Metropolis
They built this city
under the quiet multitude
of stars
The sun looked on
the moon feigned sleep
angels peeked
through parting clouds
as numbers crashed
(don't look down)
on Wall Street
Concrete gray columns
of average industrials
sentences whole paragraphs
toppled daily
reputations (splattered)
onto sidewalks
This noise this teeming mecca
where hucksters hawked dreams
where money still screams
out window’s vacant stare
(look up if you dare)
on the honking sideshow below
Day traders
for night
night for day
the buzzwords the sting
the swarm of the deal
played out
in human traffic
Worker drones
who know the drill
spin the spin
money is honey
while bittersweet tears
from deeper pockets
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
soon run dry from empty sockets
This hive
of singing singular sensation
of relentless rhythm
vertical geography
hybrid choreography
Skyscrapers skyrocketing
through invisible portals
New Yorkers Old Yorkers
those electric immortals
in locomotion of perpetual hum
Queen bees busy bees
the bees knees in yellow taxis
buzzzzing
to the beat of a drum
The faceless matter the chatter
of up-and-coming billboards
lookatme lookatme lookatme lookatme
bruised notes guttered smokes
pavement slick with promise
Silent masturbators
in back alleys tattoo parlors
the corridors of your mind
Tokes from used cigarettes
small town second-hand strangers
on your breath the scent of death
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
On the other side of my page
just now
Ohhhh Ba-by Baaaaa-by
the lonely slant of consonants
the haunting flesh of vowels
the skeletal skyline
of nectar that once was
Regret
lurks in the shadows
where mostly you pay the rent
hum elegies
to collapsed monuments
between your thighs
the crumbling decay
of ink of liquid obsolescence
that urban grind
his own Harlem brew
that rides the subway
the back of your throat
We live by our instincts
the steel of our teeth
upscale ourselves
in black velvet night
mourn
Summer’s giddy breathless care
Lust’s
fading appetite
hum lullabies
for drifters
the veiled moon
the lament of leaves
train tracks
going
no
where
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.
Antonia has a voice to be trusted. I was always told writing is work and I agree. The exception happens when Antonia uses her voice to explain our mysteries
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