so what
it roughly rhymes
is that
the biggest
of the crimes
when words
won’t stick
they are
light snow

a world to pen
the word I owe

I’ll catch you one
the holding breath
a ray of sun
in dry wine glass

unfolded blinds
the truth to bare
in barefaced minds
and choked up air

the spring is near
old mother spring
exhale your fears
inhale it in

today some ditz
will fall to bits
today I’m fit
to be alit
and share some hopes
with you
my love

the best of times
for me
to go

when words
won’t stick
they are
light snow

the world I know
“…long time ago…”

Translation:

each day is like the last one
as regards
the sifting through my soul
a mallow and a star
I gather ruthless moments
in my heart
and blazing
in the maple wind
which swings too far

and my horizon swings
with him as well
as if a cradle
lost with someone
I don’t know
and I am higher
higher can’t be felt
just right enough
for my agility to glow

somehow the flight
lacks silence
for a while
the gravity gets earthy
more and more
by now
I see this autumn gilding
in a pile
it’s losing leaves
the way you’ve lost me
my dear love

that’s what I get
the tattered sail for Fate
the wretchedness and weariness
of native songs
this world
which burns my wings
can’t antedate
then
who is he
for me
the right one
or the wrong

June 19, 2014

Original:

сприймаю кожен день свій як останній
крізь душу сію мальву і зорю
збираю в серці миті невблаганні
горю

кленовий вітер обрій мій колише
немов колиску згублену чиюсь
розгойдуюся вище вище вище
свічусь

чомусь бракує тиші для польоту
земне тяжіння надто вже земне
і губить осінь пізню позолоту
як ти мене

розтріпані у доленьки вітрила
надломлені і втомлені пісні
цей світ яким обпалено вже крила
він хто мені

excruciating happiness
sweet pain
that's what I feel for you
my dear Ukraine

maidans grow hopes in news
old promised lands
words board my drifting heart
and sails withstand

you move the waterline
my thoughts don't sink
I dress your bitterness
in dark-blue ink

I mourn your losses streak
when greet new morns
a cross is mounted high
above the thorns

I feel the nails in wrists
your lords' disdain
that's how you touch my soul
my dear Ukraine

January 16, 2014

dear trolls
and unfriended friends
while you surf
to new-promised lands
sharpen up
your deciduous teeth
cool rushed fingers
when the keyboards sneeze
raise the spam
drop caducous gills
chill the thrills
nicks and nips
for the future kills

likely likers
gentle slubbers
who chew and spit
jabberwockies
like in baseball
baccy
douse the jib
fly the spinnaker
my landlubbers
in the web sea
of hacking

all your moons
are harvest moons
my moonrakers
spread the scuttlebutts
rasp out
irk
spill your guts
hell-bent on burning
the mind
which is weak
in its circuit breakers

my tectonic plates
moves of crust in brains
my titanic mates
drowsy words in veins
make a fathom wide
your unheard-of arms
I’m your bumpy ride
hell-knows prince of charms

I can spell the talk
poke the bubbles
I am chockablock
with your troubles

8 October, 2013

1.

it cannot be
thinner
thinner
laughter grows
though
I know
what’s
better
better
is not to know
how
the existence crawls
to awake
the snow
after bullets
flashed
all through
air and flesh
and the sun
in harness
dies
in soldier’s
eyes
better
not to try
seize
that frigid sky
just
to ease
the pain

2.

damn
I see
the dam
hard
as cheek
when slapped
backs
are strained
and veins
not a single step
left
or right
to back
we can make
or fake
standing
face to face
on the edge
outraised
where blood is
stanched
wounds
refill ichor
when
we ask the sky
for some land
no more
we’re
speechless cranes
in descending South
rivers
without mouth
wisdom
lost in love
all we have
is down
barely shoveled rest
all we need
a word
warm enough
to nest

3.

this front
didn’t rip
the general stripes
it stayed
where it was
with a slight compromise
all plans
on the maps
beaded mostly
in trenches
the rosary gaps
were full of adventures
with some body parts
beyond comprehension
in black holes
the craters
in dying dimensions

outlasted
hurray
laid down
and subsided
we did
what we did
it can’t be
divided
the baptism of fire
the hell-way
through raving
souls’ opium
bodies
were dumped
in mass grave and
the war
wanted more
fresh
blood
as bloomed roses
who knows
where God is
is breathless
who knows this

the rear
was feeding
with cursing
the radio-wire
was loading
the orders
no one could admire

we tested
this moonshine
with honor and mettle
while someone
was pointing the barrel
for battles
strait to our necks
our backs
and intentions
this one
from behind
had all rights
but no sanctions

4.

how can we
survive
this dead-end
and tide

the time is
so low
and price
way too high
we won’t
satisfy
the words
and an action
erase the reaction
stay clear
when flushness is near

it’s easier
to die
than step back
and try
to catch one more sun
and cool chatting guns

the measureless fear
may call many byers
the frankness is here
as well as crossfires
and written
in pain
forgotten
unknown
the heroes remain
in ditches
in frowns
and what they’ll become
will cure angry pass
the meaning of home
and sky in the grass

August 20, 2013

estrangement walls
nonstop simoons
all nest like cuckoo bees
you’re
my remedy for wounds
some stranger’s bride-to-be

my heart’s in you
encompassed views
with crime-scene-warning tape
it pounds
and waits for any news
to shape escapes’ roofscape

remorse invades
inflictions fade
oh priceless love-to-go
we lost
in time both oars to wade
few kisses less ago

love is a child
less meek more wild
when we apart I’m blind
and burn
a smile that slides to mild
to touch you in my mind

the keyhole lights
game days lose nights
stock future sweet as gean
am I
so wrong to feel so right
to sight your fruits and glean

for what it’s worth
in gain and loss
where angels fear to tread
you are
my host at any cost
my water air and bread

30 July, 2013

it’s likely
I’ll fall short
of someone I am not
of something you might sneak on board
or tie in lover’s knot

so many
drifts to catch
in gorges of my dream
latch on to moments born in slatch
the lullaby for stream

today sounds
like a dirge
the echoes of new past
are wading in the surge of urge
so intimate at last

the time’s bought
for a song
it’s fribbled note by note
and losing right as well as wrong
the fluffs I used to dote

though bathing
in the stream
inhaling youth in whiffs
I grasp how’s gorgeous in my dream
are maybes doubts and ifs

how’s precious
every tress
when it belongs to drifts
where all adieus corral the past
and reefs show veins of riffs

in peace I
go alone
a dilly of a fight
the total worth of what I own
can fit in aiming sight

and I can
be at most
an angel or a beast
who grasps how’s chilly is the cross
with nails through heels and wrists

July 18, 2013

Apprise my barely melted heart that ages!
Poor farness pleads and leads up to thawed patches,
where love keeps losing mind as font its pages
and mercy of the weather’s soft and stretchy.
Forgive its fragileness, don’t be umbrageous
about the thirst among the skies and edging,
the passion rivers, Pegasus encaging.
Forgive this moment livid to imagine.
Forgiveness is the gift as being vestal.
Don’t send it down the drain. This calmness morphine
is rich in veins, it is your eardrum-drummer.
A heart is gifted first and then it’s fasting
to see leap February deep in coffin,
while three more deaths wait patiently for summer.

June 20, 2013

a
noon
tat
was a saw
won now
a
wow

a
raw war
nips pin
got a tog
god – a dog
a foe of a
gog
lol
gag
gasses sag
eyed eye
in words drown I

I am damn mad am I
I am doom’s mood am I
I am mood’s doom am I

keep on – no peek
bonk a knob
bag a gab

o no
a
rood door
I am sand’s DNAs am I
toot
and Sahara has DNA
too – foot –
at air riata
spools loops
loops sec cesspool
spots stops
spits tips
not a ton
but a tub

but a tub
wolfs never evens flow
in words drown I
ill I
damn mad
dude-dud

28 March, 2013

XXX.

Not much to lose, except pluck-feathered madness.
Ideas yellow in a scribbled column.
Use tongue as driblets at its leisure, gladness,
brim arias for nasal alts while falling.

The wind’s soprano, salty patterns, sadness…
Roulades, the smalt of sky moves contra solem,
occludes the light and wipes away the deadness
of hell on asphalt, sunny puddles’ strolling.

Eternal dancing – forte to piano,
and from piano into deeper forte,
chiaroscuro, yields of rings in halos,

filled to the brim in nebulous Cinzano…
Though growing dumb, in trance, I’m still recording
tempested dandelions, dreams umbrellas.

March 25, 2013

XXXI.

Tempested dandelions, dreams umbrellas,
their seamless glide seems highly frail and easy
in heady and inflated heights to mellow.
They trace around the paper sky of reasons.

The gods of ink pen in divine duellos.
Which word is right? What color is in season?
The writing thickens where the margins fell off,
the battle fields for jotted notes of vision

and penetrating body lines of silence.
The time is always right when love has courage
to free her world in words, disrobe the edges,

so thoughts could keep the light in balance.
Oh, sonnet bowels, in the blast of sorry
apprise my barely melted heart that ages.

March 26, 2013

I can hardly describe
each dimension and vibe
when the sky
kept on falling
and the news
fat and jolly
turned a gleam in my eye
to the heaven of cry

televised
analyzed
forced by cameras rolling
crispy thoughts
trite and foully
threshed in heart
sowed with teardrops
the day
every moment
I paid
for not being an angel
out of pain
and the danger

speechless air
can harm
husky words
were strangled
and numb
and the throat
could deliver a hum
but was pleased
with a wheeze
signified
by retorts
of aorta
I was trying
to pray
hoping
open the portal
to the angels
on calls
for those innocent
souls
for whatever
that holds
us
as mortals

fly
my angels
goodbye
life is tender
at five
no one
actually died
nothing
barely broken
only sentient vibes
turned a gleam in my eye
to the heaven of cry
and betokened
how delightful
are souls
how outspoken
and cold
could be
love
in this world

fly
my angels
good
bye
no one
actually died
nothing
barely broken

20 December, 2012

the gravity of eventide
got even with
my tied emotions
I left agape
the Gate of Light
released endorphin
opiated notions
till all eidola
swashed and canonized
resembled galaxies
on pupils
those spleenful images
quadrupled
the draggled beatitude
in eyes
then teratoid shades
and sneaky winds
crept down the street
through cobbled glades
like cheetahs
and lily-livered leaves
transformed
from meek
to bitter
with mucrones
ready to exscind
the balsamaceous armistice
between
the nictitating space
and stubborn
yet authentic heart
remained in spleen
I shuttered senses
batten down
the Gate
and fled the scene
with particles for stars
to conglobate
and glean
reverberating
time and light
beyond
the gravity
of eventide

November 23, 2012

I’m sure
who I was
in doubt
what I will
become
when the frost
persuades to bestill

tonight
I am
rebirth of a.m.
clock arms as one
look up and dun
a second to pray
and nothing to say

a sparkle of dawn
enrooted and boon
the light of old moon
albedo jam

I am

a hungry shrill
from chops of wolfs
poor air in gills
rich surge of souls

the gravity bight
and riverside mist
a bat stealth flight
from horseback feasts

a manifold proof
outgrown and ramate
a chess to move
for checks and mates

a thetic stress
pathetic note
a grass that fasts
along the road

a shell in the sea
a sea in the shell
ubiquity
and farewell

24 October 2012

who am I
to garden your smile
on the well-guarded lips
with tips of my fingers

who am I
to question your name
on the tip of my tongue
while cavils still linger

who am I
deprived though enticed
an inveterate seer
of eye-blinded sightings

who am I
an ‘i’ missing dot
for the ceiling’s my sky
serves nightfalls as whiting

who am I
when tensions are swelled
with both palter and quail
crossing shallows of falter

who am I
a tragic flaw’s flap
while my gravity’s kept
for your smiling to alter

who I am

October 2, 2012

dusted off
by fits and starts
by the rowdy summer gusts
stars
were flickering

for us

after weightless
pros and cons
clothes left scattered
love was born

in the time
of lunacy

we unplugged
the distant sea
under lights
of moony
eve

in the shallows
of belief

we could dance
through endless sighs
craved for steps
and splashed in eyes
deemed to perish
due to lust

there’s
nothing
to degust
when the senses
built a crust
made of
singed and rusted
trust

stray
as bullets
morning rays
hit with dots
where thoughts
benday

lipstick traces
sinful places
distant faces
spaced out spacing
in the offing
instant coffee
and baccate
half in shadows
half roseate
something rendered
lain in wait

July 20, 2012

There is some magnitude in arms
to hold a child unharmed and warm,
to tightly prize the evidence of future.
There is some altitude in pride
where plodding senses start to stride
and broken hearts are almost free of sutures.

There is some room for errors and
a place to grow, a ground to stand,
to incubate most shunnable temptations.
Words up to scratch and tantalized,
they sip the sky as thirsty eyes,
engulf no lies, a cinch of revelation.

There is some depth a foot can’t reach
and mind – avert, the sunshine – bleach,
reincarnate ineffably the stillness
before heartbeats become a loot,
ahead of cutting wistful roots,
in dying time for butterflies of shrillness.

For what it meant to stay behind
I keep it up and deep in mind,
the everlasting state where hopes can linger.
There is some light on windful hands,
on dribbling time in grains of sand
through the galactic openings 'tween fingers.

2 May, 2012

they are
less oranges
more apples

I crave to say
hey
birds of feather
flock together

his life
is meant to be
an open book
the recipe
for every day
she plans to kill
or cook

there are
no stitches
on his heart
but pierced through
chambers
the little words
her cords
and charts
he tries so hard
to keep them
bended
like paper staples
to remember
to pay
her way

although
you know

when
their time
is girt

he likes
to squeeze
a glass of sun
from oranges
and let her
flirt

she peels
her Eden
off the Apple
calls off
the dogs
takes off
her togs
and then
sweet-talks
about the birds
and bees

an hour straight
they
neck
and jazz
the way
no Adam
knew
his Eve
then wait
for more
to love
and kiss

she is
indeed
the apple
of his eye
the spoiled one
the only one
despite...

22 February 2012

our blindness
came out of the swoon

we were doomed
and not betrothed

both
we
and sherry
shared
the taste of
being lost

we were lovers

o’er
the moon

all o’er
each other

puzzled

stemming
our short breath tides
we weren’t diamonds
but pure dynamites

shamelessly aiming
our desires
at the forbidden fruit
of curiosity on fire
we kept the words
like a piñata loot

and aired them
in syncopic waves
and dared then
to have a say

our foreplay

wolfed down
the dances
of feathered time
upon return
out of the blindness
dreamed caught
in senses
finally sublimed

14 February, 2012

sail your ship of pain across my love
carried by the phantoms and swift wails
abandon the tears to bleed
your down is my loss to ink

26 January 2012

From the bottom of my heart
a mortal hope
descends alone
on the murk firmament
of omnipresence.
Its death
swells in melancholy.
The light drowns
in somnambulant darkness.
Adrift emotions
inhale the deep ocean
of ambivalence.
When a dream is shoal,
soul struggles
with own volition
drawing circles
in the maelstrom of despair,
creating tracks
for a falling star.

