Kitten's Litter

You know what?

I’ve grown into a beautiful girl.

Do you remember?
(of course not)
you didn’t know,
I acted the scrawny,
sheepish part.

Lowered my eyes,
shrunk back
when standing side by side
with flawless blossoms.

All bottled up,
I only dreamt of waking up
one day
when I could love myself
for all I am and willingly
accept all that I’m not.

Now I occupy a territory
and amplify once muted voice.

So hear me out.

I couldn’t tell you how it happened,
maybe the trick is in fooling
yourself long enough.

Maybe I simply got tired of caring
or gave up on trying to catch up.

But I no longer lurk,
slouching and lagging behind.

Actually it doesn’t even matter how,
what’s impressive is that I
finally feel alive and expansive.

Sometimes you just need to
build up
your own pedestal.

 

I don’t want a white picket fence,
a villa in Nice or a new Benz.

I want to live without contraptions,
without the formulas for standard sucess.

I know it’s unthinkable.

How dare I deviate?

I know it’s impractical.

How could I possibly face
the weight
of my choices and their effects?

But I must stay fixed
on my intent,
though to walk alone
is to stockpile regrets.

 

Lie on top of me – weightless,
we are a mountain,
asleep
under moss.

On top of me – heavy,
my carcass is
safe under yours.

I will breathe easy
once we’re embedded
in stone.

 

Great job. Good to see new poetry from you.

 

glad you're back, and with such a wonderfully sensual offering as well! that "we are a mountain" line... what a great image

 

Favorite - familiar - black dirt

permanent
under my nails
and in my pores.

I AM CLEAN.

I.

34,000 ft above
endless water.

I studied cloud tectonics,
islands chipped
from alien continents.

Through icicles
on oval windows,
I saw…

Dry milky skin,
torn into patches
stretched
to complete horizon.

Grey cells formed into
spine columns.

Gaps, like mouths
peered into
constant depths.

I missed the earth.

My tiny ship
held its course
into the sun.

Nosed into Scandinavia,
adrift in the Norwegian sky,
at last
I caught the sight of snowcaps
and the toast crust of mountains.

II.

Moscow –
"Oh brave
new world
with such people
in it"

Cars whiz by
malls,
stores,
billboards,
high rise,
duplex,
mega,
super.

I am an exiled
paratrooper.

III.

Dear, sell me a bra.
Sell me an image,
Sell me first impressions,
Sell me something flashy,
I don’t stand out on my own.

Stripped, ripped and scrutinized,
I hid behind the golden drape.

IV.

Relatives draw swords,
domestic apocalypse
looms like an angry cloud.

They circle in the circus ring,
round and round each other.

Ready to cut the ropes,
jump at each other’s throats.

Unspoken blood thirst in the cautious eyes.

Telepathic vampires walk on shells,
trek through the mine field.

With frigid fear of a wrong step,
I'm like a medic and a mediator,
keep verbal landslide at its bay,
I censor slips,
a powder keg of buried wrongs.

I'm here to keep track of the death toll.

V.

If I can live through this,
I can live through anything.

I subject myself to torture,
stretch my limits to infinity.

I have asked for strength and patience.

Draw it out from the within,
for I have the grit of madness.

to be continued...

 

VI.

Me and you,
so opposite,
so similar

Like the adverse ambassadors.

You’ve got your
experience.

And I’ve got my
principles.

We spent the nights
in the kitchen
drinking Earl Grey
and whispering
about the existence of God
and the soul.

About psychoanalysis
and mental manipulation.

You spoke of the evil
and I spoke of the good.

Yet you said that
on the contrary
to reach the heights of heaven
one must know the depths of hell.

At dawn I was inarticulate and dull.

VII.

He pierces through, bores into my eyes,
I squirm.

Avoid his sparkling blue lights.

In this Gestapo
interrogation,
his stare blinds me
into a confession.

Every time my glance freezes.
I have nothing to say.

He tries to pry into my thoughts.

Takes my palm,
examines the curves and pitfalls
of my life.

Smiles, sly without telling me why.

Only mentions that I am precious
and sighs with awe.

VIII.

What do you want from me?

And he implies the many ways
he’d like to have me.

I hug my knees,
body language fortifies.

 

IX.

Two kindred souls.

Hand in hand,
sprinted to run out of breath.

Arm on the waist,
propped up,
held on to the belt.

3 am.

Drunk and stumbling,
mumbling.

Let’s not go home.

In the street lights,
wet cheeks glistened.

You pitied me
and listened.

We walked on
towards the forest
through the dew in the field,
along the fire line of a rising sun.

Stopped.

Gasped.

Exhaled…

“I want this to last forever”

Inhaled the loyal, native air
and sniffled.

X.

Though century old
preserved natural world
is starkly juxtaposed
with plastic trash
on every curb,
I saw freedom
in the expanses.

Freedom had meaning here.

When I closed my eyes,
I recognized the air.

Overwhelmed, I’d evaporate to be one with
the sky that spills over the periphery,
the sky that knows no ills…

XI.

You and your sister are rare gems.

How would you know, you haven’t known all women…

-He smirks-

I’ve known enough in my life.

-I gulp-

Oh yeah? How old are you?

16

No really…

-Next day, peeked into the passport-

Born in 1975.

