And yet another midnight storm
Washes away the cold poetry
Born at the top floor.
I balance my whole weight
On long words,
Frozen stones on my tongue.
The fortress is shut
The town stops breathing
I count the mistakes god has done with me,
Just to pass the time.
The violent rain unsettles
The angel hidden inside my very bone.
Here, upstairs, both of us in the same body
Awake and hungry
Listen.
My milk teeth, lost on the floor
In a puddle of blood,
Grow wings.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
I made a big fire
In the middle of the room
In your absence I sat down white
Watching the carpet burning,
The books, the shadow you drew
On the wall, a while ago.
( it looked like a piece of absent land )
The neighbours could see the flames
Coming through the shut window
As I went to bed covered in ash;
But I did not mind such a public display.
I was not in a hurry.
The landscape locked me in.
The real winter began.
Acrylics, ink, newspaper: Maria Butunoi
Sometimes when both of us have dinner
The silent wolf stops by to watch.
I hear the knock on the window but keep
Looking at you and burst into fits of laughter.
We talk about the constant rain and
Listen to the tapping sound on the roof.
I offer you another glass.
The distant howl breaks the metallic echo in the room.
The ocean drips and drips
Cold over the plates, the table cloth
Whilst I wipe everything clean
Ready to hold new words between my beautiful teeth.
Mixed media: Maria Butunoi
‘Would you kill a bird’ I asked the angel.
The angel stopped and lit a cigarette
And said nothing back.
Then, after a pause, the colours faded.
‘Would you kill a bird’ the angel suddenly asked me.
I said nothing.
A stone was growing between me and my mouth.
Between my flesh and my heart,
The rust.
Photo: Maria Butunoi
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
We did not think we needed food
When we set to walk back in the dark
Guided only by the reflection
Of the angular words
But
It rained so much overnight that
The road collapsed
The city has now locked you in
With me
Hungry in a white room
At the top floor.
The soldier like the poet is made of milk.
On the wooden plank, he awaits the start of the fight
Amongst all the other lifeless objects
In this room
His bones wave at me.
The soldier’s need to speak precedes the need to listen.
The poet’s need to sleep precedes the need to rest.
The poet like the soldier does not wave back.
Once gone, forever hidden
Behind a thick screen of smoke
Which now separates our worlds.
Unable to find the way back
He collects the very dry tear on tissue paper
And builds a beautiful house
For the silence which follows the final departure.
Photo: John Stadnicki
She had no weight because
Was made of eyes.
She was talking to me
In an invented language
When
She tripped over a pebble and
Fell into the sea.
(There was no splash)
In a second
She vanished beneath the wave
With all our wooden hearts.
She could not be saved
Because nobody knew
How to breathe in ink.
You take the unspoken word and
Look at it under the magnifying glass
In the dark
You live out all the unnecessary sorrow and beauty
And get to the bone of the language
With very small steps
Learning to walk in poems
Naked stone
And in learning so
The need to talk grows in the broken wood.
I was deeply asleep
In my father’s egg
My sharp knife on my chest
My fingers on the shiny blade
My good teeth followed my legs when
I was finally released in this world
The unborn died to let me breathe
And this is how
I survived the big storm
With white blood on my hands.
Maria Stadnicka 