25 January, 2012

haiku in white

***
a light-negative
blank verses on sable leaves
crow constellation

***
fall tears die while run
an ossified tempest bristles
window guillotine

***
icy nudity
forest and winter tango
strip and knock on wood

***
finally snow yields
sky crackles under feet
pains in unison

***
the december rush
moon’s alluvial silver
on pins and needles

***
a clear-cut clock hand
december air deserts lungs
beheading a year

***
a clingstone river
thick oxygen starvation
stiffness in the flesh

***
doors to promised sun
fishy days in an ice hole
raised cost of breathing

***
deserted heaven
caravan blood thickens fast
canine gelidness

***
mother-and-child glow
power runs through rubber snake
plastic manger scene

November 30, 2011

heedlessly-scattered notes

***
an unbidden night
memorable tangency
take a chance on lust

***
shorelines of closeness
tides on the sea of fancy
tuning-fork nudeness

***
noctuid free flight
deviously-frightened flames
ashes of passion

***
soft borders of heart
guards slumber behind senses
missed out on all noes

***
more silence to heal
taste of paradise apples
sinuous eros

***
most unbridled oh
salty-dewed walking on air
the way to flutter

***
hoist the blue peter
air wall insulation's pores
to replete and sieve

***
reticence for sale
the ebb of lip-read fervor
word trade ups and downs

***
a verbal ivy
wine roots in telling the truth
bitter juice of heart

***
a morning-long chord
remoteness of high-heeled shoes
utterance and blues

December 2, 2011

a temporal well

***
a convulsive sky
the sin-stove with sodom soot
residue and curse

***
a bell tower throat
the way to inhibit wicks
a blood drained nimbus

***
poems of darkness
revolutionary rains
hungry pools of blood

***
victory backgrounds
corrida flowers’ blooming
death draws the short straw

***
holodomor years
offer me a cross to nail
truth in vinegar

***
facelessness of death
grimaces form starvation
lightness to inter

***
a deadened dead end
death to needy utterance
throbbing finds its ways

***
angels go fishing
blues in a celestial hole
a catchy soul breath

***
got a flat heaven
weigh up the deflated rhythm
a cardio_gram

***
a dove altitude
the breast bareness of thin air
fledging fleshless souls

14 December 2011

Well, after all
I tag along
with your untimely idea
and my late call,
a swan song ,
to extol
the heart echoed with feelings
as its true voice.
Instead
victorious parades
and extrication
a static noise
invades
the cardio-vibrations
and terminates
free-minded flow
to dominate
expressions on a brow.
With strangled eyes
and lips ajar
a word can’t last a trice
so far.
I send my troubled lately gasp,
a syllable with seen-thorough wings
and sharpen sting,
a quality of wasps,
to nip your slurring in the bud.
Electrifying air
reveals its touchiness
by making ifs
less feasible to scud,
too scrawny for a dud
to stick
in any party’s gullet
for silence cracks
in unintentional
“enough”,
a silver,
dipped in not-so-holy water,
bullet.
An ear-shell concert hall
is tightly shut.
No public seats
remain obtainable,
nor written scores
for orchestra
are now retainable.
The symphony
of pure cacophony
plays well on nerves
and every note
falls where it deserves.
The wall of thuds
cleaves our brushed rapport.
With baring teeth
we fight it back
and claws.
With towering the losses
and pretending wins,
for all it’s worth,
the yang
can’t swim as swan
in frigid waters
of the yin.

13 October 2011

I can feel it.
Right now,
after all these
stormed for a while imprecations,
underneath
this
heart wasteland,
a dead river
passes
hushes and splashes
of once overfull
passion.
An attitude of abasement,
a sharpened notion
on a tip of perception
vivificates a line
on timeless sand.
The fragile scar
divides
my holy land
on learnt
and never dared,
on much to see
and scared,
on “on”
and “off”,
on “yes”
or “no”,
on hell ago
and times to go.
on wars
and crows
with double souls,
on tender strokes
and rendered shocks,
where time
can pile
the jiffs of clocks
and heal the scar,
a young rimrock.

October 2, 2011

whip-poor-will
whip-poor-will
onomatopoetically
pathetically
vent a bill
surrounding sounds
my lines besought
for hunting grounds
age slowly thoughts
a potpourri of wingless words
from windless worlds
my verse roothold
the manifold
of vein-pumped blues
regains my heart
with no excuse
neglected past
grows wildly fast
in chiliasm
it swells abreast
with who I am
air castles wast
the rest
it’s tireless
one of a kind
well undefined
in space and time
the sky
of resurrected mind
where rhymes
can clang
the whole shebang

July 13, 2011

Unearth from your mineshafts the eon of death,
the shelf time for fossils is cut to an hour.
While breaking those tablets, a breath mimics snath
for calluses grow, chiseled layers devour.

When helmets spill scarcely belt battery juice,
the mouth of unknowing shows thirst for a price.
What chinks in your pockets? Dreams… trifles with news…
Come back in return for outfoxing demise.

Fortnights fade to nothing and soot breeds on Sun.
A wide berth for errors, the thinnest of walls
costs toilers a fortune, gives warnings to none.
Does life really worth it, the mounding of spalls?

Breathe slowly with trolleys, grown ridges for sale,
burn greedily later in rich anthracite.
The miners are mending old pathways to hell,
some buying the farm and the others... respite…

July 7, 2011

I.
The last of rays is on his deathbed,
a slab of fired clay. He grasps a move
with shady lungs to breathe in vespers.
When drapes are down, find forty winks, a trove.
Not in the well-locked doors, in God we trust.

Your yesterday choked throats with spirits.
To dry, it wanders in the palate sky.
Reached bottle-bottomed height? Just seal it!
In bays of truth Death bathes eventides
where darkness hardens, wears the moonlight crust.

II.
A naked square, dressed in the rabble,
is hungry for the drum-roll wafted sign.
The law and order judges scrabbled
for every eye on chopped-with-ax could dine,
track bumps of rolling head, and size a fluke.

The corpse with soul in heels still staggers,
weaves nothing but the cradled shade in steps.
Profanity is cast in saggers,
space-eating shouters, who wall echoes’ depth.
Humiliation fades in fumed rebuke.

III.
Beheading falls on headsman shoulders.
He rolls his sleeves up; fingers on the edge.
Before the strike, brief calmness smolders
for hands will lift the thin end of the wedge
to kill rehearsals of mob reproofs.

When timeless phoenix, fined to ashes,
revived in pain to browse genera trees,
heaves into sight where death rehashes,
all dead-to-be in mindless shivaree
meet their guard with wings and brute on hooves.

IV.
Throng-deep seclusion hangs, the armor,
while bridled lips prompt eyes to live a lie.
When under-bladed world gets warmer,
the moment calls for love that never dies,
slakes flames of hell, and cries in nailed knells.

Iconoclastic hands are gory.
You held the right on holy words and swore
with passion and contagious roaring
to be precise in your chop-headed chore
while Heaven offers its roof... and quells.

V.
Thoughts pumped through veins. Lungs fell right after
the loss of airflow followed by a blow,
the cuff on melting crowd and drafter
of, bogged in gapping and the afterglow,
cerise and tepid, demise archive.

It’s hard to see soul scars when heart beats
and even harder to remain in dreams,
glaze skies with pupils, at the white heat
defeat all fears and release some steam.
The moment squeezes love out of life.

