Slipping into Light
Autumn lays her carpet upon the earth
gold rust copper beneath my feet
My arms bare branches empty now
in deep surrender long for sleep
I like the shadow falling falling
as in a sleepless dream--
the veil of fading memory
Autumn Winter Summer Spring
My roots travelled centuries to find you
My leaves waved from my every limb
I’ve embraced death as I have life
without as in within
I am the melody that moves through me
the rustling and fluttering of my heart
I am all the falling and the fallen
who have found their way back in the dark
I whisper secrets to the wind
Echoes lengthen in the night
Something tells me God listens in
The moon that old ghost slips into light
Would that I could follow her
to turn that corner but I’m still here--
a sighing memory of melancholy
clinging to you to all I hold dear
I cleaving to my straining bough
bow to that leaf in falling snow
the last one that in its own small way
when the time comes knows how to let go
Remembrance
My thoughts
fall
like an Autumn sky
washed by the rain
Mind dare not always
branch with words
what leafless heart
must sing
You are so near
I cannot touch you
I hold you
as i do
my breath
My tears too
speak of silence
They open me
the way birds do Spring
No one
not even the wind
dresses
in such fine splendour
as I
in my thoughts
of you
Ancient Keys
Four walls with neither season nor direction
can mean a lifetime but never a life Looking
at Time’s Mirror facing both ways from inside out
you see the days open and close behind you Waiting
you count the nights before you stretching yourself
between the dark intervals of your soul
Angels come to visit you Visibly and invisibly
they watch over you They guide you through
the whirling spheres of madness They watch you
circling the great theatre of your ancestors Slipping
then falling you rise again from the ashes
from the deep blood of change
from the silent roots of your calling
They hand you
your father’s paint box from which you draw
the inks that colour your sky and the walls of your river within—
expressions of joy and sorrow that wear you like a mask
Behind the mask– -the adrenaline rush of your mind--
the eye of the burning tiger lies motionless in your bed
When you were a child you listened to your breathing.
Listened to the breathing of leaves– your spirit whistling
through a forest of trees Listened to the ancient melodies
that lead you now through the wide and unknown spaces
on the charred edges of your existence Only this they say
There is no other moment Only this
You are the place you want to get to…
You are the one you have been waiting for
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment