‘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.
We feed the orphans with poems
Never to be
Hungry again.
The fire nourished with letters
Never stops burning
Overnight
Our bodies wake up
Warm bricks
Restored to their path.
Each breath locked
Between the heart’s walls
Returns to its silver lung
Once the word released.
Floating feathers
Her tears
On my dinner plate
I covered my face with black ink
Gathered all my possessions in one small bundle
And set fire to everything
At the top of the hill.
Look this way
I waved my burning hand
As you walked in your imaginary map
With a preoccupied stare
But nothing disturbed your pace,
The door shut behind with an incredible force.
The thin walls echoed.
The island went silent again.
My half shut eyes were able to reach
Forward
At the seed of the poem where god left
A freshly baked bread
Just for me.
The white crust had my initials on it
But I could not bear to eat it
In case I had nothing else left
For the rest of my days.
