Today a lot of bread in the market.
Around the merchants buyers in rings
are bargaining, cursing, swearing
hands stretched out, cheeks flushed,
bread is sold and bought in the street.
On the sidewalk stretched out like a rumpled rag
in a torn coat
with an open
streams running down his cheeks
a piece of bread
wealthy passers-by
indifferent.
on the city’s streets
such a time has come
a poor man with a mouth salivating
... from hunger, people die.
a man runs in the street like a baited rabbit,
nimbly avoids rickshaws and trams
behind him the blows of a policeman’s truncheon.
He pays no attention, greedily devouring
big chunks of bread, wanting to eat his fill for once.
The indifferent street stops short, mesmerized.
Blows fall on joints, on bones,
beating without pity.
Who cares, he’s hungry,
it’s nothing if he’s harassed by the policeman,
this is right, it’s the verdict of the street.
The street... beneath the separation wall,
beneath a barrier to protect against typhus,
a quiet whisper, an agreed-upon sign, and over the barrier
a sack full of bread is tossed.
Quickly the bread is seized, wrapped in old rags,
the faster to escape the nearby watch.
Yet smuggled bread without ration cards is expensive
and a poor man can only dream about it.
Only for some, those chosen by fate,
does the Community or the ŻYTOS offices distribute bread.
So for a change, another picture – an office,
behind a small table, a clerk armed with a pen;
shouting, hubbub, tumult, raised voices,
