When you see a crowd come home quickly,
it will carry you into a burning nation,
it will suppress your breath, make you a prisoner
of your helplessness, open the shops of hearts. At home
anti-communism is waiting for you, a pantry
full of winter supplies. Neither to the left,
nor to the right, warns grandfather, who
has been through two wars and knows what he's saying.
Actually, if people are dying in some town
you happen to be visiting on a vacation, you can
peacefully sit down to a democratic lunch
and wait and see. If necessary declare a hunger strike.
Julian Kornhauser, When you see a crowd come home quickly, ed. by John McBride and Paul Vangelisti, Humps and Wings Polish poetry since '68, Los Angeles, New York, Invisible City / Red Hill Press, 1982
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