(no subject)
Below the LJ-cut are 2 poems. No, they are not angsty (well, mostly...) so enjoy. I told myself I wouldn't post my poems, but I decided that I really don't have anything to either hide, or be ashamed of, so here they are.
Kuzechny Market
The grey-haired passersby
kick at rocks, avoiding eye contact,
not wanting to be bothered
by my soliciting for hopeful handfuls of rubles.
And the doll I've crafted has a few mistakes,
because my hands shutter.
One cheek is more read,
and one hand is too flat,
and her eyes are just a bit cockeyed.
She's just like me -
a Babushki on the street
who can't seem to hold the brush,
like I used to.
The ladies line the streets,
selling flowers collected from the gutters
and tying them with rubber-bands stolen from newspaper carts.
And the cellophane is scarce,
so they use their grandson's ponchos, cut into tiny segments,
so businessmen can buy flowers for whores.
And the nameless of Kuzechny,
we peddle for cabbage,
and cut our hands on our children's children's ponchos.
(That poem was written in class today - might need some revision, though I think I really like it, which is something I say about very few of my poems. It was inspired by a photo of a lady holding a doll in the middle of crowded Kuzechny, a busy marketplace in St. Petersberg. Also, on the opposite page was a lady selling flowers in a different part of Kuzechny, so I used that as a basis for the second part of the poem.)
Sandcastle Serenade
A windswept beach is torn by the waves
as a log is slowly pushed ashore.
A crane wades and pecks at the surface
not disrupting the ebb of the tide.
Our feet sink in soggy sand,
and some way down the beach a mother wren sings.
But here, we are all alone,
and you tell me
"sandcastle homes are always temporary."
I wonder what you mean
but know I don't belong here
on your windswept beach.
I know that temporality is not a compliment,
but spontaneity is,
and I would be willing to have my home swept far away
if I could spend one more day in the spontaneous.
(That poem was about a beach I envisioned after reading a poem by one of the girls in my class, who wrote a really happy poem about beaches, so I took the exact opposite. I imagined my beach as a cold, desolate place, and I wanted to show the separation between the narrator and the girl. However, I'm not sure it quite worked out - I wanted the middle line to stand alone as the girl telling him that he's moving in too close, that things aren't going to work out, but my prof. definitely did not get it, and neither did my peer editors. Not sure how to make it more obvious, so if you have a solution, by all means let it rip. Also, it has to be said, that this poem really is about Megan and I. I'm sure that's not too hard for the most of you to grasp, but I thought I'd make it clear.)
I hope you all enjoyed the poetry. It is a side of me that you will not likely see again until the end of the semester, when I'll pick out my favorite few poems and post them up here as a show of what I've been doing all semester. Needless to say, this semester has been very different in terms of both writing and how I view life. I think that I'm happy with doing something different, but miss writing fiction incredibly. I just don't know yet, and I sure as hell have not recuperated from November/December yet, but I'm on the path. I'm sure a lot of people around me (especially my roomies, love you all to pieces...except Craig, who deserves to suffer in the depths of hell for bringing up Joey Harrington in my LJ) can really understand how testing these months have been. Trying to get back on track from the complete derail at the end of last semester has been difficult to say the least.
I am a very different person than last November 1st.
Kuzechny Market
The grey-haired passersby
kick at rocks, avoiding eye contact,
not wanting to be bothered
by my soliciting for hopeful handfuls of rubles.
And the doll I've crafted has a few mistakes,
because my hands shutter.
One cheek is more read,
and one hand is too flat,
and her eyes are just a bit cockeyed.
She's just like me -
a Babushki on the street
who can't seem to hold the brush,
like I used to.
The ladies line the streets,
selling flowers collected from the gutters
and tying them with rubber-bands stolen from newspaper carts.
And the cellophane is scarce,
so they use their grandson's ponchos, cut into tiny segments,
so businessmen can buy flowers for whores.
And the nameless of Kuzechny,
we peddle for cabbage,
and cut our hands on our children's children's ponchos.
(That poem was written in class today - might need some revision, though I think I really like it, which is something I say about very few of my poems. It was inspired by a photo of a lady holding a doll in the middle of crowded Kuzechny, a busy marketplace in St. Petersberg. Also, on the opposite page was a lady selling flowers in a different part of Kuzechny, so I used that as a basis for the second part of the poem.)
Sandcastle Serenade
A windswept beach is torn by the waves
as a log is slowly pushed ashore.
A crane wades and pecks at the surface
not disrupting the ebb of the tide.
Our feet sink in soggy sand,
and some way down the beach a mother wren sings.
But here, we are all alone,
and you tell me
"sandcastle homes are always temporary."
I wonder what you mean
but know I don't belong here
on your windswept beach.
I know that temporality is not a compliment,
but spontaneity is,
and I would be willing to have my home swept far away
if I could spend one more day in the spontaneous.
(That poem was about a beach I envisioned after reading a poem by one of the girls in my class, who wrote a really happy poem about beaches, so I took the exact opposite. I imagined my beach as a cold, desolate place, and I wanted to show the separation between the narrator and the girl. However, I'm not sure it quite worked out - I wanted the middle line to stand alone as the girl telling him that he's moving in too close, that things aren't going to work out, but my prof. definitely did not get it, and neither did my peer editors. Not sure how to make it more obvious, so if you have a solution, by all means let it rip. Also, it has to be said, that this poem really is about Megan and I. I'm sure that's not too hard for the most of you to grasp, but I thought I'd make it clear.)
I hope you all enjoyed the poetry. It is a side of me that you will not likely see again until the end of the semester, when I'll pick out my favorite few poems and post them up here as a show of what I've been doing all semester. Needless to say, this semester has been very different in terms of both writing and how I view life. I think that I'm happy with doing something different, but miss writing fiction incredibly. I just don't know yet, and I sure as hell have not recuperated from November/December yet, but I'm on the path. I'm sure a lot of people around me (especially my roomies, love you all to pieces...except Craig, who deserves to suffer in the depths of hell for bringing up Joey Harrington in my LJ) can really understand how testing these months have been. Trying to get back on track from the complete derail at the end of last semester has been difficult to say the least.
I am a very different person than last November 1st.