The Morality of not Learning Polish
It’s fair to say part of my move to Europe is not my strong suit
The scorn comes down in a
soft haze of probing questions
velvet glove over cold metal
harsh as the language I am
expected to learn but resist
as if those five years of schoolboy
Latin are still on my tail.
It’s curious the way motivation
is always ascribed to work in the
human need to take offence as if
somehow my refusal of all those
csys and zs is somehow personal
like poison loaded into cake mix
rather than a tongue simply tired of tripping
its way into Hell rather than Heaven.
Is it temerity to say in life’s final
furlongs I refuse either to race or
do anything that gives little pleasure
& way too much pain? Perhaps, but
I would sooner throw English words
into a blazing sky where language is redundant
& watch them grow green over the world
nestle near the morning star, and wink.
Copyright Simon Heathcote