VI.
News burns on tongues, gives smoke to rumors
to make adjustments when fresh blood cools down.
A headless trunk with gallows humor
hangs rules on order and leaves the town.
Main belfry spits out unnerving bells.

The hums lose echoes to grip walls tightly,
to cool in sweat and cupolas of throats.
They dress up face in bleakness straightly
to tune up larynx and suppress old gloats.
Thoughts, locked in circles, stick to their cells.

June 15, 2011

1.
Dogs quested and the presence missed a soul.
They scared away the rigor out of air.
All platforms perched on shoulders, lonely crows
with eyes of wolves and beak-ends to repair

the reasons found in the acutest grin.
When mercury is burnt three fingers wide
and water-elder blood chills on the scene
in wounds of winds I’m destined to reside.

2.
My raison d'etre makes echo-splinters
with human voices, their venenation,
name-called, neglected, defused by winters,
and walked alone-wise through crowded stations.

All echoes die soon, to-well-dropped pebbles.
I’m scarce now, painted o’er by December.
In trainful bosom my heart is trebled…
raised hell in temples… home to remember.

June 6, 2011

II.

***
the absence of sap
and winds’ meaningful presence
bir(t)ches are barkless

***
the tide holds waves tight
river whispers sound shallow
a dirty mouth moons

***
aussie banjo bucks
ten kangaroos are playful
i have my pure blonde

***
a crazy horse can
willow pussies have catkins
another spring rush

***
well done my goodness
we are done with wells for good
not a drop of will

***
proof yeast with water
crush grapes in the bloody mash
whence come eucharists

***
following bull steps
keeping eyes on his dropping
bull’s-eyes eat your pride

***
no more guts to spill
my blood is on a swatter
mosquitoes swan songs

***
a throat can’t herd frogs
walls crave to be deaf and dumb
karaoke eves

***
the sootiest night
two shadows are peelable
the fire of love

May 27, 2011

III.

***
like u-boat bobbles
ww2
germs are in heaven

***
where your private slings
kernel trolls in a nutshell
need matches teddy

***
sluts like slots to play
lush flirtini on the rocks
life flashes through bars

***
zip code to unzip
bar code to stay straight in lines
decrypting last bash

***
dight for your battle
the spit and image of dogs
dig a dignity

***
caterpillar treads
crazy as a betsy bug
slugs don’t chase rainbows

***
private dish the dirt
don’t give me a dirty look
words take a dirt nap

***
bradley is tanked up
can’t tread water in the drink
being the worth for wear

***
do not soldier on
plankton for a turkey shoot
cannon fodder stews

***
can’t undo my dos
double do stands for dodos
do away with mines

July 1, 2011

Shutting off
the reading source
for shadow movements,
tired of daylong zooming
under solar precipitation,
a pair of double-glazed eyes
droops down
its aluminum lids.
The king size world
is lost in glance
at a rose-petalled bed
where two meadows
melt in sweat
and hearts’ duo
reaches
their point of confluent.
Kisses,
the groping flowers,
pollinated by love butterflies,
dance with passion
spreading soft sighs
through barren darkness.
Over and over,
quaff after quaff
the nectar of lips
tends to be engulfed.
Felt deeply,
the brightness of future
moves ahead
with increasing
mattress recoiling,
synchronizing it
with walls'
busy sound-munching.
Pints of blood
crave for a new circulation,
splash body rhythms with warmth,
and look for uninhabited pores.
“Ommmmmm!”
and a delightful silence
creates multiple paths
the new life could take.
“Done” that can’t be undone,
might be retried though
or even ended.
The obscurity weaves
its stillborn web
stretching it
over interlaced bodies.
Only
first solar teardrops
can lance
the gossamer strands
of
created by love
cocoon.

May 2, 2011

And in Ukrainin:

Кокон Любові
------------

Вимикаючи
джерело для зчитування
тіньових рухів,
переборюючи втому
від цілоденного увиразнення образів
під сонячними опадами,
пара подвійно-засклених очей
обвисає вниз
алюмінієвими повіками.
Світ двоспально-королівського розміру
губиться у раптовому завмиранні погляду
на трояндно-опелюстковане ліжко,
де два диких поля
розплавляються у поті,
а дует сердець
досягає
точки збігу обставин.
Поцілунки,
грішно-дотичні квіти,
запилюються метеликами любові,
танцюють з пристрастю,
поширюючи тендітні зітхання
крізь піснувату темряву.
Знову і знову,
спрагло,
ковток за ковтком
нектар губ
податливий на захоплення
і відродження.
Відчуття глибини,
світлого майбутнього,
просувається
зі зростанням
матрацної віддачі,
синхронізуючи її
зі стінами,
зайнятими перетравленням звуків.
Пінти крові
жадають нового переколування,
захлюпують ритми тіл теплом,
і роздивляються за незаселеними порами.
"Oмммммм!"
і зачарована тиша
створює декілька ймовірних шляхів
для нового життя.
"Вже", яке не можливо перемовити,
але правдоподібно – піддати повтореннню,
або навіть обриванню...
Безвісність тче
власне мертвонароджене павутиння,
розтягуючи його
понад плетивом тіл.
Тільки
перші сонячні сльози
у змозі перескальпувати
осіле бабине літо,
створеного любов'ю,
кокону.

2 травня 2011

An eyeful blink
shakes off the lunar stillness,
saddles a skimpy snake
of cigarette smoke
and chains it limply
to the lamppost light,
freshly hung
by the street
fatalistic emptiness.
All walls went gray,
begrudged every moving shadow
its mobility.
Hungry for a sound,
the reverberation
of your watchful steps,
they embrace
your imagination,
surround you
by its digestive system,
resembling a waterless well-bed.
Try to whisper
and
the burnt clay will mutter back
its lunatic elucidation
of your murmured musing.
Sense the breathing space
between your scantly vibrating throat
and these windowed brick stacks,
protectors of diminutive tragedies
and hoarders of seasonless warmth.
Another blink,
and your eye climbs up the wall,
starts equilibrating
on the verge of gutters,
approximates the shape and size
of your keyhole to heaven.
Wow!
Who is this milkman?
Where his Milky Way leads?
Who was milked, can you tell?
Where and what leaks?
Something irks,
probably another question to muffle,
a second to dissolve
the serpentine breeding
in the memorylessness
of breezy air shift.
Prolong the down side
of blinking,
close your eyes,
test the tenderness
of light,
flatline
the peaks and troughs
of Universe.
You are at the center
of everything,
hand-distanced
with every ‘G’
dreaming to be touched.


27 April, 2011

And in Ukrainian:

Повне зору блим
---------------

Повне зору "блим"
струшує задеревіле місячне сяйво,
сідлає видноребру змію
сигаретного диму
і приковує її вільно
до ліхтарного світла,
недавно завішеного
вулицею,
її фаталістичною порожнечею.
Посивіли всі стіни,
заздрячи кожній рухливій тіні,
її мобільності.
Голодні на звук,
на реверберації
ваших оглядистих кроків,
вони охоплюють
вашу уяву,
оточують вас
власною системою травлення,
наносять схожості
з обезводненим криничним дном.
Попробуйте пошепотати
і
обпалена глина відбурмотить
своїм лунатичним відгуком
на ваше роздумливе мимрення.
Відчуйте дихання простору
між кволими вібраціями у горлі
і цими провіконеними стосами цегли,
охоронцями дріб'язкових трагедій
і комірниками безсезонного тепла.
Ще одне "блим",
і очі пнуться угору по стіні,
починають еквілібрувати
на линвах ринв,
оприблизнюючи форму і розмір
вашої замкової щілини до неба.
Ось це так!
Ким є той чумак?
Куди його Чумацький Шлях веде?
Де то засолене море, ви можете сказати?
Де і чому незалатаний його віз?
Якась дратливість,
ймовірно, ще одне питання
для приглушення,
секунда для розпуску
зміїного потомства
у безпам'ятті повітря
при зміні його потоку.
Затримайте затемнення
при блиманні,
змикайте очі,
перевірте тендітність
світла,
випростуйте у кардіолінію
піки і западини
Всесвіту.
Ви знаходитесь у центрі
всього,
на дистанції витягнутої руки
з кожною точкою 'G',
де мріється про дотик.

