One Superb Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Beautiful Lies                            

 

Don't be a stranger !

you said

Just come as you are

if I'm still around

that is

and if you're not

well then

come as you aren't

 

but come nonetheless

ready to peel paint

and poems off every wall

to bid proper adieu

to this tortured chamber

with its weeping window

with its hardwood soul

with its wounded lilies

still licking salt from their pointy spears

 

Come join me

you said

for

a last little Nothing

before

we leave

all this

behind

 

Oh

and 

if by chance

you just happen 

to pass a loaf of bread

disguised as a sandwich

or a bottle of water

impersonating Merlot

Hmmm Swiss cheese  could be nice

Yes    Swiss is neutral territory                                          

but without the bullet-holes  this time

or just some raw flesh

with a charming garnish

you know

bring her along   too

 

We'll make a night of it--

a fright of it--

and the rockets' red glare

the bombs bursting in air 

 

Blonde Bombshells                                                            

brunettes redheads  deadheads

if they're still around   that is

(you fired your machine gun laugh)

A real party--

a Socialist Party

with red herrings

and my pasta ala pesto

Green Party manifesto

(Not to forget onion soup

sniff sniff

I blubbered)

           

And

we'll stay up late

only to  fade

into the suncontrollable light

Up

so we can make Art

and Love

and wordless words

like ooh lala and lahdeedah

And

tell each other

beautiful lies     like

we'll meet again

but always in the next life

 

And  if

we should pass one another

on the edge of the Unknown--

the brink of unbearable being

we'll promise to nod

and look the other way

you said  you said

with your one arm missing--

your eyes-- two flashing fish

swimming in pools of blood--

to look the other way

 

And                                                                                   

if by chance

I said

you plunge your salty spear

into the random dictionary of my grief--

this life I live by rumor--

if by chance

I 

should shuffling  one day

find you                                                                                                                                  

on a blind alley in Paris

in the urinal of Forget                                                                                                                                   

the fountainhead of Remember

or

pissing under

some other melting definition--

a bridge of  conjoined parentheses--

the footnote's crucifix of stars

 

please

pretend you don't know me

that I may recognize you at once

for the stranger that I am

 

know you 

by your ordinary ready-made smile

the one that bleeds offstage

in the unsung cacophony 

of your cabaret heart

 

know you

for your violation of syntax 

for your wanton obscurity

looking for a cafe  noir identity

to call its own

 

No one  not even

our literary movement

nor the crystal unconscious second hand emotion

of the astral ticking clock

can claim the iconic Nothingness of you

shattering every mirrored reflection

that has gone and come before you

 

Everybody is Nobody to Somebody

I sighed

(disguised as myself)

 

so 

if by chance 

we should meet--

my friend--

in the middle 

                     of this sentence--

surely a life sentence sans paroles--

or between the bloodied wine-stained sheets 

on some other crumpled page   in time

remember

                 please

just

come as you aren’t 

 

but come

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 Thoma, 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 writing and encouraged her to publish.

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.