This is not poetryThis is not poetry
I did not want to write.The deadline for tomorrow’s reading approached, and I promised myself to wite for an hour. One hour, I said to myself, was nothing. If I do not write a piece of prose, I would write a poem. I used poems as cheap quick fix when I got lazy before, and why not today. There are a lot of poems written about the War. All kinds of wars. Writing about a war today, of course, would be a suitable subject. Perfect for scoring bonus attention on actuality, and if I chose to write about a war in the form of a poem, I would certainly save some time. A story about my grandma’s and grandpa’s War would serve a good introduction from where I would zoom into the actual state of things using some facts from the News feed. From the stories I remember about WWII it was all about the bombs, killings and piople refuge. My grandma told me about body pieces hanging on trees. They saw them hanging like fruit on trees after they crawled out from the shelters. These were pieces of people who did not manage to reach shelters, and their remains were unrecognisable. None of the living knew which part could possibly belong to whom, whether they were their own relatives or neighbours or just someone they did not know at all. After a bombing the locals simply calculated who was missing and reported them “missing people” to the authorities. My grandma told me that her brother was a “missing person” . The letters from soldiers in the front normally arrived in a three-corner folded piece of paper. The country was saving on paper and soldiers wrote letters and folded them, so they looked like triangles. My grandma knew that those who received the triangles were the lucky ones, the triangle-folded papers were letters from the living soldiers. The letter she received about her brother came in an envelope. It was a gesture of honour from the government to announce the deceased soldier to the family. The family received an enveloped card with the name, but with the exception of that in the column of date and place of burial it was stating “missing without trace”. Grandma told many stories about death, hunger and violence which were brutally truthful but would definitely not provide me with the proper material for a poem. My memory flashed back to Riga in 1991, when I was excited for Latvia gaining independence from the Soviet Union and the political events of crushing the old state collided with crushing of the moral norms. When the iron curtain was removed taking away the fear of the threat of nuclear bomb explosion, it opened for threaths of destroying the nuclear values of society. People's parts were not hanging on trees , they were found in different locations of the city. Mostly young girls who did not return home after late night clubbing or opened the doors to the deathly friends who knew they would never get punished for their crimes since all the societal security was concentrated on supporting the new political order of the liberated state. I just did not want to write, and tell my truth. The truth anybody would want to hear would be a commonly accepted truth - generic and suitable to serve at the coffee table with the evening News feed on the wall screen. This would show the Ukrainian refugees met by family members on the border with Poland with the poetry of happy tears running down the cheeks. I asked my grandpa’s neview, who is my distant uncle, if they managed to flee on the save distance before the bombing started in Kiev and the message beeped back: “Yes. We are in the Western part of Ukraine close to the border”. I wondered what one could bring along in a little car together with two teenage children, an eighty-six-old sister of my grandpa who is my uncle’s mother, his wife and her own mother of seventy six. A few hours after my uncle’s message, we spoke on the phone and he asked me joyfully: “Do you remember the teddy bear you gave us? My youngest does not leave alone for a second. It is here next to him on his bed”. The teddy bear, untorn and warmed by the heart of the child in the transition between two paradigms and two epochs. This is the truth I did not want to write. The truth which is not ornamented by literary devices of metaphors and allegories. This is the piece that will never become a poem of a lazy writer who wants to reach the deadline. March 8, 2022
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Sunrise rabbitThe sun rays touch my rabbits ears I jump from bed as sunshine just appears. My mom is still asleep, I will not wake her. I will run down to see if I can make it If I can make to see the sunshine from the clouds Before it rises up, before it wakes the ground, Before the morning brights will burst my window With shiny yellow, white and marshmallow. The clouds come from distant country They carry moon and sun towards me The sun goes up, the moon descents so slowly The clouds hurry and dissolve for always The clouds pass me - they are white apples, The sugar cotton, and white ice-cream cones They carry dragons, fairies, dogs and people I wave to them, and say “Good morning” to you all! November, 2021 Mother bear lullabyThe milk of snow is mixed by silver spoon
The dark of night approaches us so slow And mother bear sings a lullaby When you wake again, the sun will shine The stars are amber on the winter sky They shine the way for ships and planes right now We drift along, we’re bears on the the ice With creamy way proposed by stars The stern grey seas surround us, As we will float along into the world of dreams Your gentle fur and my old paws Will all be covered by the gentle snow Your warm sweet little heart is next to mine And as the wind will howl, We’ll drift along, we’re bears on the ice With creamy way proposed by stars November, 2021 Michail Lermontov (1814-1841)
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| Мне нравится, что Вы больны не мной, Мне нравится, что я больна не Вами, Что никогда тяжёлый шар земной Не уплывёт под нашими ногами. Мне нравится, что можно быть смешной -- Распущенной — и не играть словами, И не краснеть удушливой волной, Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами. Мне нравится ещё, что Вы при мне Спокойно обнимаете другую, Не прочите мне в адовом огне Гореть за то, что я не Вас целую. Что имя нежное моё, мой нежный, не Упоминаете ни днём, ни ночью — всуе… Что никогда в церковной тишине Не пропоют над нами: аллилуйя! Спасибо Вам и сердцем и рукой За то, что Вы меня — не зная сами! -- Так любите: за мой ночной покой, За редкость встреч закатными часами, За наши не-гулянья под луной, За солнце не у нас над головами, За то, что Вы больны — увы! — не мной, За то, что я больна — увы! — не Вами! May 3, 1915 | I love that you are not in love with me, I love that I don´t love you either, And that the weight of the entire globe will not dissolve from our feet below us. I love that I can play a fool Be frivolous, rude, - address you straight and forward, And breathless blush will not caress my cheek, when you would catch my eye. I love that just in front of me, you would embrace another woman, And that you will not curse me for kissing others My tender name, my tender, you'll remember not at night and day, and not regret it either… That our names will not be high-cord sang in one cathedral’s silence! Thank you by hand and by my whole heart that you, not knowing it - love me so much! For giving me my rest at night , For seldom sunset greet, For never walking under moon sky, For not neither Sun nor shine For that you, alas, are not in love with me For that I, alas, do not love you either May 18, 2021 |
Walls in airports are solemn. They charge on secrets that they’d not tell. They guard.