27 Квітня 2011

Hearsays don’t read facts.
They lend an ear
and play by it,
to the point, whither
there is nothing to bend.
After tanked up
with a canister of stillness
your illiteracy
in sipping words
out of scuttlebutts
runs out of clues
on how to fish
in the poured in energy
for hisses and boos.
Momentarily amused
muses call a consilium.
Gathered
they aspire to reach
a frothy consensus
on how to sooth
your verdicts in labor.
The best of you
sidesteps,
squints,
and harvests
wits.

April 20, 2011

And in Ukrainian:

Збираючи дотепний урожай
------------------------
(жартома)

Балачки не зачитуються фактами.
Вони обезватнюють вуха,
бавляться з ними в імпровізацію
аж до точки,
коли вже немає що загинати.
Опісля заповнення баків
каністрою остовпіння
ваша необізнаність
з посьорбуванням слів
просто з булькотні
опантеличується
фактом неспроможності вудкування
у влитій до вух енергії
шипіння, ойойкання і фекання.
Думки моментально
скликують консиліум.
Вічем
вони прагнуть осягнути
пінистий консенсус,
про те, як полегшати
пологи вашому вотуму.
Ваша краща половина
обабічнюється,
примружує око
і збирає урожай
дотепу.

20 Квітня 2011

Here,
in a thorn apple orchard
every nearby-river whisper
catches its obscure tendency to melt.
A colligation of daturas,
the source of entheogenic mind,
earned its name from long time ago,
as an official weed of Jamestown.
Its brighter side
was thrilled to collect
the honor
to be crowned by shadows
of lofty weeping willows.
It licked peacefully and patiently,
right from randomness of fallen tears,
the after-rain quavers of leaves.
The day was aging at a snail's pace,
verging on an infant cloudlessness.
Finally, its solar sweetness
had reached the state of grace.
Fermented in unrestrained sultriness,
a golden drizzle of rays drifted away,
bleeding in horizon,
leaving up to the Knights of Darkness
to shorten or not
the wing flaps of a wind
flying over coruscated river waves.
What a sharp move!
It was surgically precise
in dissecting
the senescent process of decolorizing,
fading
from “how-light-amber-corrodes”
to “when-deep-silver-black-&-whitens”.
The thorn apple orchard
redrew its shapes,
metamorphosed
to moonflowers,
where hell’s bells rust,
devil’s trumpets wilt,
and Jamestown`s roots
prolong its dreams
to the squeeze point
of the river heart.
Waiting for another
feast during the mind plague...

April 18, 2011

Translation to Ukrainian:

Чар-зілля Дурману
------------------

Тут,
у саду з колючих яблук
кожен неподалік-річки пошепт
виловлює потаємну властивість –
танути.
Дурманне віче –
джерело ентеогенної думки,
давним-давно дослужилося до злоязичного імені,
проголошуючи себе офіційним зіллям містечка Джеймстаун.
Його більш освітлене 'я'
схвильовано зібрало
честь –
бути увінчаним тінню,
піднесених вище колючок, плакучих верб.
Воно спокійно і терпеливо вилизувало
опади сліз – просто з їхньої випадковості,
з оцього післядощового здригування листя.
День старів зі швидкістю просування равлика,
десь на межі інфантильної безхмарності.
Нарешті його сонячні прянощі
осягли стан благодаті.
Після бродіння у нестримній задусі
золотава мжичка променів повітрилась далі,
кровоточачи обрієм,
залишаючи для Лицарів Темряви
важелі укорочення
розмахів крил для вітру,
що проносився над виблискуючими річковими хвилями.
Що за різкий рух!
Яка ж це хірургічна точність,
що розсікає
старіючий процес знебарвлення,
розмивання відтінків
від "як-світло-бурштинове-роз'їдає-іржа"
до "коли-глибоко-сріблясте-чорно-відбілюється".
Цей сад з колючих яблук
перемальовує себе,
метаморфізує
у місячні квіти,
де корозія покриває дзвони пекла,
никнуть диявола труби,
а коріння Джеймстаун
простягає власні сни
до ядушливого стиску
у самому серці річки.
В очікуванні наступного
пиру під час наслання дурманної чуми...

18 квітня 2011

...
Dot... dot... dot...
Three greetings
to the newborn circles
of creativity
on the pristine whiteness.
Words break the ice,
they disfigure
the surface of silent paper
in order
to ascertain a tall order
for the sound’s
disturbed
and greedily dry
dot... dot... dot...
Ouch,
my muse
darts through the line
and marks its territory.
First notion’s boundary
in the poem
is on the dot.
I let God
live here
and wait for you,
for your will
to take a breath
and mimic
my touchy wave
of trembling lips.
God can wait
and burn the midnight oil
forever,
I am not.
I am His time,
dipped in the game
of blowing off candles,
where He suffocates
every time
I miss
to spell out His message.
This line
is my,
encrusted in ink
and sealed with a kiss,
light.
It reflects the rhythm of my heart.
It can throb
only within the darkness
of your pupils.
Every circle echoed
is ME,
my dot... dot...dot...

April 14, 2011

Translation to Ukrainian:

Крапки
------
...
Крапка... крапка... крапка ...
Три привітання
для новонароджених кіл
творчості
на незайманій білизні.
Слова пробиваються крізь лід,
вони спотворюють
поверхню мовчазного паперу,
аби
встановити високий порядок
для звуку,
порушеного
і жадібно-сухого,
точкою... точкою... точкою...
Ой, леле.
Моя муза
проснеслась стрілою по рядку
і помітила свою територію.
Перше поняття обмежилось
у вірші
точкою вчасно.
Я дозволив Богу
тут жити
і чекати на вас,
за вашим бажанням –
перевести подих
і промімікувати
мої вразливі хвилі
тремтячими губами.
Бог може чекати
і спалювати ночами
власну невтомність
вічно,
я – ні.
Я його час,
проникнутий у гру
задування свічки,
де він задихається
щоразу,
коли я помиляюсь
оголошуючи його повідомлення.
Ця лінія
є моїм,
інкрустованим у чорнилі
і скріпленим поцілунком,
світлом.
Вона відображає ритм мого серця,
котре може пульсувати
тільки у темряві
ваших зіниць.
Кожне відударне коло вторить –
це я,
моя крапка... крапка... крапка...

15 квітня 2011

It seems
I am the future
of "right now",
living in my inked thoughts,
not far behind
the lines you've just read.
Somewhere
a sharp eye
will nail a cross
in the poem
for checking out its focus.
Cerebral waves
would need to waste
one or more of its gapped
and treasured paths
in order
to cling together
those,
passed by
and blighted
in its contemporariness,
petals of my heart.
What a paradise is here,
in you!
Show me your garden.
Please.
Do you sense my steps?
I am this
wind of silence
walking on your shivered grass.
Pale and smiling,
in haste to touch
your growing curiosity
I will lose all my petals
and what is left
is destined to be
your smile.
"Farewell" to the petals
means "hello" to
the first line I penned
for yet another “right now”...

