Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
(USA-France)
Foreign Film
We travel between horizons
you and I in linear e-motion
one word after the other
one space to the next
Upper and lower case berths
wishing they were one
You: rearranging sentences
on the Titanic
Me: mopping the decks
You : the version originale
Me : with subtitles
running across my forehead
In Truth
we are spiralling through one another
invisibly
In Reality
we are sinking to new heights
Wherever we are
is somewhere we have never been
Perception is like that
can take you somewhere new
without ever having left
You and I
are somewhere
we have never travelled before–
our random borders opening
to a world of shifting senses
Nothing is as it seems
Nothing is. As it seems.
Arm under arm leg over leg
we voyage into the unknown
we go diving into the wreck
of our fluent Ms. Understanding
(All is lost in translation
unless
you read between the lies)
Even now
lipsinking under you
with Webster’s unabridged
I wait for your warm definition
to re-kindle my meaning within
Passion’s tides–
breath’s surging surf–crashing in my head
a viscous rim of moon glistening
on my breast The Milky Way
on your native tongue– cosmic ambrosia
Only the blur of our arrival
wave upon wave–
your edited-for-content prepaid departure
left to betray
the depth of our shallow surround sound
the soft moan
of our black swollen sea
left
unspoken
Irish Whiskey
“whiskey”- –of Gaelic and Old Irish descent meaning “water of life”
It’s like the letter you were expecting
but had forgotten
the dream you almost recall
upon waking
One day you are writing to yourself
to prove that you exist
the next day you are talking to someone
who doesn’t
How to talk to oneself
is a language all its own—
a message behind distorted glass
with the swell of the crumbling cork–
the skewed tongue that no longer fits
I have tried
translating myself into a another language—
a new language that I might better understand
Translations are at best
like well-known paintings rendered
by unknown artists—
Impressionists– every one of them—
always the colors just a little off
always something missing
In the wee green hours of the marnin’
In the pale blue hours of the morning
I weave forth and back back and forth
doing a poor imitation of me-self—
cutting a rug set in its own pattern
without a thread of light to add to my design
Today I received a letter in the mail—
no words, only a blank page in an envelope—
handwriting slurred
a crooked stamp in the corner—
those suspicious wavy lines
No problem
Pas de problem I say—
reaching for the real thing—100 proof—
my words turning up like drunken sailors
stumbling off the tongue…
I always read my poems sober
I always write my poems drunk
The Moon in Exile
I stare at the white
chrysanthemum
as it tries to keep its head
above water
then return to
my own sickbed
my own floating island
my now deserted
Alcatraz–
I a noun
a sentence in solitaire
without a verb in sight
to spring me from my cell
nor row me to shore
Once
I was bedded wedded
honeyed conjugated bliss
rescued
by dashing heroes of being
by similes and metaphors
donning colorful capes–
tipping three-cornered alliterations
and other gracious peninsulas
Able to cross the English Channel during commercials
Able to wave from shores I’d never even heard of
Able to move from paragraph to paragraph
shifting my gaze from lower to upper case–
I a Full Moon
of breadth and vision
jumping over myself
and other bright continents–
eclipsing half-dangling participles
semi-colons periods and question marks
alike
(able to write the poem that cannot write itself)
Now
i am like the flower– startled
from its shoot—beheaded absent
for my own coronation
Words are a language unto themselves
My own naked page– the story of my life
____________________________________________
SHORT BIO
Antonia Alexandra Klimenko‘s work is widely published. Her poems have appeared in XXI Century World Literature (in which she represents France) CounterPunch, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology, The Rumpus, Big Bridge, Occupy Poetry (in whichshe is distinguised as an American Poet) and Maintenant: Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution and in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
She is the Writer/Poet in Residence for SpokenWord Paris.