Polish Communion

This country cannot be found on any map,

Only in the breaking of bread

And the chill grace of vodka;

The borders are shifting, as ever,

And nothing can be held in the hand.

Again it is Maundy Thursday

And the villagers hang effigies of Judas,

Flog them, burn them, throw them in the river.

Woman, sunrise celebrates Mass in your eyes,

Bird calls break the forest silence,

A pillar of fire rises among the trees,

Wild boar guard the musky gloom.

Skulls under skullcaps recite the Psalms.


Drunkenness is my vocation,

Religiously reciting the names

Of different vodkas :

Żubrówka,Tatrazańska, Jarzębiak.

Pierced by the Tartar arrows of the summer sun,

I tumble naked into steaming lakes,

The earth sweats like an Arabian thoroughbred,

This is no land for the rational,the sane,

It belongs to the laughing rascals

Leaning out of windows on Easter Monday

To throw water bombs at passing girls.


Insurrection clamours

In the shipyards of the spirit;

Shanties carry on the wind,

And whale songs echo through sailors’ bones,

While the potbellied knights of King Arthur

Feast in the hall of marble columns,

Fed from the Holy Grail.


In Praski Park,on the Vistula’s edge,

I sit on a smooth glacial boulder,

Looking across at the ghost city’s outline,

Luminous Warsaw,resurrected stone by stone.

I cross the bridge to the Old Town,

The Castle’s pink Renaissance facade in the square,

Where the last king was hustled out by Russian soldiers,

Forbidden to address the silent crowd,

Before him only exile,nostalgia,despair.

The gilded apartments,willed out of nothingness

By desperate magic,glitter with mourning,

The dust of broken centuries swarming in the light.


Chestnut-splendid and besquirrelled,

All paths through Łazienkowski Park lead

To the Palace on the Water,that great swan

Fed on faith and joy,its mutable aspects

Appearing through the willows as you approach.

Inside,the rooms,elaborately dazzling,

Bespeak pavanes on polished marble

And fluttering repartee at butterfly balls,

Lightness and fancy set free for a moment.


In my mundane mediocrity,I envy

The old nobles of Poland, decadent, idle,

Revelling in their imagined Sarmatian descent,

As much as the ideals of Greece and Rome,

Horsemen warriors decked in gold, with Amazon women,

Feasting and living with opulent extravagance,

Wearing fur caps with pearls and crimson damask robes,

Silk and precious stones, with sashes of gold,

The men shaving their heads in imagined imitation

Of the ancient Sarmatian nomads.

Neglecting politics for display,

Karol Radziwiłł would, in a drunken stupor,

Shoot any dinner guest he deemed disagreeable;

For sport, he would also have his servants

Fire huge bison into the air

From massive launchers hidden in the forests

Of his estate, so he could shoots them in mid-air,

A crack shot who seldom missed.


They were the finest men ever,

Jan Sobieski, born in a thunderstorm,

Caparisoned in furs and silks,

Silver half-moon heels on his Turkish boots,

Jewelled scimitar at his side,

And his winged hussars, steel armour

Polished like silver and edged with brass,

Shining like gold,

Their shoulders adorned with mascarons

Depicting the Nemean lion,

Their breastplates graven with the Holy Virgin,

The officers in Sarmatian scale armour,

Leoparskins thrown over their backs,

Tall eagle feathers attached to their backs,

Their Circassian saddles of broidered velvet

Set with precious stones,

Striking terror into every enemy

When they appeared on the horizon,

Pennants fluttering and weapons gleaming....


In the cathedral of Sandomierz

Along the nave the massive paintings

Detail the innumerable martyrdoms

Of faithful Catholics at the hands

Of Muslims and Jews,-here, a Christian child

Is ritually murdered by Jews,

Rolling him in a barrel of nails,

Then letting the blood drain from his body

Then throwing the corpse to the dogs.

Endless beheadings and tortures

Prove the nation righteous,

And a Pole still seated on his horse

Is blown through the air

Across the Vistula, as the castle explodes,

To land uninjured on the other side.


Must the courageous be cruel in their defiance?

Time and again the people have risen

To fight for freedom,whatever the cost,

Knowing that victory is always temporary,

A preparation for the next defeat,

Surviving to work some profound influence

Upon the nations of Europe.


Puszcza Kampinoska:countless trails lead off

Into the deep wilderness...stray too far

And you are lost,lost,lost...who would hear

Your small voice calling? The darkness

Belongs to wolves and boars.In a silent clearing

A monument marks the spot where people

Stood before open ditches to be shot.


The lonely trumpeter of Kraków sounds the hours

From the highest tower of Mariacki Church,

Addressing the four quarters in turn,

Each slow sobbing call cut short in mid-phrase,

Surprised by the Tatar’s fatal arrow.

On Wawel Hill,in the Gothic cathedral,

Straight ahead in the transept ,reflecting

Sun-shafts from golden roof and columns,

Rides the body of St Stanislaw in silver coffin.

Poems fill the air like the palatial Turkish tents

Captured at Vienna,displayed in the castle,

With empty suits of oriental armour standing guard.


Ornamental Italian castles on the northern European plains;

Tiny roads to ancient villages or overgrown ramparts...

Memories roll forward and back,crossing the Obidowa pass

At sunset,ridge on ridge receding through green

And grey to distant blue,the Tatra peaks ever closer...

Nothing but the fire of rowanberry vodka

On this unrepeatable day,in the imagined world

Of destruction and creation,where the soul

Must suffer and grow wise.


Inside the brute red mass of Malbork Castle,

Labyrinthine corridors disappearing into inner darkness,

I gaze into lumps of amber,into the bodies

Of insects and plants suspended in amniotic hell.

Is it there still,inside me,Copernicus’s view

Of the Baltic from Frombork,out at the edge,

Where what appears disappears and appears again?