April 10, 2011

Translation to Ukrainian:

Майбутнє тепер

Так здається –
Я майбутнє
того, що "тепер",
котре мешкає у моїх чорнильних думках,
не далеко позаду
рядків, прочитаних тільки що вами.
Десь
гостре око
приб'є хреста
у вірші
для перевірки своєї уваги.
Церебральні хвилі
нестимуть необхідність втратити
ще одні або декілька своїх прогалин
і заповітних шляхів
аби
зчіпити цупко разом
ті,
пролітаючі мимо
і знівечені
у власнім сьогоденні,
пелюстки мого серця.
Що за рай тут,
у вас!
Покажіть мені свій сад.
Будь ласка.
Чи ви відчуваєте мої кроки?
Я – ось цей
вітер мовчання,
що крокує по вашій тремтливій траві.
Блідий і усміхнений,
у нашвидкуручному бажанні торкнутися
вашого зростаючого зацікавлення
Я втрачу всі мої пелюстки
і те, що залишилося,
стане
вашою посмішкою.
"Прощання " з пелюстками
означає "Привіт!"
першому рядку, що написав
для ще одного "тепер"...

13 Квітня 2011

Trails of stars live in the rusted bucket
crammed with larvae,
leftovers of wind,
and a week old rainwater.
Racing in a puddle,
a bevy of crazy frogs
roils the watermelon shape of moonshine.
A sound of serpentine water passes
nearby hunted and hunters.
The redneck creek
is a true heaven
for flocks of flies, vicious mosquitoes,
and out of basement crickets.
Green cannons of grass shoot firebugs.
Even so, the war is obvious
no enemy casualties could be confirmed
by the gossips of wandered about waft.
Once more the formula of harmony is balanced
when the waft persuades the trails to rumple
in the livinig water-mirror.

Translation to Ukrainian:

Сліди зірок проживають у заржавілому відрі,
набитому личинками,
недоїдками вітру,
та, постарілою за тиждень, дощівкою.
Зборище прикумкуватих жаб
змагається у калюжі
у каламученні,
схожої на кавуна, постаті місячного світла.
Звук серпантинно пробігаючої води
проходить поблизу польованого і польованців.
Бурчак, схожий на ледацюгу-селюка,
дихає правдивим раєм
для зграї мух, злосливих комарів,
та підвальних цвіркунів.
Зелені гармати трави стріляють світляками.
Війна стає очевидною,
хоча кількість жертв неможливо перевірити
у плітках, блукаючого обабіч, леготу.
Ще раз формулу гармонії збалансовано
цим леготом,
що переконав давні сліди стрепенутися
у живому дзеркалі з води.

1 Квітня 2011

Take a look, you missed a spot
hunting down for fun my echoes.
Check it out, the spot is odd,
Gaudi of my rhymes and black holes.

Rootless souls and ruthless quest…
I believe in recreation.
I believe, each chance is last,
taken… leaves reverberations.

Feeling low while reaching high,
giving you a smile to break it.
Wheels shall spin and “bye” says “hi”,
breaths are born for steps were taken.

Cut it down, it will grow back –
all your corners, dust, and stories.
Yellow ribbons fade to black,
burnt to ashes, jig’s up, Glory.

March 24, 2011

XVI.

Feel Poetry... don’t touch a word... just painted...
gain gravitation in the heart of Mecca,
the resting place for Kaaba. Sun has fainted.
A lucky coven cooks for stars a blackout.
I keep a tomb of IMHOs barely sainted
and follow accolades, the days to reckon...
When haloes are effloresced and untainted
the scent of love is stronger than a second.
And yet no coffin has been chiseled quickly,
no ersatz word can hide in grin its weakness.
The verse is made of fire – choose a keeper
for burning notes of pain. This music’s prickly,
but, if you look above your sheltered bleakness,
the sky is sowing rays, an eye roots deeper.

December 28, 2010

XVII.

The sky is sowing rays, an eye roots deeper,
exploring gaps between “I’m here” and wilted…
It seems no time for shades to dwindle steeper
for leaves stop dancing twist, their death is quilted
and xanthous to the bones. A breathful Dipper
draws out the painful words and leaves them stilted.
When dreams lose walls they could be seen as strippers.
When whiteness covers dirt, a wind pleads guilty
to nebulizing, lighting out for breeding.
Impelling souls, it marks its changeful margins
with striking blows and a minuscule fairness.
How’s good your “good”? How many “byes” succeed it?
The face of mine, a minefield, stays lethargic.
Catch Lethe’s flow in veins with your awareness.

December 30, 2010

XVIII.

Catch Lethe’s flow in veins with your awareness.
You are as good as word, don’t mince it loudly.
Arenas burst into "ole" in earnest,
an eye turns urge-to-kill to stone and proudly
burns banderilla pain with kitschy dearness.
You let me out to bleed while wrath is huddling,
awaiting for the cleanup of this smear mess.
My hooves are tied and blood is muddling.
Expected Death spits spiteful entertainment,
the time was right… to meet it at the center.
Adrenaline has rushed to claim its trophy.
It pays for madness. What a huge attainment!
Corrida waits. No time to gray, just enter!
The point’s cold and piercing... in the offing.

February 7, 2011

XIX.

The point’s cold and piercing... in the offing
where gleams can reach and scratch a worn-out tsata*
of endless lands. Beneath the crown’s an orphan,
deep-dreary face of sky, alike Erato*.
It wasn’t iconized since Lears lay coffined,
dissembled as the light on quotes. Its status
is known to true believers, they so often
reveal it through their tearful pain and gratis.
If soul and heart could have a hole-less pocket
filled up to brim with singing and blue flowers
where would I find rubatos* steeped in gossips?
For all I said I made a crib to rock it.
For all I know it’s worth to hear and scour,
catch last exhales of everlasting tocsin.

*tsata - an old gold or silver ornament attached to the oklad (decorative metal cover) of an icon, near the neck of the figure
*Erato - Greek myth the Muse of love poetry
*rubatos - rhythmic flexibility within a phrase or measure; a relaxation of strict time.

February 8, 2011

XX.

Catch last exhales of everlasting tocsin.
The fire tide is up to wash a flesh out.
In this reciprocation it’s outfoxing
an urge to stop its tongues to spread an ash sprout.
The speech is free to use by smoke as toxin,
it leaves behind a cinder dune rehashing
a purgatory act with all its moxie.
Where is the guard with wings? The wind is stashing
its bitterness in bells’ still starving tummy.
The screech is worn, beyond the recognition…
A soul is pinned as butterfly by rightness
on sky-rich epaulet where stars are crummy
for body-arsonists. Perfecting your contrition,
dispersing presence of the pain feel brightness.

February 9, 2011

More waves, those fondlers tangle us at sea,
inside avidity, with susurrus and lewd.
We trust in our wings and set the scene
for oars of kiss to soak in lust, the night to hue.

Young dawn, he keeps his senses to the ground,
paints reveilles with bird-of-passage brush.
Spellbound, we barely breathe and move a sound.
We are a string without a finger, notes and hush.

The poetry, she’s born in lashes’ flight.
Her feathers learn to glide and leave behind goose bumps.
When spring is reached and seamless to indite
the eyes believe in touch and hearts are starved to pump.

In every move we feel the urge to shrive,
to bloom in twirled caress inside this blindfold nook
for words won’t take us further than a jive,
a tear would not retain this fairy-tale by hook.

Just catching breath and making waveless seas...

