For years now I
have been preparing for the journey–
heart sealed as
tight as a drum
eyelids pulled
down like shades
Sleep does not
come easy
to an old child
who cannot be tied
to a bed
whose mind even when weighted down by centuries
only floats to the
ceiling
like a moon on
helium without a string
I have tried
putting my foot down
I have thrown up
my hands in despair–-
But still I rise
I rise
and float upward…
I am circling
myself as I myself
am being encircled
by the Unnamed
like a halo or a blessing.
I am light a spectrum of light
fingers filtering
through the branches of trees
a shimmering
screen suspended
a universe of
dilating skeyes—
impressionable
pupils that take in everything
I am circling
myself as I myself
am being
encircled—a face slowly turning
reflecting the
green of the fields below--
Consider the
lilies it whispers
Eyes closing and
opening like windows
onto bright
tulips Irises blooming blossoming.
bulbs exploding
like crocus into untold dimensions
(Who knows
where I have
been–-
what I have seen
when I wasn’t
looking)
I am the sea now
with the sun sinking under me
and all my
cells are singing
Wave upon wave
I wash away like a
dream or a watercolour
I pour myself into
the river
I am the
river turning and returning–
a cool delirium in
a clear stream of consciousness–
my boat brimming
over with glass fish
I Eternal Spring…
am traveling light
am traveling
blind–-
tears beading on
my cheeks like crystals
then falling back
into themselves
dissolving into
their sequential
magical magnetic
moment
of synchronistic
being
turning turning
into the pattern
of snowflake–-
a mere blink in
the kaleidoscopic eye
It is an old
pattern with a new twist--
an ancient rite of
passage
I am floating
upward out of my body drifting
to a place where
everything has happened before
and is about
to again for the very first time
Like postcards I send to myself–-
I wish I were here
I wish I were here
Green
were
the days of my unripened youth —
the years I spent in envious pursuit
of happiness
Green Green
the colour of Spring
a call to life
the joy that would sing
in my heart
when you sprang to mind
Green
were the promises I made
the fibs the stories you forgave
the imagined forests in which we got lost
the flowerbeds we rolled and tossed in
the branches that set us apart
Green
were the fields the valleys
of highs and lows —
blanket of comfort
blanket of sorrow
How deep was my grave
once you were gone —
this young heart breaking
with each new dawn
Green
the scent of memories that linger
that climb like vines
that grow like fingers
Leaves that whisper to the wind —
the moon growing pale
the moon growing thin
Time . . . time . . . time . . . letting go
Old Friends
Every Spring I unearth them--
those chiffon silks these
butterfly wings
in their unfurling dark kimonos
the old notebooks
in their unmarked graves
the dried geraniums
that survived the winter
the old friend
who didn't
Every Spring
I say hello to things
and people to whom
I once said goodbye
Moving backward
I step forward
into a new pattern
in which I am
with only my eyes
unable to fully open
in which I am
with all my senses
able to blindly trust
Whoever planted
the earth the
sun the stars
the seeds from which all blessings grow
the silver tears of meteors that fall like dew
the spring rain wet with promise--
Who tills these thoughts in my fertile head
knew all too well
you cannot harvest
what you do not sow
What is lost from year to year
glances back on us--
passes through our fragile glass--
their mirror into ours
Passes through
as light as dust
as Memory's smoke and shadow
Outside my unframed window
the moon is melting trembling
as white as snow--
as liquid as these timeless hours
I bow to kiss the sky
my feet are planted on
I blossom in the wisdom
of what I come to know
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 writing and encouraged her to publish.
A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, 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 2023.
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