Two Poems by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

Art by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko - The Crossing - Painting/Collage

Crossing Borders  

  

Every night   I make the crossing 

Every night   I ask myself 

Where did I come from?    

Where am I going?  

My body stretched out before me   like a map—  

my heart   a broken compass  

  

I    an ancient voyager                                                                 

      born of an ocean of love  

      in a sea of blood—  

am traveling to the other side 

of what and where    I do not know  

                                       

I AM  

the road I travel 

the vehicle that transports me  

the passenger    at ALL the stations   

I am   

a vessel slipping  

into each fluid emotion 

a silver bullet  

tunnelling through  

the barren wastelands of my mind  

the wilderness of my soul  

the ravaged forests of love  

the deep vast wreckage of me   

  

How dense  

these continents of flesh  

where needles and stitches  

scars reaching beyond borders  

have left their tracks  

How fragile the psyche  

all-seeing in its perceptions  

remains invisible   

to its own self  

  

At every station   

I wait for that one train  

Never this one   always the next  

I wait at the border  

I border on the ridiculous  

I border on madness  

  

Another train of thought                                                

another wide junction  

Flashing windows of reflection                                  

flashes of recognition                                              

crossbones for crossroads                                                                         

Always   just up ahead                                                                           

the graves of the beloved for markers  

                                                                 

I   a lost soul  

    covered in dust 

    a trail of red ink behind me  

revisit old haunts   

my weeping wounds  

opening and closing     

landscape of regret  

memories like smoke in the distance   

  

Every day    

I look for that Mirror     

the one with a memory  

to find my true reflection  

Every night  

I cross myself    and pray  

I make it to the other side  

  

Who am I really?  I ask  

Where am I going  

and how will I get there?!   

I   ALL map with no direction---  

    (my broken heart for a compass)   

am suspended in that space  

between two worlds  

  

I  a Glass Nobody    

    country without a name    

must      

      with the fingertips of the blind  

trace my own face    in the dark

Paris, My Mirror  

my memoir— 

City of Light    

of fantasy   of reflection    

Imagine-nation   Illumine-nation 

Paris with your elastic hallucination   

stretched across our blue ceiling of sky 

Your eyes like stars  

                                blurring the lines 

between dream and reality 

duality 

 

Paris 

City of Pairs   

Intimate source of lust   of disgust 

with your sprawled  languished  

intoxicated corpses  

of gravity  depravity 

exultation and despair 

Your impressions   your obsessions  

Your   frankly I don’t care 

 

Paris 

Diverse-city perverse-city 

sublime decline 

with your shady interiors   

exteriors   of extravagant poverty 

casual rage   divine design    

Your explicit excess    sordid necessity 

pressing against mine 

 

Broken tunes on the metro 

the steps of Montmartre 

jazz on the half-shell 

the fresh smell of ancient debris  

the uncaged breath of lovers in  

the dishevelled dark 

Rusting bridges   terminal trains    

invisible angels 

with lamplights for halos 

lining the quai-- 

all wander like gypsies  

along the riverbanks of my brain  

where I   fading   pass  

while they remain 

 

Oh Paris   

you towering Eyeful!  

you starving artist in black Chanel tights 

amnesiac of  La Vie en Rose Paradise— 

our unfinished   half-naked poems  

staggering off your screens en plein air  

down your decadent alleyways  

in violet smoke and shadow  

could never leave you 

   

We  whose minds have toppled  

from our balconies of anticipation 

whose dreams have drowned in their blue wounds 

whose Living Poems have plucked from our every finger 

each splintered minute of experience 

whose umbrellas of childhood—forever open— 

must return...again and again 

 

Pairs  

my river   my Seine  

insane revolution of evolution  

eau d’illusion   bittersweet nostalgia-- 

your dust of memory   your music-box melody  

Gymnopedie   Erik Satie   ne me quitte pas   

Residence (permanent) of Oscar Wilde  

of  Piaf  Morrison  Sartre  

my heart and her chamber choir 

of broken records 

my heart and her chamber orchestra--- 

my nose pressed to your shattered glass-- 

Paris 

           my mirror 

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 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 selected poems On the Way to Invisible was recently published by The Opiate Books and is now available.