Oneiropeia and other Poems in English
Monika Kostera
ONEIROPEIA
FAST POETRY
Swamphaiku
(Växjö, 2006)
Full moon over swamp
Lights prickle darkness below
The madhouse glitters
*
The sky
Is up there
Here
- Only mud
Still,
Wading through
Is just about
Possible
*
Snow lies immobile
Around my house, in darkness
Footprints multiply
*
Flag fluttering calmly
Like a tail of a fat cat
Above frosty roof
*
Silent square in white
Black trees protrude and surround
A lonely phonebooth
*
Menu in Danish
An unexpected treat:
Espresso and draft
*
Blue snow, white sky
A day softer than its frames
Winter trifling
*
Some cars stand still
Frozen and glimmering quietly
And some move by
*
On the other bank
Lights huddle and waver
Here they just glare
*
Red and white tulips
On my windowsill while outside
There is snow and darkness
*
Yellow house at night
Shadows in the windows
Make an icy lining
*
Train to Penzance
(2011)
Angel on the train
Absentminded, alone
Half-asleep by the window
Above, a guitar
*
Rumi says music is the proof
of life before our birth.
The soul remembers and twinkles
with recognition.
*
In the quiet coach
world before the cellphone
but with walkman -
1983.
For Kurt Q.
(London, 2011)
Under the tree,
a shadow-map.
He winked,“korset
är en gömd skatt”.
*
Shadows like roots,
connecting people.
Never trust someone
shadowless.
*
Summerglim
(Italy, 2011)
In the canion of garbage
all the roads are taken.
Nothing new under the blazing sun.
Lonely in Naples .
*
At the end of the labirynth
you and your shadow
become all one.
*
The Albatross
(Warszawa, 2011)
A haiku has
five-seven-five syllables.
This is not a haiku.
*
Today wings are dressed.
The albatross safely strides
along the sidewalk.
*
Return
(Colchester, 2012)
Sitting, night outside,
snow at the door,
silence at heart.
Waiting for the revolution.
*
River light
(Colchester, 2012)
When I was young
I wanted
to become a poet.
I’m failing better.
*
Sunlight in the glass.
Sounds going around.
March landing,
soflty.
*
Dissolution
(Colchester, March 2012)
Pigs and fishes
in dream. Good fortune.
Emptiness hurts,
moonlight unmasks.
*
Black windowpane.
Darkness mounting
outside – thick, sickening mass.
*
Goodbye, imaginary friends,
so long I waited for you.
Now,
I go.
*
Flash in the dark.
Anger, sacred and pure
heals the broken man.
*
The antidote to hope
is a black crow taking flight
from within the chest
*
Archangel Uriel, bring us water and wine
to pour out over the darkness
with which we collide
*
The First Circle
(Colchester/ Warszawa/ Colchester, 2012)
The soft end of the night
in a village theatre
we celebrate laughter
*
Drink wine to Omar Khayyam
Drink red to the shadows
Drink white to the light
*
In the beginning
there was a shining city
that dreamed itself free.
*
Skywards, up we go!
Bluewards, outside gravity.
The shadow remains.
*
Fake, fake, fake
is the new holy.
Nothing below.
*
Stars and eyes
against a cosmic blackness.
Jacob, my brother,
I think I'm drowning.
*
Spiders of light,
spinning dust and shadow.
Spring did not come.
137
(Colchester, May 2012)
Far north and far south:
music that speaks to the migrant
birds of the soul.
*
Neither spring nor fall,
mint green suspended in grey.
Limbo vacation.
*
Spring, the Second Coming
(Warszawa, May 2012)
This is the centre of the Earth,
here all roads come to an end.
Time for resurrection.
*
The source
(Colchester, June/ July2012)
Again, in white, amidst
the greens and blues –
coffee and revelation.
*
Thunderous and endless
fall, oh rain, and with you
all I'll never be
*
Come, mourn with me, friends,
mourn the spring that never came,
mourn Icarus' wings.
*
Jugoslavija
(summer 2012)
The walls bearing marks
of when brother killed brother.
Such stark loneliness.
*
The End
(autumn 2012)
Darkening
of the light.
Closer
and closer,
changing sides.
Now I am it and it is me; it is
Not
*
Between the wolf and the dog
The hour when the city is
channelling
animal spirits
New Year
(Torun-Warszawa-London, 2013)
City gone snowblind,
streets sliding apart,
the centre is lost.
*
Stars swirling
in the cosmic wind,
carrying stowaway worlds.