February 14, 2011

We’ve nothing in common
except not making a common sense.
Come on, two cuckoos in the nest,
stop living in cloud-cuckoo land.
I swear to not swear,
you wear nothing
persuading me to play your game
“Who’s the boss of a situation?”
The price is too scrumptious
to not let you win.
The choice is clear
as a shot of vodka into a head –
to go to bed with the chicken
or a chick. Who wants to bet?
What a madcap approach
to possess, to claim ownership
of the most intimate moment
during bed-wars.
Do you remember me
playing a purring cat
chasing a naive member of the fun club
for lovers of gratuitous cheese?
The game is over.
Just one more inhalation of each other
and tapping on own feelings,
converting the ashes into memory,
blowing smoke, our minds and cools.
Lastly, the night jumps out of my shoulders,
but you are still there, on the honeycomb.
Honey, I will stand for you as a wall.
It is always safe to shout, and shoot
from behind me
your bolt, wad, and mouth off,
my plans down in flames.
I’m not your mooove-mood,
nether a chameleon
who changes its colors
whenever your nails crave to be varnished.
We are diamonds in the rough,
take it or leave it crownless.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled
for the effort made
to cover the world I’m used to
with your papilionaceous nimbleness.
And when you go against the grain
think about a core,
the time when the bark was young,
and a touch, grabbing the sky,
pumped love through every vein.
And when you pour out your soul
make sure that
borscht have already left a plate
or you are going to take a shower
right after the bed-war brought a chance for peace,
high vulnerability, and come-in-without-knocking access.
When I am a pocket you are money in it.
If I can move you could sting.
I’m your chillness and you are a river ice jam.
What a couple to match!
A chalk with the circle around the word “home”,
a caterpillar with butterfly,
a bird with coop latch,
flour with the dough for baking,
an empty space with young wind,
your smile with my solo.
We are two electro-magnets,
plus-to-minus,
when the power is on.

February 8, 2011

Bloody-wet,
soaked to the skin,
to the worn hung-by-thread.

Dancing snow
touches and melts
as first kiss or last “no”.

Winter comes
blessed in disguise
and takes over my home.

Lips don’t care,
swing by all means,
they are sultans of swear.

On the move
words brave like swords
for their miss can be proved.

Truth in wine
blamed for headaches,
but reflects God as trine.

Bloody-cold,
Eden’s cutdown,
cross on sale, and all told…

February 4, 2011

Wordsworth faded, Frost dispersed.
Heavens left its fluff and feathers
on a windless pool of verse.
Just in case, I brew the weather.

What a heady tinge of rains
comes with fricatives and litters…
Every breath I lose is fain,
less precise, transfixed and bitter.

Sadness rationed and decayed.
Rarely picky and incisive
are the streams beneath sharp blades.
In a noose they get too pricey.

Counting crows and solar blots…
help with heavens’ lubrication.
I just need to nail three dots
after all like-beat summations.

Freeze, don’t make a lousy stomp.
Shadows couldn’t be out-bended.
Only fools and kids can romp.
Chain-bowl gaps shall stay extended.

Eyes will see you to the door.
Take a seat, become a mecca,
bleeding heart where is no more…
icons made of stars and echoes.

December 3, 2010

I’m blue about my angels’ flaps and flops,
each one could make a perfect sense for blatherskites and tattles.
When hopes run out of season – dried up hops,
wars rasp the grates of peace and brew… up to the brim new battles.
When breathing has become a daring feast
for dreams are hungry for a private room and public spacing,
then drinking stops and hoarseness chokes, increased
in bracing winds. My love is cursed within the walls I’m facing.
There is no place for me, an open note,
where pain is visible and fumes of yesterday live in it.
I have no name. All names surpassed my throat
in crowded outbreaks for housewarmings and in timeless minutes.
An inky clot is free in lines and veins,
the way a poetry can hurt. My heart reminds a scaffold,
it’s tough for heads and hardly missed by rains,
resembling homes for birds and wooden stakes, domes – for the baffled.
I am enchained and doomed to stand on view.
An exhibition is about the source of steering rawness.
And, here we go, the rawness squeezes through
my eyes. Sometimes it comes to bring a blaze or void of loners.
It’s all the same. The throbbing just began
in threadbare vowels while the seldom sunbursts are too shallow.
I sit inside a hold and knot my plan
to batten down the hatches and digest the world I swallowed.
The spring, a cat, prefers to stroll alone
and scare away the shadows where a solar trap still hobbles.
As to myself, I leave no time to groan
when poems’ pores spread cold through paper ice and eye rhymes wobble.
Who cares about the lyrics anyway?
They meant to fly away; those butterflies of lips are drifters
and breakers of deadlocks. And when they stray
the sharpness calls a need for elbows’ nudge and shifters
to orchestrate a mood creation rinse.
The lines of pure exhaustion, broken by a rooster’s credo
to call no names and disregard the wince
of Mother Nature when another sun is born in windows.
No questions asked to go or to remain
in words inside of you and wait for victories … etc.
I barely missed the war and muffled pain.
“You won’t be missed!” – The bullets write for soldiers open letters.

November 29, 2010

The drying sky can’t ever be outgrown.
And, when it’s dry, gray patterns tend to fade.
Minds pierce right through it, daring to postpone
formation of the birds and frown cascade.

Seshat wrote out what used to live in dreams,
she shook the Tree of Ancestry. Stars fell.
The Heart of Nile had kept her barque in gleams
for passage was well written, hard to quell.

A palm of temple forced Seth to get down
for he got wind of where Seshat set sail.
His wish “to burn in sand the River” drown
and ire had left on water circles trails.

The choice is slim. Just crawl in wall-full air
or smash your brow, check what is left to clear.
The temple-cold embrace loves to ensnare
the way that every breath is worth a spear.

An exhalation would be priceless here.
It holds the endless change of lips by rime.
I dress you in the stones to meet sightseers,
a sculpture quality to freeze in time.

I’m your oblivion, estate, and plea.
Forget about Seshat in her white gown.
I’ll chisel to remake your soul where she
puts hopes in commas after “let” and “down”.

The speechless temple was enwrapped in sand,
the way a wave is cradling wounded ships.
The Nile’s Heart has a little to withstand...
since only Seth could move its shimmered lips.

November 18, 2010

Linger, my cognate and chosen,
I heaped up gores of your flesh
out of the waves. Silence’s frozen,
teardrops can’t wait for the thresh.

Children of Scarab, sky-haulers
leave sacred vacuum and shove
all the celestial star-fallers,
rise in the temples... true love.

Roll over Kemet’s dead waters
yearnings of imminent light.
Bring to my sons and my daughters
all they have lost or still might...

Spirits inlaid with a body.
A butterfly of my heart
breathed as a breeze. It made ruddy
lips... and they traveled apart.

Blessings of life started spurting,
burnt with the finest of quills
swollen in blood... and the hurting
slowly had wilted in thrills.

Clearing my throat, stay in answers.
Sliding from eyelids, don’t halt
and cicatrize wounded senses
breaking the sunlight to salt.

Falling, become Maat’s Feather,
so I could ease in the breeze.
Faith grinds the time. Altogether,
happiness matches beliefs.


Grain-size the shades of the temple.
Let it, while growing up, crawl.
Kill the stagnation. An ample
desert is free... crushing walls...

November 17, 2010

(another variation)

The gaze is fixed and empty now.
A friendly range where kills avow
to keep an eye on you, a rival.
A finger triggers my survival
and claps a sound of body bow.

When metal burns the pain is dull.
A death can’t meet a gasp to lull
for stripped off souls are skies in stillness.
A needleful of wind and chillness
pokes deeply through a pallid hull.

