i still remember running around at dusk with a jar, with childhood friends, chasing cockchafers (hrabąszcze); and this is at a time when there was inflation in the country, back then it was almost like Zimbabwe in Poland... and a major economic theory was being undermined... it's still honey to me, of course my memory has become a bit patchy, a bit tartan, a bit of a dalmatian, but i still remember bits and bobs... having a memory like that feeds the imagination, esp. if the imaginative expression takes root in symbols, rather than shapes and colours.*

it's mesmerising how memory
is the equivalent of antimatter
given imagination is the matter,
because how easily does man
conjure up elves, demons, angels
and gods and talking lions,
and how difficult he finds it,
conjuring himself, aged nine -
re-imagining things, the premise
of the educational system,
being tested like that, eroding memory
like that, the corrosion of memory
akin to teeth, how do we erode
the enamel of our memories on pointless
arithmetic and a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k,
m, n, l, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v; w, x, y, u, z...
you see, i only know the sing-along
version of the alphabet,
and i just didn't bother remembering it
as such... god knows how i managed
to remember january through to march
ending in december.