"Tsvetaeva on the Lake Michigan's Shore" and "Expectation"

Tsvetaeva on the Lake Michigan’s Shore

or maybe only her book “Selected Poems”.
It’s early. We are watching silently; how the sun
appears from behind the enormous-white clouds.
She is closed, I am lonely. There is nothing to say,
nor to understand. If I open the book, I will ruin
this perfect moment. So, I light a cigarette and
exhale the smoke up to the clouds. Silent voice is
rising from the pages, but I put a finger on my lips
and say that it will be our secret. Suddenly a man
appears carrying a big mirror. What is he doing in
this early hour at the deserted shore? He doesn’t
see me, nor do I see his face. He stops by the water
and stays hidden behind the mirror. And it becomes
the eye of the water. I am looking silently at him,
and Marina is gone.

 


 

Expectation

“Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for”,
said once Cocteau, and I am trembling with anticipation!
I had so many hearts in my closet, and now it’s only one,
but I am not complaining.
Obviously I’ve changed. If I could choose between myself
from the past and the one from now, I’ll choose ignorance.
And history will lick its bloody mouth again.
I remember how in the winter in the woods, we were kindling
dry twigs and listened to the cries of the silence.
But today the winter is everywhere.
This is a sad song, I hope will warm me in some cold night,
when I’ll listen to the ticking of the clock, and I’ll dream of
my life lost long ago with the butterflies.
There is not a big difference in living on different continents
if the faces everywhere are all the same.
You apprehend the Grand Canyon only as a great and long hole
if the bluebird in your guts is trembling.
It’s the same with the rest of the world.
In North Dakota an Indian told me that our destiny is not written
anywhere and then he gave me a calendar and a pipe.
And since then I am looking for matches to build one match-stick
soul; I need glue, and one torn Rembrandt to glue together again.
Art! Will it last forever?
I also need tarantulas to pet, words to write in the darkness of
the shortness of life next to a burning candle.
I don’t want credit cards to cut the whiteness of my memories,
and I do not need the virgins of King Solomon to be their God.
And before I say goodbye, I’ll turn on the next page, where
it’s winter again to start afresh.

 

 

Peycho Kanev

Peycho Kanev is the author of nine poetry collections and three chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. His new chapbook titled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published in 2019 by Grey Book Press. He has several nominations for the Pushcart Prize. 

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 - 22:02