XII.

Nobody greets you.
Nobody looks or smiles
at you.

After all why should they?

But I walked down the street
grinned and stared at every passerby
as they averted their eyes.

 

XIII.

When born into poverty,
living in mud and
war wreckage.

Beauty finds a way
to sprout forth
out of giant puddles.

XIV.

We’re all crazy specters
to one another
because we’re selfish monsters
who don’t take the time
to understand the motives
and each others inner lives.

 

XV.

I warn you
do not look at me
with those fox eyes.

Or else
I will fall in love.

I already have...

XVI.

Nobody will change.
Our truce is
called off.

Nobody will admit
they’re wrong.

Our iron will is daft.

I curse these genes.

XVII.

Vagabond
among the thorns.

This is not my home.

Where will I go?

XVIII.

I gesticulate like her.
Roll my eyes like her.
Remind you of her.
My tone of voice is hers.

We’re sisters, asunder.

 

IXX.

I sat alone,
watching the long awaited rain
drum on my bench,
run down the roof,
and into the empty tub.

Later,
I treasured every yellow drop.

 

XX.

I play Frogger with traffic.

There are no laws
in this current
of foreign, speeding cars.

Sweat makes cotton awful
prickly.

Fresh breeze is rare pleasure.

Congested, humid town
coughs exhaust fumes.

My lungs hack in response.
My ankles moan.

The denizens adapted to the morning chill
and midday heat
don layers, garish wool.

I’m stunned and panting.

All worn out,
I carry a throbbing needle in my chest,
with every step it burrows deeper.

Prior to the sun
there was a downpour.

Now puddles flood walkways,
where wooden planks
serve as uncertain bridges.

But holy children, do not mind,
all bare feet and smiles,
they test the depths of muddy waters.

Quite jealous, I walk on past them
down ragged roads, slide under
low stooped branches,
leave minute footprints
in the soggy soil.

Across the street,
I meet a raven haired princess
in stilettos balancing on the cement curb,
all in white and proud.

There, in the shade of maples trees
are boys with baby faces
but adult habits, they gesture
with ciggy butts and follow me
with raptor eyes

until I disappear
behind the corner,
and they forget me as if I never came
into their view.

 

XXI.

Children mimic youth,
youth acts grown up.

What do grown ups have
to look for?

Age is ugly.

Today they are trendy
but tomorrow they’re obsolete
and forever last in line.

Make way.

 

XIII, one of my favorite
numbers and recent poems...

Like a lotus rising from the fertile mud.

 

XXII.

Pines and sunshine.

God is here in the tall trees,
among the bright wreaths.

Black marble or green metal monuments
like an army, salute those who passed on.

Crosses, below them are photos,
dates, names and tender words
engraved in stone.

Wild flowers bloom
from the hearts’ of the mounts.

Silence is loud and
peace is here in the tall trees
among our loved ones.

 

XXIII.

Why is mercy so absurd?

XXIV.

There is no religion,
there is only faith
in better days
for our kin,
we do not ask
for ourselves.

Our time has passed.

These are not mere prayers.

Our blood was not spilled,
our backs were not broken,
our hands did not tame this soil for nothing.

So let our children never know toil,
let them never know war,
and let them finally learn
to forgive.

 

XXV.

These dinosaurs must have patience of titans.

They’re so used to waiting, so used to being degraded
and willingly accepting when officials equate them with worms.

So they stifle themselves, wasted and tired.

The thought that they too have rights
doesn’t seem to enter the mind
or maybe it does
with every waking moment as it slowly creeps from behind
and with every breath they take, like a parasite it embeds in the lungs,
being at its worst at night, as they turn and toss, coughing up blood.

And yet they stand.

 

XXVI.

The lucky are those
who do not realize
they are slaves.

They’re quite content
with the lack of free will.
They are the ones who
at ill times reprimand the fate.

Of course, choice all on your own
is alarming,
better let those more adept
orchestrate the existence.

XXVII.

Life is best perceived through contrasts.


XXVIII.

My scab might never heal,
keep peeling it off to reveal
more flesh.
Lick escaping blood,
saliva blunts the aftertaste of rust.


IXXX

Another day is killed, slowly dripping
off my fingertips.
I look up, amazed that even
the sky is liquid dirt.

I smile, eager.
The blind sun cuts in through
the strata
with scarce warmth and a requiem.

 

XXX.

Behind concrete walls
with painted swastikas are
the abandoned factories,
victims of age and apathy.

Thick grime on thin glass,
rusting train wagons, slanted
and hidden in the grass.

Toy houses blink by with
dull colors and symmetry carved
into its timber sides.

Rust is everywhere, on fences, nails
and faces of the hung over men
standing, idle on the platforms.

Middle aged mothers, slouching, with wrinkles
like battle scars
hang on to their plastic bags and sons.

Frozen markets, frozen crowds, frozen windows
are illuminated with virgin beams of light.

I witness the stirring, the palpitation of rural life.

 

XXXI.

Orphan.

He is nameless,
but he is still my brother.

He sits alone in the box
and he draws hunger.

Grey skin is stretched
over his bird like bones.

He’s cold, he’s got a runny nose.

I watch, detached and guilty.

I am a murderer too.