One Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

For Old Times’ Sake 

So here we are again    you and I-- 

alone in our skin   in this dingy hotel-- 

our intimate clock    doing numbers  

My own face floating 

somewhere below you 

your moving parts unencumbered 

Now freed of that emotion 

that second-hand notion 

that lust can find us 

wind and rewind us  

 

Seven long years have passed 

Seven long years I’ve resigned

myself to bad sex    to be your Ex 

And still   you ask why 

I am wanting   waiting 

for some  thing   some one 

to touch   and be touched by 

too little   or too much by 

 

Someone 

to soothe my aching heart 

to hold me   unfold me 

in an embrace 

Someone who imparts 

a word of grace 

who understands why 

we trace the smile on the face 

of those we love 

 

How I long for you 

to offer your hand 

to keep time with  

to keep mine 

from slipping away 

to keep this moment 

from being only  

                       a shadow  

of yesterday 

 

Only my fingers                                           

drum 

to your distant tune                                                                                 

Only   the tips of my fingers 

the brush of your lips 

the tender nerve endings 

remember 

the touch 

that thrilled   that gave chills 

that bliss 

that rushed blood to my hips 

 

The kind that’s long gone 

will be no more 

(repeat after me) 

will be no more 

 

Alone in our skin 

our feet off the floor 

now 

only my fingerprints 

dance with yours 

 

Alone in our skin 

our feet    out the door 

now 

only   your     fingerprints

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. She has been a featured guest at Shakespeare & Company, on a number of occasions, as well as performed or read in other literary venues in the City of Light and elsewhere. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France), Jazz and Literature 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 Poet in Residence. She is also Writer/Poet in Residence at The Creative Process. Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible was recently published by The Opiate Books and is now available.