Outside you fly. Inside your feet are free to move. The pace is different. Some feet are running, some walking, some clicking the floor. There is scratching, talking, laughter, crying and shrieking. There are directions. There are gates. The is a way in and there is a way out.
You can lean against the wall and look for silence. Once and again you’d find it. Surprised, you would rise your eyes, and see figures that do not move.
They stood not far from me, but not as close. Two men. Dark coats. The same height, bold heads. Holding each other very tightly, they stood very still, cheeks touching in perpetual stillness. I watched them. “Did these two men cry, love, lived togehter? Did they just meet or do they move apart?”
The walls and I would not know. We let them stay. I stepped away and passed the secret to the wall.
Outside you fly. Inside your feet are free to move. The pace is different. Some feet are running, some walking, some clicking the floor. There is scratching, talking, laughter, crying and shrieking. There are directions. There are gates. The is a way in and there is a way out.
You can lean against the wall and look for silence. Once and again you’d find it. Surprised, you would rise your eyes, and see figures that do not move.
They stood not far from me, but not as close. Two men. Dark coats. The same height, bold heads. Holding each other very tightly, they stood very still, cheeks touching in perpetual stillness. I watched them. “Did these two men cry, love, lived togehter? Did they just meet or do they move apart?”
The walls and I would not know. We let them stay. I stepped away and passed the secret to the wall.
In English, we’d say,” trust your gut“. In French the word is goût, it is spelt like “gut, only with an “o”. It means taste. It means passion. Trust your gut. Trust your passion? Gut and passion. It moves you forward. It is igniting!
Passion is an action. Passion is merciless. Passion is toxic. It is seductive, it flies you up the stairs when the odour of freshly brewed coffee intensely leads your nostrils up and up. Passion plays with delight. It adds the leathery foam to your coffee on the lips, it tickles your tongue. It lets the sensation of hot bitter liquid melt with the sweetness of the colder foam.
I would run-up. I would enter the door on the top floor. A warm coffee smell would blend with the floral freshness of the newly-cut tulips on the reception desk. Inside.
I would sip from a tiny espresso cup. I would carry a conversation, surrender my gut to the black liquid - soft on my tongue. Caramel espresso - “Le goût du risque. Passion for taking risks.
When satisfied, it exhausts. Its sweetness dissolves. I step down the staircase, away from the odour of coffee. The sharp, dry taste would cut my tongue and crave the simplicity of water. Outside I’d open my mouth and breathe cold air in.
Passion is an action. Passion is merciless. Passion is toxic. It is seductive, it flies you up the stairs when the odour of freshly brewed coffee intensely leads your nostrils up and up. Passion plays with delight. It adds the leathery foam to your coffee on the lips, it tickles your tongue. It lets the sensation of hot bitter liquid melt with the sweetness of the colder foam.
I would run-up. I would enter the door on the top floor. A warm coffee smell would blend with the floral freshness of the newly-cut tulips on the reception desk. Inside.
I would sip from a tiny espresso cup. I would carry a conversation, surrender my gut to the black liquid - soft on my tongue. Caramel espresso - “Le goût du risque. Passion for taking risks.
When satisfied, it exhausts. Its sweetness dissolves. I step down the staircase, away from the odour of coffee. The sharp, dry taste would cut my tongue and crave the simplicity of water. Outside I’d open my mouth and breathe cold air in.
“Who switches on the stars?“
“Ask grandpa” My boy replied
“My grandpa knows. He tried to die and went to sky, and he became a star.”
But would he know how stars turn on? How on the dark of night the bright spot tears through?
Ask grandpa. At night and he would return again as star.
Did someone ask the stars to be switched on? Who needs that light?
The dome turns black, the gems shine bright.
They cluster in the Milky way and die as dawn arrive.
Ask granpa, ask them all - why do they shine. And listen to the light.
It leads the way, it shines. The fears leave the night.
Then sun returns - stars shy away and die. Before the go they say, don’t worry I ‘ll come back tonight.
Who switches on the stars?
The grandpa knows, just listen - he will return at night.
.
“Ask grandpa” My boy replied
“My grandpa knows. He tried to die and went to sky, and he became a star.”
But would he know how stars turn on? How on the dark of night the bright spot tears through?
Ask grandpa. At night and he would return again as star.
Did someone ask the stars to be switched on? Who needs that light?
The dome turns black, the gems shine bright.
They cluster in the Milky way and die as dawn arrive.
Ask granpa, ask them all - why do they shine. And listen to the light.
It leads the way, it shines. The fears leave the night.
Then sun returns - stars shy away and die. Before the go they say, don’t worry I ‘ll come back tonight.
Who switches on the stars?
The grandpa knows, just listen - he will return at night.
.
