Two Poems by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

 

Thirst 

 

I know thirst 
I know it well 
Know it like the red burning sky 
I swallowed at the age of three  
the days I ran on empty     
the scorched cracked earth  
under my feet 

How I looked through  
window’s bottomless glass 
waiting waiting waiting 
for the miracle   of rain 

Thirst 
as in riverbanks and riverbeds   
the beds of all my lovers that ran dry  
as in 
the longing for that cool elixir  
to soothe the aching wound of a life 

the look of thirsty… 
Men who all but swallow knowledge  
swallow dreams    swallow love—   
their dry parched lips that once parted with desire 
now parting   with regret   with sorrow 
parting with lovers— 
women who are thirsting for something— 
a man maybe to pump them with desire 
to fill that black hole of space 
Unquenchable in their search 
for the wet promise that might sustain them 

It’s all a matter of how you look at life   you said    
you who wanted for nothing 
you who once milked me dry 
you who polished off an entire ocean  
without offering me a drop 
The glass is half empty or the glass is half full   
you said you said  
The loss of empathy is the drought of humanity   
I replied    and sighhhhhed  
licking my own lips 

Thirst   I know it well… 
How deep is my well! 
that dry dry well  
The tears that eventually well up   
I know them well   too  
I alone  now 
for a quarter of a century 
thirst is all I know

 

Ecsta-sea 

 

There is that  

feel-good-feeling  

that cums from out of the blue 

that intense swirl of Heaven 

that immense embrace  

that arouses the me in you 

The swaying of deep hips 

the licking of nectared lips  

lapping of forbidden shores 

 

The random abandon  

of a pleasurable scream 

a murmured moan    

the foam 

of Love’s sweet dream

that long long sighhhh 

of i want more   

                 

The singing   

of that old refrain 

(with the lyrics   

               out of order)      

the silent cry of unbridled joy   

as you cross the sensual border  

 

While under your skirt 

(unmeasured hidden treasure) 

an ecstasy of stars  

is dancing you   

entrancing you   

on waves of cresting light 

 

There is  

(of course) 

that pirate brat 

who steals your heart 

with no remorse 

then sails off

into the night

 

There is that 

there is that

 

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, 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 was a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Poet in Residence. Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible was recently published by The Opiate Books. Her selected poems The Looking Glass is now available.