you, I will watch your jumps!

Encore, encore, once again!

Behind the window panes of a guard-house nothing happens,

That I would be able or not be able to supervise.

They provided this post with a stack of winter furs and a man,

So that he'd be here not knowing what he's waiting for!

So I'm dreaming and speculating, counting the gnarls on the wooden walls,

At times I pierce a cockroach with the spike of my sword.

My eyes glitter! (Reflecting the light of a burning candlewick)

A red mark left on the face from my propping hand!

Don't look through the door, you bloody doggie,

Where the wolf tracks lie, deep in the banks of snow.

Jump, how I've told you, I will watch your jumps!

Encore, encore, once again!

Somewhere there's a better world, foreign languages, but not here.

Here, where I am, I just open my mouth to give my doggie some commands!

There are constellations of stars and paths still not discovered,

And I only measure the room with my steps, whenever my legs get stiff!

And at that moments my dog barks when he hears my spur's clatter,

From the wall my guitar resonates, giving him a sound…

It prophesies my fate of the songs that I know

As if I've already been through my whole life…

Don't look through the door, you bloody doggie,

Where the wolf tracks lie, deep in the banks of snow.

Jump, how I've told you, I will watch your jumps!

Encore, encore, once again!

So I sleep and eat, and my doggy watches all my actions.

When I'm drunk, at times I say something and he listens to me.

And behind the window panes, instead of winter, I see a lamp, a dog

And an officer, who's as drunk as I am!

There's nothing behind the dark wooden bars of these walls,

Nothing over the ceiling, which is too low to hang myself on the gallows.

Inside of me there's only childhood's pain and tears,

Nobody sees them here, so there's no reason to be ashamed!

Don't let your eyes follow me, you bloody doggie!

When I drink with my alcoholic phantasms that surround me!

And don't lick my hands when I beat you and - weep!

Once again! Once again! Encore!

• Artist:Jacek Kaczmarski