Three Poems by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

THE OTHER OPTION

 

No 

No thank you   No thank you   No thank you! 

Just no  

Just not feeling it 

Just not 

not  not not

no   No!   NO!!

What part of no   DON’T you understand? 

N   O   

Please remove your hand 

Please remove your hand 

No 

None of that    None    Nada 

Nada thing   Nothing  

 

Silence The Unspoken   The Refusal  

Not    the UN-Lived 

Not    the    i couldn't care less

Not    the silence of indifference or recusal 

nor the conspiracy of consent 

Not the absence of yes 

But no   Just no 

 

Just yes    to no 

No           to the enslavery of yes 

the submissive acceptance  

the demand and expectation  

the sublimation    of truth and desire 

I’ve burned those bridges 

I set my own house on fire 

and I escaped 

 

i've been beaten kidnapped raped

The rapists   the manipulators   the liars  

the mistakes…they are erased     

all in my head of course    (let’s call it a gift...OK?)

I will not be led   down that path anymore 

I will impeach and abort   the shoulds and what ifs 

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this

I am the protest   the resistance the emporwerment 

of all the burning stars in the sky    you CANNOT see        

I am the singing meteor 

ghosting all the no shows 

repeat after me   repeat after me 

I am not past tense 

I am the nonsense of sense 

I am just left of right   I won’t take back the night 

 

I am the Visibly invisible   

I am the other option 

I am the dark that shines 

                                  the light 

 

 

untitled

 

i’m the one

who’s never home 

when you knock 

and if she is 

when you don’t

admits no one

black or white 

living or dead

 

henny penny had many heads

 

i’m the trick i performed

long before i was born

like this poem written backwards

i’m the stunt that defies

i’m the cry to deaf eyes

whose only reply is 

ashes  ashes

 

the Lord moves in mysterious ways

and i am falling upwards

 

i’m the earth that turns

and fells me from its tree

i’m the ocean that slides from my shore

i’m a point as moved as any fixed mark

i’m the eyes of the dead potato

that finds it’s way back in the dark

 

i’m the blood i give

but never give up

i’m the wine that flows outside the cup

i’m the truth inside the lie

i’m transparent fucking butterfly

 

the Lord moves in mysterious ways

so why can’t you or i?

 

i’m the play i’m writing without a plot

the word “forget“ that i forgot

the regret that once escaped my lips

the mercy that hangs now round my hips

with the pull of gravity

the real of unreality

the all or nothing    the nothing of all

the indelible handwriting on the wall

that hummmms   like a ghetto rhapsody

 

i’m the bum in the park who says less is more

the plexiglass sky of the invisble floor

the one who cries just outside your door

 

i’m the intimate stranger

whose smile will always hint of you

the Living Poem

the anonymous fingerprints of you

the enemy you befriend 

whose soul can transcend you

the goodbye that may begin

but can never really end with you

 

i’m the saint,   i’m the sinner

i’m the fish you ate for dinner

i’m the air growing thinner as i sighhh

i breathe the breathless

my death is deathless

i’m the song i sing when i rise

 

i’m the altar kneeling

the all revealing   healing of the human kind

i’m the splinters i’m still peeling

from the cross i drag behind

 

i’m the mold    and the molder

i’m the front-row-center season-ticket-holder

STEP RIGHT UP   FOLKS!

THE MYSTERY…THE STAR YOU’VE WAITED FOR!

i’m the protigée of the original sin

i AM the light i’m buried in

 

i’m the moth    i’m the flame

i’m the prayers for the insane

i’m everywhere    and nowhere

please   remember   my   Name

 

 

Neither This Nor That

 

In the beginning was the word

And with it came the sound

That sound  that sound

that chanking echo of light vibration

intonation of creation

virtuoso improvisation

in the moment celebration sound.

 

And the sound came

from his horn of plenty

That primal piercing pulsation

of deliberate distortion and   syncopation

like hot chocolate

like hot chocolate goin’ dowwwwnnn

in the steamy jazz joint jungle sound

 

bum bum bum bum bum-bumbumbumbumbum

 

And the sound came

from her soft bruised lips in the dark

that low slow moaning

that low slow moaning of nuance and rapture

rising in polyphonic rhythm

like a choir of angels

                               through the rafters

 

And the sound came

and the sound Caaaammme

And The Sound CAAAAMMMME

AND THEY CALLED IT JAAAAAAAAAAAAZZ!

Jazz.

 

Jazz new and quivering between two notes

neither this nor that

neither this nor that

Jazz Cool     and Jazz Hot

maybe I am  and maybe I’m not

neither this nor that   neither this nor that

 

And the sound came

How did I get to be so black and blue…

from New Orleans to Saint Louie

Armstrong waving his white handkerchief

like a flag

sounding his trumpet and a call to freedom!

 

Because the sound went

The sound went where it pleased!

Freedom!

And the sound came

The sound came where it pleased!

Freedom!

 

neither this nor that\

neither this nor that

Jazz Cool and Jazz Hot

maybe I am   and maybe I’m not

Jazz blowin’ our minds

out of BOTH sides of his mouth.

 

Hush now, don’t explain…You’re my joy and pain…

Ragtime in no time

in the meantime, in between time

bebop and rebop

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing

Doo wop doo wop doo wop doo wop

Razmatazz and free jazz

to be or not to be jazz

Fusion in profusion in comefusion

empty talk and stuff

whadya talk whadyatalk

and all that jazz

 

In the beginning was the word

And with it came the sound

the sound of the universe

expanding and contracting

breathing out and breathing in

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it

Let’s fall in let’s fall in

Bum bum bum-bum bum bum-bum bum bum-bum

 

The sound known and knowable

Through the essence of common senses

the spiritual experiences

the inhalation and exaltation

the horizontal celebration

of Love’s poem

(Oh baby! Give me that anything goes jazz!)

 

The sound of the universe

earthbound and divine

breathing out and breathing in

Man trembling between both spheres

earthbound and divine

breathing out and breathing in

Rocking back and forth between two notes

neither this nor that

neither this nor that

Jazz Cool and Jazz Hot

CONTINually Blowing His OWN HORN

This I AMMM!

Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah

Waaah Waaah wahhh

 

OH YEAHhhhhhh!

 

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.  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.