*
Landing in rainbow.
A psychedelic descent
towards gray London.
*
Snakepath
(Sheffield-Durham-Warsaw, 2013)
Goodbye, Colchester,
small town with big Roman soul.
Not home but dreaming.
*
Angels in Sheffield
almost visible against
the backlit highstreet
*
The snow is falling
the swallows are silent now
and the voice is stilled.
*
One more umbrella
tried to take flight and fluttered
dying, like a swan.
*
Green grass, piercing wind.
The suspense of English spring -
will it rain again?
Of the hills
(Sheffield, 2013)
Clouds wrapping tightly
the seven hills of Sheffield –
or else they crumble.
*
Vulcan's city,
dreaming dreams of steel,
yet so soft at heart.
*
Like a wink, the Moon
high in the blue sunlit sky.
Reverse insomnia.
*
Electric twitter:
trams below the chestnutline –
toes all aflutter.
*
Strange rituals
(St. Andrews-Warsaw, 2013)
The lady in black
crying her eyes out in the
Waterstone's bookstore.
*
Strange rituals performed
on the beach, the smoke rises.
Come, aggregation!
*
Such a glorious day.
Mountains and sky fuse in the
flare of the North Sea.
*
Sheffield the surprising
Scotland the beautiful.
So many ways,
so many songs
of hope.
*
Love is the only
impact worth making.
*
Anna Csillág
Oh star who let your
hair down, pray for us! Patron saint
of marketing.
Fall and elsewhere
(Warsaw-Sheffield, 2014)
I see angels and strange stars
outside my window,
dreams from some other planet
closing in.
*
“Caeteris paribus” said the economist.
There is a place where this condition holds.
Dante described it so well.
*
Sitting in meetings
with a splitting headache.
Maybe Athena getting ready to
spring?
*
Zig-Zag
(Sheffield, 2014)
The moon is growing larger,
Sheffield skies turn pink.
All in key.
*
Here again
(Warsaw/ Sheffield, 2015)
Just above the line of flight
my dead mother trying on her new white dress.
Mist above the fountain,
twice and thrice and
always.
*
4/7/2015
Schrödinger's world.
Bloodcurdlingly, one more
historical moment pending.
*
Gravity
(Sheffield, 2015)
Gravity increasing.
Thank heavens!
We won’t fall off
after all.
*
Reliable boots,
and a headful of dreams -
all you need for this trip.
*
In between spaces,
in empty shop windows
sudden bold gardens.
*
City all dazzled:
bursting forth from streets,
October on fire!
*
Two stars and a half.
Oops that half does not seem
accountable.
*
Touching door
that explodes under my finger.
This train terminates here.
*
Summer in October
touching hopeful northern flowers.
Phoenix soaring.
Polydroso
(Sheffield, 2015)
As cold as its name
the night strikes the mountains
and stars spill out.
Railway haiku
(Sheffield, 2015)
The 16:29 nightmare train
is delayed.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
*
At the ticket office
the man said: " Point of No Return.
Single, please."
*
All language left
unattended
will be removed
and may be destroyed.
*
Cités d'espérance
(Paris, 2015)
Les cités d'espérance,
quartiers naviguant,
au soleil, tous endormis.
Je patauge
dans leurs rêves.
*
Cities of Hope
(Paris, 2015)
Cities of hope,
navigating neighborhoods,
in the sun, everyone sleeping,
I flounder
in their dreams.
(trans. Denitsa Yordanova)
Insomniac metallic
(Sheffield, 2015)
The song of Reason
—staccato chorus
triumphant, radiant
Turn out the light.
*
Insomnia sobers up
from her brief crush with dreaming,
grabbed by the bladder.
*
Fireworks, then, poetry,
then, thunderous rains.
The last days of Leeds.
*
Well, then
(Warsaw, 2015)
Hello, my name is Godot,
someone waiting for me?
No?
Well, then.
*
Red frozen apples
touched by clouds of black birds:
sound of falling stars.
Heart shaped moon
(Sheffield, 2016)
Big rainbow standing,
orange cat underneath,
in through the stage door.
*
Aesop's last laugh,
earnest as his gravity,
Delphic.
*
Hollywood Nail Salon
offers: acrylics, golden charms, diamond designs,
waxing and waning.
*
Campus in the evening
(Kraków, 2016)
Two students in an empty class-room,
dancing rock'n'roll
to music only they can hear
*
SLOWARIUM
The beginning
This world was created
by Kronos, vomiting
stones and gods into being,
rivers, fields, and clouds,
the rainbow,
finally,
himself.
Inside out.
The insides of Kronos,
his womb, became
the blue skies
around us.
(2012)
*
Strange
Awkwardness, blunt space
the oh so familiar sense
of not fitting in
hello strangeness
here I come, enchanted
dissonant
(2012)
*
How can it be?
How can it spring
from this nest of givens?
The accidental foot, bone,
worldview, the call of duty,
a swift twitch in the bloodstream.
Don't be the name.
Become the naming,
the aiming,
the ing,
come on, spit it out
(2012)
*
Ode to my Muse
Sing for me, Muse,
I will follow you,
I am following you,
like love, like sleep,
like a sudden gasp of nausea.
I want to sit near you
up on a hill
in the plentiful garden.
The wind shall pass trough
but you are not in it,
a fire shall burst through
but you are not in it.
You are
shadow and ash.
Speak to me;
not
with the breath,
the word,
not with avowal,
but with the waves,
the tightened embrace,
just as we fall.
– We are falling –
The spirit is sucked into
the lung
Right at the centre
- You.
(2012)
*
Time
The mind lies
at the intersection
of worlds.
Some are on the outside
and some within;
they all have rules
that define them,
that allow us to move
in them. Of so many
we know
nothing these days,
yet we leave our imprints
in them, waves upon waves.
We - swimmers,
we - travelers,
erratic and blind,
who choke on the depths,
seek cures for infinity,
while things
stir
in endless
peripheral
vision.
What comes up
to the surface
is froth:
the thing we call time.
(2013)
*
The Trees
What shall I do? Both my parents gone.
My mother, the smooth walnut tree,
cut down in her prime.
She who cradled me,
consoled me,
whispered me stories
untold.
My father, the oak tree
up on the hill,
who taught me to listen,
to see through the seasons.
He was a poet
of the mind.
Lightning came and struck him
two times.
Now I am lost,
no stories, no poems
to guide me.
What canI do?
Black swallow, please take this my song
and weave it
to a nest
in the branches
of a fallen tree.
(2013)
*
Angels
(for JK)
This is how it began:
I learned to fly,
I wrote about dreams;
then the angels came.
They bustled, they stirred,
their feathers
rustled,
they whispered
and whirred.
Then, dropping the ladder,
they fled, laughing, laughing,
laughing (from an excess of love
—but what is there to say?
not even angels can cope).
(2013)
*
Watcher of the skies
Skies roaring with autumn,
the evening rises
slowly, like dust
strewn in my eyes.
Somewhere else, hurricanes
tear at the Moon.
In my solitude
I can clearly hear her
hoarse, muffled voice.
What song is she singing,
what tune so electric
is calling on us: wolves,
lunatics, watchers
of the skies?
(2013)
*
The point where I celebrate—
This is where I celebrate,
both here and there,
sleek yesterday taunts
blunt tomorrow,
while the bold skies of August and
November crouch.
The raptures,
all the tears I have shed,
as the snake sheds its skin,
the misery, the poisonous flow
of black, grisly hearts
and the love—the love quickens my
feet—travelling light—
I shall take nothing more.
Only love,
gasping at each
inflated step,
brought me here
to this point,
the point where I jump.
(2013)
*
Jesus and the beanstalk
My brother Jesus
climbed up the beanstalk
up into the sky.
He spent fifty years
alone, in a rapture,
it was very cold.
Now he looks down
now he sees
the city
under his feet.
So he spreads his broken arms
and he flies
down, down, down
Here is
where we meet.
(2014)
*
Full Moon in Warsaw
Blood on the stone steps
full moon floating by
The tyranny of strangeness
washing down the night
Have we ever been this close,
this city and I?
Bone of my bone
stone of my stone
piercing, caustic
love.
(2014)
*
Airport dreaming
Awake in an airport,
shards float in and out
of the line of vision.
Godot never promised
he would come.
Hundreds of wheeled suitcases
crashing in.
The incessant vomit of attractions.
Postcards from anywhere.
Swallow anything,
then fall down on your knees
in the faithless chapel.
These are your own
fingers of ice,
like Brutus and Cassius,
your repellent reflections
in procession of mirrors.
Crowd belching forth.
Nothing matters,
all is long lost.
The cleaner will sing for you
a sad lullaby, leaning
against his big chummy machine.
You must look up to the tables
blinking, glittering
waves
of times and places.
