| The Poetry of Paul Polansky |
 |
 |
 |
| Books - Fiction | |||
| Written by Paul Polansky | |||
Paul Polansky is a Romani rights activist and the author of four books of poetry, three of non-fiction and one novel. Relying on "the terror of the facts," Polansky has drawn international attention for exposing racism and discrimination in the Czech Republic and the Balkans.
PERLOVA STREET Although you can find Gypsy hookers all over the country (especially on highway 55 waving down German truckers) the only safe place for them is on Perlova street in Prague. They hang out in Palmeras, the non-stop bar half-way down the block, knowing they're safe from skinheads. Around the corner are the cops who protect them, take half their wages, and get free sex whenever they want it. The Gypsy hookers know I can't afford their prices, but the drinks in Palmeras are cheap, the view is free, and in that bar, I'm also safe from skinheads. VALENTINE'S DAY I learned a long time ago you can never go back to the same whore. Despite all those nice things they say while you're f*cking, they never remember you. But it was Valentine's day and I wanted to give a card to a Prague whore. Make one of them feel as if she had an admirer out there because many do. I went to Tesco. Bought a red heart laced with white ribbon. Then walked over to the Cocktail Bar on Zitna where all these girls from the Philippines sit in slavery. For a change, I didn't wait for the youngest girl to come out. I took a woman who looked about thirty, a woman who looked bored with life. When I told her I had something special for her, she laughed like all whores who hear the same thing ten to twenty times a day. While she put on my condom with her mouth, I slipped the valentine between the cheeks of her ass. She automatically reached for the house phone without seeing what I had stuck there. "It's a Valentine's card! " I yelled, grabbing her hand off the phone. Her lips quivered, before she reached behind her.
SUNDAY, SUNDAY I met Anita one Sunday morning in Malostranska on the 22 tram. I heard her speaking Spanish. Introduced myself. She was a black girl from the Dominican Republic who had an overdose of Spanish blood. I say "overdose" because she was like those Spanish women who don't take off their gold crucifixes to f*ck a man. Not that I ever f*cked Anita. But we talked about it, and a million other things when we met on Sunday mornings before she got off at the Castle with her Cuban girlfriend and the two minders who didn't know what we were saying because they spoke only Czech. Anita's dream was to work in Spain. She asked about the King in Madrid. I told her he liked to fool around too, that women were his favorite pastime. Anita whispered the craziest things in my ear, but she never told me how to get in touch. Then one Sunday, she wasn't on the tram. The minders were with two Korean girls. I asked about Anita. The men laughed. Said she had finally gotten her wish. MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS Not all whores work in a whorehouse. Back in '63 I knew a school teacher in Wilson, North Carolina, who lived across from a truck stop. Whenever truckers flashed their headlights she'd walk across the field, and f*ck for five dollars. In Prague, I knew this mother-daughter team. They weren't a f*cking team, they just worked together in a cowboy bar in Kobylisy serving drinks, sitting on men's laps. They didn't look alike, but they f*cked alike. They always told you not to tell the other. But they bought a new car together, from their tips. DASHA I never met her, but I know a lot of Gypsy men who slept with her when they were fourteen, fifteen. She'd prowl the parks in her car, offer them a ride, then take them to the Hotel Flora in Prague 4. My Czech relatives always told me you can never believe what Gypsies say. I thought their Holocaust stories were true because they didn't know each other, yet gave the same details. But countless Gypsy boys sleeping with Dasha was too much even for me to swallow. Wherever I went - Gypsy weddings, funerals, parties - I heard about Dasha. The stories were so erotic, I couldn't forget them. One day in London I met a stateless Gypsy who was head of the Roma Refugee Center. He had lived in Prague until the 1993 citizenship law declared he wasn't legal in the country where he had been born. I asked him about Dasha. "How did you know?" he asked. "I've never told anyone." When I smiled as if I knew the whole story, he took out his wallet, and showed me the photos. KAFKA Literary critics still debate Franz Kafka's sex life. Did he, or didn't he, make love with Milena? No one disputes the stories that Kafka f*cked low-class whores around Old Town Square. I still wander down those little alleyways off Celetna wondering if some of the old women living in those shabby one-room apartments entertained Kafka on his drunken forays. What makes a man look for a whore after having one drink too many? What do we seek that we can't find when we're sober?
|
Polansky currently resides in his native Iowa after living in South Bohemia from 1991 to 1994 and in Prague from 1995 to 1999. The following poems come from a manuscript currently seeking a publisher. 
