One Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

For Openers 

 

Hello    again 

my friend 

I’m still here-- 

still waving a fond farewell 

after we  

like smoke in the distance  

have already left the station 

 

How to say goodbye 

Is the part  

that's never easy 

Is the art 

of staying open 

even     

as you recede 

into the tunnel--

that black hole 

of space 

 

There are many holes 

In my story-- 

ones i have dug for myself 

(and have left out altogether) 

ones so deep 

I am still trying  

to find my way      back 

In the dark 

 

How i long to be  

like a flower 

to burst forth 

Into the light 

to unfold 

to peel back  

each moment 

(yet another threshold) 

another horizon) 

slowly   mindfully 

to open myself up 

to each day--  

every day-- 

a brand new Spring 

 

Instead 

my mind 

opens and closes 

like a window  

stuck in winter 

like a grave 

i have crawled  

In and out of 

sunken into 

too often 

for who knows  

how long? 

 

My eyes    

these dry empty sockets 

will open  

again   and again 

like wounds 

gushing  

with blood     

with technicolor dreams  

bursting 

onto sidewalks 

(in between the cracks) 

bursting 

Into hospital and hotel rooms 

and yes 

train stations 

dragging all my old baggage 

sometimes never 

but always 

gushing into you 

 

Even at the very end 

there is that beginning 

that opening  

that    

see you on the other side 

that comes all too soon  

 

Every day 

we open ourselves 

to the mystery of the Gift    

slowly unfolding   

the life we come wrapped in 

Every day 

I tear at the wrapping 

I untie the knots 

I open myself  

to a world 

with 

and   without you 

 

Of course 

whenever 

I feel empty 

If ever 

I find  

the moment  

wanting 

Something  Holy 

Someone  Holy   

fills my life 

with rain or tears 

and yet   again 

that damn gushing wound  

that budding new promise 

that bursts like a miracle 

that sings its little heart out 

 

Hello   again 

it says 

here  I  am 

 

Are you 

still 

There?

  

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. Her selected poems The Looking Glass is forthcoming in 2026.