If you miss the one
then it
all
gets real.
(2014)
*
Skywalker
Stronger than gravity
stronger than fear
is the runaway dream
of forgiveness
of leaving
it all
behind,
starting again,
reborn and untied
at once young and old.
Oh blessed is the one
who sits on the plane,
watching the ground
swirl like a river.
Toes travel faster
than trains and tornadoes.
Skywalker,
I truly am
a legend?
(2014)
*
One summer day
(For Jadwiga Dziekan-Michalik)
One glorious summer day
my mother turned into a swift.
She then had long ceased to eat,
now she stopped drinking,
she grew light as a bird.
One day, as she looked
up at the sky
the air turned soft as honey -
and she flew.
Right out of the cocoon,
her light, tiny body,
her beautiful face,
her hands.
It all fell away like silk,
like stars.
She never looked back.
(2014)
*
Lupus mundi
Ora pro nobis
lupus mundi
The world is murmuring
biding its time
the world is dark
Dreams forming shades
over sweet sister Earth
Run, wolf, run for us
howl for us
pray no dream is spilled
when it's time to wake up
Wolf of the world
wolf of good counsel
ora pro nobis
pray for us
pray with us
(2015)
*
The spirit of '68
I am a prophet
of imagination,
I come in peace,
I have no ambitions,
only nine billion dreams.
This land is echoless
and the king in dying
in his palace of gold.
I have lost my way.
Please, come and find me,
walk with me.
Dream gravity pulls
everything lightwards.
(2015)
*
Kassandra's song
Times of insomnia,
white noise in the bloodstream.
I am a stranger
in a normal world,
piercingly awake.
With no one to call me daughter,
mother, or father,
I'm nobody's sister and nobody's brother.
The day is adrift.
The light has sunk into the earth:
Muninn does not return .
(2015)
*
Sailing
The world spinning
only out of habit.
Reluctant Zephyrus, numb Boreas
sweeping London's streets.
To sail is necessary
but no port in sight
just billions of beacons.
The birds are singing louder,
we can hear them
through the heavy traffic.
Everything they say
is vital.
Redemption is there.
Such a pity
none of us understand
(2015)
*
Northern Lights
Looking for aurora borealis
on the top of a mountain,
we turn towards magnetic North,
our ears resounding with the solar storm.
Stars pass each other in the night,
let's go, nobody is calling.
(2015)
*
Aurora
Chasing aurora borealis
on the highway to Gdansk
I realize things are
on the brink
of bursting out in whisper
I must try to remember
their names
The journey knows itself
the traveller
is its recurring dream,
the snake without a tail
The night is hollow
in need of consolation
But neither she nor I
can hang on till the end
(2015)
*
God
One is still young
who cries
of loneliness,
who forgets to eat
from sadness.
One is still young
who fears it
may be too late –
I could have loved
each of you,
man, woman, city.
There is promise
if one looks for light
into nighttime windows.
Even when
no invitations
come forth day or night.
For what is a bone
in the face of rock?
What is a soul
when the mountains are shaking
with anger and grief?
I could have loved you
devil, human,
God.
(2015)
*
Ergo
Who are you?
asked the man's T-shirt.
I don't know.
I was someone
yesterday,
I am someone
today,
and tomorrow
is another thing
altogether.
(2015)
*
Early June
Hello summer,
will you marry me?
Will you stay,
will you be glorious?
Honeylight, fragrant
shadows,
sparrows' bacchanalia,
and rivers of asphalt
under my feet –
All this you give me
and yet
you keep your distance
as if you
don't know me at all?
Regardless
please
don't go just yet
Be glorious.
(2015)
*
Epidaurus
The revolution
will not be televised
It will be sung and howled,
it will be danced,
on rooftops,
bled in the streets,
it will turn bombers
into butterflies.
It will be dreamt
and dreamt again,
until
it bursts
alive.
(2015)
*
Rrogozhine
We arrive by noon
red mud lending
us Golem’s legs.
The host, slightly drunk
and his spindly wife
cleaning steps, Zen-like
over giant broom.
The town centre,
two hours’ walk behind us,
with huge empty buildings
made of money and glass,
with some scabby donkeys,
roadside watermelons
and placated rails.
This is the heart of the countryside
or, rather, its liver,
immobile,
certain to regenerate.
Small tawny dogs
sniffing for news in the backyard.
And then:
a roar cutting through the dust,
the huge TV screen rocking with trumpets
announcing the glory
of one football team, somewhere,
and of kingdom come.
