POEM - so I'll abandon my mother tongue (2022)

​​my grandma

traverses the channels

seeking trauma’s refuge.

a woman of strength

unable to converse

in the mother tongue

of her new motherland

and the strings of ojczyzna

get her tongue tied

as she competes in

the verbal gymnastics

each time she has to say

hello.

in this new motherland

customs were confused

with costumes

and tradition was nothing

but an exhibition

for the wandering eye

of the foreigner

who blink and miss the beauty

while remaining wide eyed

for the misdemeanours

‘From Stettin in the Baltic to

Trieste in the Adriatic

an iron curtain has descended

across the continent’

I never did have to play pretend

as a child

for I already knew how it felt

to be an alien.

my grandma tells me

‘Kochana, assimilation

is the key to this nation.’

while my peers tell me

my kind are good for nothing,

except job stealing!

I sit alone on planet Venus

and float further to the East.

jeszcze Polska nie zginęła.

Poland is not yet lost,

but can it be truly lost

if I never found it to begin with?

moja kochana,

you’ll be denied access to culture

as a form of protection

from the vulture

that will suck your blood

and replace it with red, white and blue.

maintain that stiff upper lip,

and speak the language

of your passport!

(but only your British one.)

perform your culture

as though it was a comedy

and wear your clothes

as though they were fancy dress

that’s all they’ll be to the foreigner anyway!

cultural dress is failed couture

and your sacred language

is nothing but a key smash

of letters that should never be put together.

pride should turn to shame

and shame you should indeed possess

so, I’ll abandon my mother tongue

and hope that one day

it’ll find me again.

but remember -

all planets revolve around the sun

and one day Venus

won’t seem so far away

from home.