One Superb Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

Let Me Be Honest with You 

 

I'll be honest with you 

Alone in a hotel bed   

on Christmas Eve    

with neon Jesus  

playing to one wall 

and Deep Throat  

oozing through the other 

I was looking pretty good to myself 

I thought about it-- 

taking you-know-what into my own hands 

                                                                                                                                          

How often the moon 

comes into her own fullness  

in the light of unveiling madness 

No less 

the ecstasy of stars 

the trembling of the earth 

the heaving of waves 

Why not   then  

the shiver through our own joy of being? 

  

I'll be honest with you 

I felt    the shiver of being   as a child  

but it wasn't exactly joy

I was the one  

who never said a word 

who nodded   smiled  

then nodded off to sleep 

who shook her head 

or shook in terror 

 

The one 

with silence  

blooming on her lips 

like a blood clot or   a question mark   or a tumour   

Two more on my breasts  

another you-know-where 

 

And pain-- that old scab                  

wouldn't leave me alone 

so I picked at it until it healed    

then loved it until it bled 

 

And so it did 

all over me 

all over creation 

all over the canvas of my soul                                       

I think I'd like to be an artist   I said                                                 

 

So God   in Her mercy 

planted meaning on my tongue 

and my mouth began to water 

And so it grew and multiplied  

and I came to call it joy 

And joy sang and cried and danced on air 

and beat its wings of orgasmic light 

leaving a trail  

of the mysterious   of the Invisible  

leading home   leading to Grace   leading to you 

 

I'll be honest with you 

All my life   I wanted to fly 

I was the one  

with shoes   so blood-red tight 

I'm coming I'm coming   

I'd whisper                                              

                 into God's ear 

as I limped  

all the way to KingdomCome 

 

I come to you 

in the becoming of me 

offering myself 

in waves of pleasure 

in waves of sorrow  

in waves of prayer 

hoping it is true   this time 

this gift of love 

 

Let me be honest with you 

we say  

bearing our bodies  

but not our souls 

Wanting to touch 

to be touched 

we tear at our own wrapping                  

to get inside the gift 

  

I come to you                                      

in the blossoming of me 

says the becoming moon 

to the being sun 

year after year    

again and again 

as they come   and go in the dark 

 

I am finally coming                                                                  

into myself   J.B.  

is what we say 

announcing our own arrival 

in board-meetings                                                 

in bored rooms                                                 

in strange towns 

before  

mirrors   lovers   and other strangers 

  

We offer ourselves 

to ourselves 

tearing at the wrapping 

parting the tissue 

seeking the gift 

only to find 

the box empty 

the moment sorely wanting 

  

They say 

the joy that isn’t shared 

is the joy that dies young 

I am old now       and full of joy 

I am young now  and filled with sadness 

 

Let me be honest with you 

Neither 

has ever fallen  

in silence from my lips 

nor sat waiting for me  

under a tree 

 

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, his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (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 2022.