Three Poems by Louis Kasatkin

 

A Contemporary Requiem

Incense-misted eyes

throats baulked with pride,

scars reddened by droplets

a hand wiping spittle

from the breviary’s page;

Drought-mouthed elegies

to ribbons burdened

by weights of guilt,

gleaming handle farewells

accompanied by Borodin

to the warrior heart

swollen with longing,

marking time with

the limping clock;

Yearning yearning

for visions

wrought into maps,

iron-ore mountains

forged into Tanks

and nights of gasoline,

when the Sea

of Ages parted

and Vodka was Mussorgsky

in our heads.

Mirth & Laughter

Shallow  shadows 

demarcate

the steeper deeper

decline

of the fading falling

tears of years

dripping dropping

like gasoline

onto the pyres

of our own making;

Over there,

the dancing fools

and their pipers 

whilst waiting to be paid

sold their souls for salt

in the impossible dark,

in the unreckoned nights,

consumed by their own

shallow shadows..

Magnificat: Suburban Shopping Mall

small-town

small-time dealer,

five dollar wraps

weekdays in the

shopping mall carpark

Saturdays behind

the Diamond Bar,

crumpled currency

changing hands,

churned in sweatpalmed

assignations between

college kids trailertrash

loners losers;

The 4-door Sedan appeared,

wound down its window

called him over,

spoke,

smalltime shrugged,

his smalltown demeanour

got mistaken

for an insult;

Deus Ex Machina,

they took what smalltime

wasn’t willing to give,

they left him

beside the shopping mall,

his crumpled life

changing hands

in the dust,

loners losers trailertrash

college kids interrupted

their smalltown assignations,

to watch as the Sedan

wound up its window

and

disappeared.

Louis Kasatkin is founder of Destiny Poets in the UK and Editorial Administrator at www.destinypoets.co.uk. For more than 20 years a Poet and Poetry promoter,Louis has been Poet-in-Residence at Wakefield Cathedral and workshop leader in schools and the wider local community.