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Saturday, December 07, 2019

THE STARTLING, VERY FINE WORK OF THE BEAUTIFUL ANTONIA ALEXANDRA KLIMENKO - FIVE POEMS AS LOVELY AS HER

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  After his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her and encouraged her to write. A former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence. Her collected poems, On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in Spring of next year.

All rights reserved solely by the author.





So here we go again   you and I
picking up speed   on our magic steed
gliding   up and down  
whirling   round and round
with no ending or beginning

Everything happens like this
Everything passes through us--
a breath   a memory   a vision  
some inexplicable Miracle
that has happened before
that is happening right now
all   at   the   same   time

One moment…
you’re a child of six  
riding into the sunset   on a wooden horse
Next moment…
You’re a child of six-ty  
stepping  back into yourself  
like your favorite rerun

Tonight
your dreams have packed their bags
and are leaving for Paris without you
your night-lite is flirting with that first star on the right
all the lovers in the world are coming together 
in spontaneous combustion

In this very moment…
a stellar explosion 
thousands of light-years away 
is spinning through space  
is becoming   that radiant smile  
on your down-turned face
Past future and present
are converging in harmonic synchronistic rhythm
The sun and moon are aligning
with Venus Jupiter and Mars

Energy synergy electricity    deaf lightning 
is coursing through your varicose veins
Every broken atom   every imagined pain
every cell is being reborn     
Words that have flown south  
missing in action   or in revision
are coming alive   are exploding into light  
are taking back the night                                                                  
The unspoken and unsaid   are at this very instant  
orbiting your head   

Soon…                                                                                                 
dust particles are colliding coalescing
merging converging    to form a new planet 
The music of the spheres is unrehearsed
Black cosmic rays are holding the magnetic field--
a convex mirror in reverse                                                                   
My tears   a cinematic film  
are rolling back into my eyes
Regret that once escaped my lips  
is falling to its knees
is begging me to PLEASE not wear it  
like a saddle ‘round my hips
is begging for forgiveness

So here were are again   you and I
on a carousel in the dark
We fall off our horse    and dust ourselves off
and fall in love   again   of course     
before it grows cold and stark

One day we’ll get it right   you know
The moon is out tonight   you know
Nothing is by chance
The music is playing   
Remember our first kiss?
Please save me    this one last dance

Feather Pillows 

                            How unbearably white
                                 The blind on the white window.
                                                    --Anna Akhmatova

That Winter 
my grandmother reached into the sky 
for dreams bluer than blue
to slip inside our heads
while we lay sleeping

Every morning  
flowers sang   from outside her window
In the pleats of her skirt---choruses of Irving Berlin
Every day 
summersaults of grass  
                                    sprang from under her feet
and every tree on every corner  
                                                whose every leaf was a poem
invited her to dance on air
 
That Winter   in San Francisco  
she was looking for Summer  
when all   the sweet humming in her veins 
spilled into the street   like a Gershwin Rhapsody
 
How she slipped into that pillow— so unbearably white-- 
awakens to this moment    as I breathe in the air 
Is it your sky   Grandmother? that reaches into me?
I reach into myself     to find my own leaves of summer 
like all dreams eternal     slipping into light 

Our Lady

 Flames scorch your walls   your wood-beamed ceilings
Gargoyles lick the smoke-filled air
Your ancient timbers once echoed in forests
Now turn to ash    but you’re still there

Centuries have not obscured your face
Nor revolutions your holy brow
How you’ve looked at the world through rose-colored glass
How saints pass through you even now

How many have entered your sacred space
Like the mirrored moon from behind her veil
Bright flickering stars crown your thorny head
They would raise your roof but to no avail

As April springs into fragrant flower
Memory stands transfixed   transformed
We are all but hunchbacks in the Belltower
We were all meant to be reborn

Surreal Architect of Untold Meaning
Unfolding petals   on the tremulous Seine
How you inspire   mute words on fire
The passion of love   the burst of flame

Living Canvas   City of Light
Your candles lit from within our souls
The intimate silence of your unspoken prayer
It is for us    for whom the bell tolls

I hear them now
at my tear-stained window
Ave Maria Ave Maria
Just beyond the River’s bend

Hymns in the night
Angels of Light
Glimpses of iconic vision

Our heart is melting
The world is turning
Paris is burning



Twilight


His love of open space
left blanks between his words
gaps   between his teeth
silences within
All intervals in time--
the measure of   height and width
the depth in which all things exist
and move    moved in him--
a boundless three dimensional
journeying between the planets and the stars
the flat surfaces of  his mind

How he distanced himself
from things and people
invading his terrain--
floor space   parking space
objects and events which occurred 
in the space which occupied him--the Absolute Space--
was beyond even him

Often he would go to great lengths
extending himself
the rings around his eyes--
sunken in their dark orbits
spinning
in some alternate Universe

Space
is relative to position and direction
he said
but only in the physical realm
The celestial beauty of inner space
is infinite  
There is no separation   between
sunrise and sunset
shadow and light
the dead and the living
Life belongs to both worlds
and to neither--
rests in the breath
inhabits the mystery
of here
and oh so there

He said   he said                                                                
taking one last drag
on his burnt-out cigarette
before he shut the door
behind him

Blew his brains out
in the hallway     he did

Now, go to Hell !
he said

 Song of the Dying

                                                    Hello darkness my old friend
                                               Sounds of Silence—Simon and Garfunkel
           
O   Dark Sphere–
face revolving with the earth
changing shape and color–
will I never see the whole picture?

I am falling within
the flickering shadows
of my eyes   They are the fields
of childhood
patterned with liquid dream
disappearing into their horizons

I am closing within
the closing eye of the needle
that threads light
through the visible veil
of God’s invisible world

I know all your human songs from memory
The unpopular   the unsung
remain on my lips–-
my mouth opening like a grave

Who   with her long black gloves
holds a hand darker than night
and places it over each living eye
so we cannot look into the Light–
the beautiful Light that remembers?

Tell me   Old Friend 
is it your bow
that draws so sweetly
across the universe of my heart–
a single violin?

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