Heart in Mouth

Abstract

It is with my heart in my mouth that I set about an unceremonious description of those close to me: with my heart in my mouth and panic in my mind, for there's not much that I know. Truth to tell, I know only one thing: that before I finish this scandalizing narrative, begun today, the new government, which by a curious quirk of fate was also called into being today, [*] will have fallen. I have the certainty, founded upon the strength of the eternal superiority of writing over politicking, that I will be writing longer than the government will govern. A similar incident happened to me once before. A couple of years ago I visited Lapanow to stay with my in-laws for a day or two. It was the beginning of June; the weather was hot, my soul and my flesh were, as usual in those days, in a state of ill-usage, and I craved tranquillity and regeneration. So I went there, and there I am. I'm enjoying the fresh air, I swim breast stroke in the lake, my soul's trembling subsides, my appetite returns. Stretched out comfortably on a lounge chair, I watch with distaste as my parents-in-law slave over their little kitchen garden; I read popular literature and from time to time watch some light program on the television. Harmony. Tranquillity. Homeostasis. The earth turns with a soothing creak inside its blue husk of air, and I turn with it on my lounge chair. One day, however, as I watch the television with my ritual absence of care, what do I see? I see that the poet of independence Jan Polkowski, whom I know personally (and who is known to his friends as Polpot), has become government spokesperson. I experience excitement (for a person experiences excitement when they see someone they know on the television), I experience excitement then and a flood of memories overcomes me. I remember the underground press and I remember Zapis, on whose pages Jan Polkowski (known to his friends as Polpot) made his brilliant debut; I remember the dark night of martial law, the spoken journal NaGlos, the meeting room of the KIK club in Krakow filled to overflowing as Polpot read his bitter, captivating poems in a vibrant voice and in a vibrant silence; and I remember Jan Blonski discussing those poems in an equally captivating manner. I remember how, along with the other creative artists of independence, we played soccer in Jordan Park. (Of all the poets I know Polkowski was th e best at soccer; his technique was good, and, as they say, he struck hard and was goal-hungry; though he did not shun rough play, and also, unfortunately, he had a fondness for unsportingly accusing his opponents of being communists, which made a particular impression and thoroughly paralyzed the ranks of the juveniles who sometimes played with us.) I remember the formal dinners, the parties and the drinking sessions unchangingly anti-regime in nature (Jan drank in moderation, and he also had a moderately good head for drink; a quarter liter would see him clinging to women with a rather, let's say, indelicate gaze. Are you in mourning? was, for example, his unconventional way of opening the conversation with a lady if his eagle eye had observed her to be attired in a black evening gown. After further measures, also in the appropriate sequence, he would either sing antibolshevik songs, or talk insane gibberish, or fall into a warrior's sleep. In a word, as a dinner-guest he was, like the rest of us, pleasant, though sometimes hard work). And last but not least, I remember Jan's poems themselves: poems of an uncommon beauty, poems which made a profound impression on me then and continue to do so today. How did that line go? / Faded horses walk into the springs? / Or was it not that, not faded but swimming, I not horses and not springs but those on their knees / and the braided pavement? I did not see at that time, nor do I see now, an excess of politics in that poetry, and if I write of the author as a poet of independence I do so for more general reasons. …