Philosophers by Adam Zagajewski translated by Clare Cavanagh Stop deceiving us philosophers work is not a joy man is not the highest goal work is deadly sweat Lord when I get home I'd like to sleep but sleep's just a driving belt transporting me to the next day and the sun's a fake coin morning rips my eyelids sealed as before birth my hands are two Gastarbeiter and even my tears don't belong to me they participate in public life like speakers with chapped lips and a heart that's grown into the brain Work is not a joy but incurable pain like a disease of the open conscience like new housing projects through which the citizen wind passes in his high leather boots
From Without End: New and Selected Poems by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).