The box arrived. The first books now being sent to the British Library. And, in the middle of it, a new poem published this morning in ‘International Times’ – the newspaper of resistance.
‘A Day at the Office’ – pre-election dossier.
Stroud
White Breakfast
It was, after all, a beautiful day.
Your hands, resting on the white tablecloth,
the lost sheep in a perfect desert with no compass.
You passed me the tea, I took the newspaper and
arranged my dress in a neat knot on my lap,
smiled and looked the sun in the eye.
The fresh air suffocated us.
The summer, gone.
‘Too much beauty’ I thought to say before I slowly placed the cup in front of me,
‘too much of you’
but I kept a symmetrical distance between my toes and yours.
I stood up and went to the other side of the room
to watch you watching the sea.
On the floor, the breakfast crumbs.
Memory of my passing.
Photograph: @Maria Stadnicka, Lines’, Stroud
New Event – Imperfect Book Launch
Poster design @John Stadnicki
Flash News – ‘Imperfect’ Book Launch – 19th May @Black Books Cafe, Stroud, 7.30pm
Front cover design: @Andrew Morrison
We had to stop the car several times.
Weeks of anxious waiting finally ended.
A new, small, wrinkled, bloody, placental book
Arrived.
It had a natural birth and I called it ‘Imperfect’.
The book launch will be on Friday 19th May 2017, at Black Books Cafe, Stroud. 7.30pm for 8pm start. Free entry.
The book is available for pre-order at mariastadnicka@yahoo.co.uk.
The evening will be a vibrant performance with poetry and music, featuring Maria Stadnicka, Adam Horovitz, Jay Ramsay, Katie McCue and ‘Souled and Healed’.
Yew Tree Press – Philip Rush
Design and printer – Andrew Morrison
The evening host – Jay Ramsay
Books, drinks, sounds will be available! Come along!
The Shadows in a Quiet Mill
On the Treadmill
I have come to recognise God in a violent song,
played in the evening with broken forks and knives.
If I refuse to kneel, the winter starts at the end of September,
on Tuesdays, when I pass by the Jewish quarters.
My road to confession starts, just the same, in the morning chill.
The stones, the trees, the sky have a message,
of that I am certain, arrived at the wooden door of the hermitage.
And I knock and I knock.
A raven finally opens the white background.
The raven says with calculated words that, at present,
this government is busy.
Important wars need attending, in a land like no other.
I am given a form and I hear the padlocks.
I jump on the treadmill to keep warm.
Photo: copyright@John Stadnicki, 2016
Short Love Letter
Dear local MP, a while ago I vividly remember
writing you a very short note to say ‘fuck it, I quit!’.
I licked the stamp and dropped the envelope
in the box number eighty four, school lane, first left,
by the traffic lights.
I ran back to my flat, unplugged the TV
and read ‘War and Peace’ under the duvet covers.
By the time I got to page seven hundred and twenty I’d realised
the war was not the most important thing in a man’s life.
I started to feel a bit sorry for myself
having nothing to be angry about anymore.
But now, coming to think of it, you gracefully got over the insult
and posted back a signed Christmas card.
It arrived in January but let’s not stop at details.
I kept at my book for over a month.
The French got stuck in Siberia,
the women mourned, the men went back home
as they did in those days.
And then a neat Valentine appeared
hand-delivered by a Romanian postman.
Your concern for my love life brings me to tears.
There is nothing worse than rejected love.
Soldiers
The dreadful day we had feared
arrived at last. Possibly March the first.
At the picket line.
We held hands with the same familiar tenderness
maybe shared the same memories witnessing
the course of events as the revolution unravelled.
With a kind of regret my fist hit
the walls of a prison surrounded by weaved carpets.
With photographs stored in books
different directions awaited.
Never to see each other again.
Peace Talk
A peace talk has taken place
today between me and these wounds; the treaty signed
on a scrap of blank paper
with a determination which lasted
for over thirty eight years.
Thirty eight long roads.
Ended quietly in a town with
almost no street lights and yet
I reluctantly said yes
for the sake of another last hour.
Preparations
I am getting used to passing the time
in the solemn company of my wood beams.
Perhaps weeks, perhaps years
in which I have been witness to the world’s determination to name the unborn,
to possession and
to abandonment,
to preparations coming from planning uncertainty,
and to my own weakness.
I have not become better
although I lit candles and prayed
and I mattered.
I scribbled more question marks on waiting room tables than I gave answers
and
I felt the humility of a man proven wrong when
I hoped I had done enough.
Somehow, each time I rebelled
I ended up cleaning up the wreckage,
packing, unpacking,
forgiving everything
but not myself.
Maria Stadnicka 