(2015)
*
Before the Road
One night in late November
there was an angel
hanging around, smoking
outside my window.
City below,
full moon on the hill.
It's alright,
he said,
I'm a Bob Dylan song.
(2015)
*
Warsaw
Enblued, engreened,
I walk down the solar streets of Warsaw.
Hit by a sudden smell of ether
I turn around:
It’s the statue of Mickiewicz
so lonely,
standing there behind the fence
so much not his
(we used to sit on the steps,
imagining the poet loved us,
such as we were).
This city has a bulletproof heart
like an armadillo
or a vampire
Will it ever heal?
For months now
I haven't felt like writing
in my native tongue.
As the sparrows sing
their song of Warsaw
the city,
the cosmic string,
sounding the music of the spheres
I
wrapped up
in the greens and the blues
that line the city
can almost
bring myself
to believe them.
(2015)
*
For David Bowie
We were immortal
like everyone else.
Perhaps,
more convincing
because of the music.
We could be heroes,
it was alright.
(10.I.2016)
*
Medusa
one day
the temple
dimmed:
the wise one she's been pursuing all those years
does neither care nor listen; will not
notice her gone
such loneliness,
self-possessed and foolish,
the fig leaf from before the Big Bang
absence to absence,
makes a perfect shield
a minute's silence, lamentation,
nothing –
that is all.
(2016)
*
Cold
I dreamed of watching the moon
from my window in Warsaw.
I was amazed
when I saw:
it was a huge ice-cream in a cone.
I took a photo of it
with my mobile phone.
(The one that takes long sideways pictures)
Then it grew ice cold.
Huge,
the ice-cream was.
(2016)
*
Professor A.Z.
(1937-2015)
He said: until disproved
we are immortal;
one day, someone
will end up not dying.
He said: I don’t go to funerals,
but I promise
I shall go to my own.
He said he was a staunch believer
in changing his mind.
(2016)
*
Fizz
I dreamed the music
of the peace
of the world.
It held on to my memory
for a while, upon awakening,
then,
it dissolved
in my body.
(2016)
*
Midday train
Sister in grace,
when I see you on the platform,
halfway between, as I am
on the train,
you smile
right through me.
Your smile tickles
my throat.
Then I see a heron, half asleep
in the same
borderland.
(2016)
*
Ides of March
There's a suggestion of a smell of spring.
Not quite of blossom, fresh
sprouting; rather, a premonition
enclosed in the response
of earth to the step,
the way the dust stirs
the breath,
the afterimages in the shape of white swirls
formed by the tang
of sunshine.
Yes, it can happen.
Redemption and revolution,
(2016)
*
Return
The Earth is not our sister
and she is not dying.
But the chill we can feel is real: she has
ceased to love us.
The breath she is drawing is not
her last. When you wake up just before dawn
next time, hold yours and listen: how deep it is.
She inhales and her eyes
are closing.
(2016)
*
Grace
As night approaches, winter
comes. This time it comes
as an absence.
Jar open wide,
empty. The seeds
of frost
start rising
by the wayside.
Meanwhile, everything is spoken for.
The treadmill matches music
of the spheres to
your stride.
All has been said and done. Nothing
is left, silence long gone, the rest
is a cackle of cacophonies, not a single crack.
Nothing to offer. Nothing left but
Grace.
(2016)
*
Songs of Betrayal
The moon wind is blowing on my balcony,
the sirens are rubbing their
fish tails on the floor that clings
to my ceiling, my concrete
ceiling. I still cannot
bring myself to write in any of my childhood tongues.
Sometimes I wake up from dreams
recited like revelation, in rose hip
language. There was this music filled passage in the
underground station, the old town, Gamla Stan,
on my way back from a concert,
where I was standing in a doorway, a crowd around me,
the jamb pressed against my cheek, oil-paint
off white,
a small step, a wind;
I could have spoken in the tongues of men and angels.
Rosa canina, Rosa dumalis, Rosa glauca,
pray for us, Rosa obtusifolia, Rosa tomentosa, have mercy
on us. May the music
never
stop.
(2016)
*
Mourning is the most radical thing we can do these days
(for YG)
Daedalus lost his head, not his
wings. Master craftsman – I found
the headless body lying
in a street
of Warsaw. It’s spring
and the city
is filled with fragrance,
the sublime
lilac smell of weddings and funerals.
Someone has to bury all those dreams.
