History / Solidarnosc (Two Decembers) [11]

Back in the mid 9Os I lived opposite the monument of the shipyard workers killed on Solidarity Sqaure...

At the base of the monument there is an inscription with the words of Jan Pawel II ... "May the Holy Ghost descend from Heaven and change this land"... In so many ways the Pope's prayers have been answered but some of 3miasto friends see a shadow being cast over their land as people come to terms with Poland's new moral philosophy... where the pursuit of money and career overwhelms the sense of social justice...

Two Decembers

Do you remember the healmets
Grey quilted jackets, faces made of steel
Broken hearts, souls bespattered with spit
And scoundrels who fired at us
Do you remember the wings of hope
That brought us into the time of awakening
And human hands that held a stone
Aimed at the prison guards

Do you remember the smoke
and the tumult
Or the people throwing themselves with
fury and terror
Lake a wave flowing into the song
of the generations
That live though cannot live

Do you remember the moments of despair
Bodies falling down like hewn trees
Metal that filled the air with coldness
And the mouth of sand, not bread
Do you remember the wretched lies
Vile pathos, paper faces
And their babble disguised as repentance
Which is mistaken but wants you to trust
So here we come again

The bones of the innocent shine afar
Meanness has no face but a mask
And feeds the people with false hope
And thought history goes forward
Turning conceit and violence into ashes
Our clock's hand has stopped on the face
A tank's armour hides its impotance

December 16 1981

Antoni Kozlowski