(photo: John Stadnicki)
Here I watch the day.
The storm over. A memory on glasses, on broken shoes.
My shadow reflected
on the opposite wall
sits still.
Cultural diversity
White Shirt
You see, it can rain with blood drops.
The proof the white shirt I’ve been wearing for the past two days
on my walks through the city.
Now ruined.
I have been saying all along that
someone died there at the top floor
but you keep reading, ask me to
sit down and drink the cup of tea
before it gets cold.
Death is not a matter of your concern, you say,
we have to hope like everyone else
for a better world and
let the justice be done.
Of course, but I
always like the tea very cold,
my hopes interrupt your thought process
as they remind you every day that
growing old means nothing.
I am the same unnecessary love,
making a spectacle of myself,
making a revolution out of silvery-grey ribbons.
In the big void, I keep standing up
with my stained shirt still on
and say no.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
Conversation with a Stone
(‘Perhaps this is not a poem…’ C. Milosz)
And because I was made a poet
a lot of blood is spilt
on the neat grass, when I walk.
For fear that I will have
nothing to give back
I collect old books.
My word confesses to its imperfection
with the honesty of a fractured second.
Not that I mind,
not that I have high hopes,
only tall steps.
Because of this self deluded truth,
it happens that waking up in a desert
is not a surprising coincidence,
but a certainty, like a niggling pain in a missing limb.
I am not grateful to sleep facing the wall
but hey! someone needs to show a bit of courage
and say nothing
when nothing is to be said.
And though no one will remember
the poem once written but me,
after all, forgotten things are
the only possessions worth keeping.
Photo: John Stadnicki
http://www.johnstadnicki.co.uk/Site/Welcome.html
The Sudden Closure
What is a heart, when all the world is dead?
The sound of letters dropped
will not revert the time.
And what’s a line without a drop of ink,
when all of us have reached the closed horizon?
I do not see my own hands, in mud,
as I am neatly seated in abyss,
nor I can talk about the summer days
(they’ve never been arranged or bricked
in any way).
What is my eye without the face I knew
(reflected on the path), if not the shadow
of a burn in your shirt.
And Dante, arh the liar him, what would he be today,
without the greatness of the sacred cloth,
if nobody had thought,
before the word, to reinvent inferno
in simple fragments of repeated hours?
The longer days make now the clouds look longer,
the thunder keeps the burning town awake,
and us,
immortals on the porch,
define the only emptiness which cannot live in books.
The sudden closure of my tiny palms.
Poetry collection ‘A Short Story about War’ published by Yew Tree Press, ready for the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, 30th March 2014
My poetry collection ‘A Short Story about War’ is now ready. It is a limited edition published by Yew Tree Press, Stroud, England, with a purpose: to support bursaries for children garbage pickers from Tondo, Manila.
The collection contains photographs created by the artist John Stadnicki, which produced the design and the concept.
‘A Short Story about War’ will be available at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival on the 30th March 2014, at 5pm. I will be reading texts from it at The Strand, Cheltenham. http://www.cheltenhampoetryfest.co.uk/eventdetail.php?ID=80
The collection is available to purchase and will be sold on Amazon soon.
My thanks go to the poet Philip Rush for his editorial determination, work and constant support; and to the editor and storyteller Fiona Eadie.
Thank you to all the people which inspired me and to the Stroud Pamphlet Poets for the feedback they gave me during the readings at the Stroud Valleys Artspace.
Maria Butunoi
Thought
I will say it again,
with the risk of repeating myself:
the poet does not exist really,
do not wait for him, do not.
The words themselves, not the tears, will choose to
get out in the world and
find you.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
The Wood
I am a real person
And everything known to me has a colour.
The sun gravitates around me.
When I am beautiful
In my collected tears grow forests.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
With Naked Eye
On the way to the palace
I paused and thought for a moment whether my fresh linen coat
Was really appropriate for her majesty;
My feverish hand brushed the pristine fitted jacket and checked
The size of the buttons,
As golden big studs would have looked rather disgusting
To her well trained eye.
It started raining so I had to turn back
As I quickly gathered that my attire would get soaked
And rather mouldy;
So, to avoid a rather embarrassing situation for both of us,
I thought I’d better try a wet suit instead.
Surely I looked better in a suit than a jacket but
I could not find suitable shoes to go with it
And the rain wasn’t that bad after all.
I was by then very late and rushing
To get a front row seat
When suddenly after a short deliberation
I realised with clarity that her majesty appreciated
Me
For who I was
Rather than my fashion sense
So I took the Lycra skin off and
Rushed outside naked in the broad daylight.
The police stopped me
Just as I was about to call for a taxi.
Even to the day I think
Honest people should be treated with more respect
And I secretly believe that
Her majesty needs a good dose of
Postmodern reality check.
Maria Stadnicka 