The roles we were playing with zeal,
the work, well intentioned, the
dependable guts, the ways
we were good against
the dark background, the hope and the hopefulness
against hope. The ghosts
imprisoned beneath the victor’s tale.
I must
– we need to –
Embrace
his tight, splintered body
fallen, in the kindness of dust.
(Warszawa, 2016)
A Comment
The rhythms of the mine
are those of rock’n roll
Tune in!
Hear the underground humming,
hear the rumble of darkness,
the dungeons abuzz
Join in!
Growl the chorus,
dance the machines
It's all right,
we know where you’ve been
This is ethnography of the heart and bone,
it resonates with the ribcage,
makes you stomp
the resistance:
We are all miners,
we will not cave in
This is a song
made of the same
fabric as we:
difference
and
re-
pe-
ti-
tion
(Sheffield, 2016)
Streetpoets of the world, unite!
Ragpicker poets,
Grammar communists,
It's time! We are the voice
of love.
(Kraków, 2016)
*
Going to Delos
It’s like when you were fifteen, and knew
hers was the most beautiful face you ever
would see, but could not – would not –
tell her this, or, maybe, see her again; you sat
looking, not moving, hoping
for a miraculous impression
something like a stigma, that would fix
itself into your horizon. It is just like that,
but, this time, for no particular reason: you stand
perplexed, while the salty earth is burning, slowly,
at your feet. A bird using the same
touchstone. A cloud splitting over
an old sacred column. It is just like this,
only, this time it’s an old marriage;
the world – forever young.
(Mykonos, 2016)
The last summer, and back again
A rain of flowers out of a blue sky: God
has spoken, fluent and calm; in words
as cold as premonitions.
He spoke of the wound in the eye
of the world. It's the only thing
that can heal us. But we cannot see.
I dreamt bathing in a shallow tub
filled with acid. Now the king
of Nomansland is holding court.
Now he weeps,
there are no more
worlds
to spare.
Like in the last book I read that summer,
when the furry leaves no longer tickled
the laughing spot right behind my throat,
and my cocoon of stories fell away.
I think I grew up, then.
So, in that last book the wicked
king died and the treasure was found
by the children. But I cried and cried. It rained
two weeks in a row. Oh,
all the sad stories of the death of kings!
Things that cannot, ever, be repaired, even God is owing
someone
something,
that unforgivable
debt. For who can forgive Him? We grow. We grow up.
We console ourselves and grow old.
Sad, irredeemable things which are
celebrated in heaven: angel
feathers, and a sudden kindness, not
addressed to any of us. That pure sadness,
the mourning of God.
The wound
in the eye
of the world.
(Zabrze, 2016)
*
The name of the doors
The wind tore the mountains apart and he
came back dressed like an undertaker. He spoke down
and his eyes were glazed with contempt. Then came the earthquake,
but all that was in it was a cold speed, brushing
against everything fragile inside human hearts. The Black Death
of all fragile things. Not even
a real direction, just the reverse
of a vacuum.
But if the poet is a prophet
then
there are roses galore in the names.
Wetiko!
named,
falls away,
like a vortex
of flies.
(Warszawa, 2016)
*
On the importance of improbable things
Stockholm is a garden of Eden
from a childhood book. Not the one
with the lamb, peacefully asleep
side by side with a lion.
But one with jasmine in full bloom,
side by side with blueberries
and heather, mixed with the
tumultuous smell of linden
and wild roses.
An ambrosia, not active
on bodies, but on these membranes
surrounding the minds, constantly fluttering,
making us, alternately, separate
and linked to each other - the breath
that God gave Adam and Eve.
*
Tessinparken
The thing about childhood places
is that they allow us
directly into their dreams.
We see how our own
are spun into and from
their fabric: the currents are clear,
and palpable, as storms and rivers.
The young woman with the bike has
a familiar stride, a swiftness
of the elbow I have seen before,
I am sure, thirteen
years ago, sitting
here, in this place, when it dawned
upon me that
the children who play here
would have
the same lining
of light in their dreams
as I do, that
they and I were connected
by the way laughter carries,
reflected off the warm cliffs
and the water surface.
People come and go, but the trees are here
always, the guardian co-dreamers.
Only they know our real names
and they wish us well. This park,
on a July evening,
is the only proof I have
of home.
*
Amor vincit omnia, they say.
Not true.
But it sure makes you a Messianic loser.
(Warszawa, 2016)
All short poems - Fast Poetry
Inne wiersze - Slowarium