Not All There
I still look for the house
at Clement and Third
349 ? 349 ?
Not here Not here
I can’t find the number
but I remember the smell
like an old dog
recalls the stench
of summer—one night in hell
I remember it well—
the broken tunes
the carnivalesque rooms—
those yawning tents
with their shades pulled down
the dark wood floors
the padlocked doors
his Russian tea glass
with its silver spoon
Papa in the pantry shooting vodka—
come dawning—
Mama’s head--that swollen moon
stuck out the window
like a red balloon
on a string
of
untold
longing
braces
i marvel
that you never waited for a push
but came into this world
feet first
(though hardly on the ground)
summer
i'd hang in loose air
just to see
how high you could take me
limbs thrusting upward
your roots in the sky
once in a while you’d toss over
to the cripple in pantomime
the smile you wore between my teeth
as you watched me watching you
you were my straight man at 11
and i suspect i was the same
now you look for me in bandstands
and corner bench engravings
while i swing in my chains
and sing to the sun
Before My Very Eyes
When i was a child
I was a master of deception
I lived for magic tricks --
Pick a card any card I'd say
stacking the deck in my favour
Always something up my sleeve
while my own hand
slipped through my fingers
I was the light
in my empty room
(now you see me
now you don’t)
I borrowed time
and never brought it back
I predicted the future
but lived in the past
When i grew up
i longed for what was real--
no slight of hand or trickery--
I longed
to not know the outcome
to be suspended in wonder
to be a child again
But who was i kidding?
For as long as I could remember
I knew when i was lying
could see things before they happened
Each night
I ‘d pray for a miracle –
pray for something anything
that could neither fool nor be explained--
Each night
I'd disappear inside my head
Where did I go?
How did He do that? I'd marvel
Each night I disappear
behind that invisible curtain
Each morning i would reappear
before my very eyes!
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.
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