Inside the skull a humming wilts
along with shivers, doubts, and guilt.
I am abstained, a secret ballot
for crushing words against a palate
and choosing type of blood to spill.

The sun dries out, becomes a shade
for nothing settled, nothing staid
in this parade of blasts and shelling,
in these honed badly grows of dwelling
for notches on a priceless blade.

I warm the Heart of Motherland
by shortening the beat and strand
of mine, so minds could bloom in madness
on flowered uniforms by redness.
Eyes muddle up red cells and sand.

The end of hell is in a fist.
I squeezed it hard and reminisced
about my life without this quiver
till vessels stopped to pump upriver
the strength. It shall be greatly missed.

I’ve stopped believe in wingless breath
since grinding teeth and eating grass.
These calls for hugs and yearns for mothers
could make an enemy my brother
or cease the lease of lungs at last.

I’m still alive. I couldn’t die,
just stepped inside your heart to pry…
Your silence is the best cantata.
Remember me, the sky stigmata
will dry and cry resembling sighs.

The skies are openers
for eyes…

15 November 2010

XI.

The scattered world is an unthreaded necklace.
Blue neck of sky remembers chinks and smashes.
To forge its word it takes a sway of blacksmith,
for breeding rains it borrows strings and lashes.
Love has been noteless since the notes were trackless.
Those tiny suns, they blazed in countless dashes,
uncloaking my awareness of half-blackness
in squibs of fireflies and novae ashes.
Skies tied my knot of heart and face turned salty.
Inhabitants of clouds went over showers,
and reaped fresh drops. I swear I hear soil’s nibbling.
The sting of poignant past was slowly melting.
Time grabbed emotions and attached small hours,
the wings to fly inside my ego deeply.

October 8, 2010

XII.

The wings to fly inside my ego deeply,
prepare yourselves for nine-gram-heaven hassles.
The battle’s riverbed has shriveled steeply,
loopholes become birdnests, voids sealed off castles.
The flight through temples makes my ego dribbling
with scents of knells in gilt and silent vessels.
Concealed my icons, they are not for scribbling.
Obtained them to unframe and left to nestle.
My soul is open as a death-old letter,
numb words keep nesting down in a thesaurus.
They feed their chicks with hums and mudras’ dancing.
I sharp the edges where the soundless matter’s
utmost thickset for eardrums’ museful chorus.
The sonnets launched out of the bow of sensing.

October 12, 2010

XIII.

The sonnets launched out of the bow of sensing,
a string vibrates while Scythe slims, honed by Reaper.
A gold tip arrow hits with mindful flensing,
commencing fire on the lips. A breath’s a tripper.
This flash of scream is born in throes and ransomed,
a Gordian count-knot on a branch of quipu*.
My frankness is a stripper, icy-handsome.
It knits a web and hopes to catch a sleeper.
See every knot as an old tell* and coda,
another “now and then”, waves’ lubrication.
We are alone with you and, a priory,
find all the codes to Heavens Heart, chant odes
to emperors of inner matrix nation.
They come inside; disperse its light in morae*.

October 28, 2010

Notes:
tell - a mound, especially in the Middle East,
made up of the remains of a succession of previous settlements.

quipu - calculator consisting of a cord with attached cords;
used by ancient Peruvians for calculating and keeping records

morae (pl) – mora, the quantity of a short syllable
in verse represented by the breve (from Latin: pause)

XIV.

They come inside; disperse its light in morae
and harrow Truth. Through capillary rivers
their ships with loaded wine and allegories
upheave in magma’s ways, pinch minds like slivers.
A heart is crowdless, avalanched by worries
with teardrops strong enough to melt the shivers,
see in the bottled seas memento mori.
By reaching bottom you can sense your liver.
A hoary light comes to a nave for prayers.
Up to a vault the darkness lost its meadow,
an organist spreads fingers, silence vapors.
Oh, my subduedness with fluffy layers,
I’ll hit your golden spot to scoop up shadows,
to jot down stillness on a piece of paper.

November 2, 2010

XV.

To jot down stillness on a piece of paper
I left some room so it could breed in circles,
wove gossamers of heart from moonlights, tapered
all sounds and shades. The darkness stopped to charcoal.
A silver-feathered voice used ears as scrapers
to deepen in my soul and crumb to sparkles.
My whole inside was emptied for this draper.
He hammered out a salty sense and darkled.
I tracked him down in my deserted credo
where shadows melt and time sips dunes of writing.
Oases on the move stay still, untainted
where hives keep words and honey for libidos -
a paradise for daubers. Where dreams are flighty
feel Poetry… don’t touch a word… just painted…

November 11, 2010

From New York and to Tora Bora
Livid Past gnaws a corner stone,
Burned in effigy ashes auras,
Sharps a tongue just to feel its bones.

Blades are airborne, severed tendons.
Metal flows down corroding veins.
Death is pointless for drafts are random,
Cast their lot in with pavement strains.

Blue berets of the sky tip towers,
Saturate air with smoke and soot,
Breaking news can’t be more devoured
Breaking hearts with a void to moot.

Streets of pain with the rain of flour,
Cooked in dancing east, western grieves,
Alcoranic words lose its power
When the book’s often leafed by thieves.

Days of braveness gray hair and armors,
Digging’s gentle, out of the crud.
Meet your virgins, sin-thirsty karma,
Drink, desire, this cry and blood.

Send your angel, the King of Heaven,
With a sword and all-seeing eyes
Every year on the Day Eleventh
When a heart on its pain drip-dries.

From New York and to Tora Bora
Skies are stale and their clouds in rust.
Deep in lungs I can feel the aura
Inching up, blending love and dust.

10 September 2010

The gaze stays wild and empty, half-and-half.
Sharpshooters’ distance milks a golden calf.
You could become a friend, my adversary.
Get knotted! I untie the muzzle’s staring.

Retreat, so blood could rest in bullets’ chaff.
When iron burns in pain, a hush is deaf.
Nor do I breathe or die, nor… care or teary.
The sky’s a stripped off soul by hara-kiri.

It gapes. The kings of winds deliver treats.
The gifts are needles for my pain to knit.
This royal blood, while ramming as a mallet,
Can’t wash away the trembling of a palate.

This tremolo is thick, a bit too weak
To call me nearly down from heroes’ clique.
The dried out sun becomes a shade. My comrade,
I’ll keep it warm for you this heart of homeland

By shortening the gritted beat of mine
Until I dot the last and shell-less ‘i’.
A tear, it smacks against the crumbled fate-scene,
The other – falls while hopes deteriorating.

Oh bloody bloom, still petalous and warm
Don’t cover fast the field of uniform.
Five fingers made a stone to ease the torment,
To feel and share a soul, its wingless moment,

and hold it back when clenching dirt with teeth.
I’ll live this moment, gating endless bliss.
An urgent need for hug is pure, maternal
When Goodness stops to beat, goes off Inferno.

The rest is sightless and exactly right.
Don`t say, for God’s sake, that I died.
The journey to deep-self spreads roots in heavens.
The soul has windows, those are eyes of ravens.

I see you as a well with flaky stars,
nocturnal tars and, seen in daylight, scars.
I am a stigma of forgotten battles.
My heart is pounding in the rainy rattles.

30 August 2010

I’m close to reach emptiness` dry-lands and closed
To all what my pithiness mutters… supposed…

A business as usual, selling a tightness of rope
For shortness of kindness and paleness of hope.

Blueprints of transaction expressed on the lips
For swinging the body is crafting a crib.

Two beams, two ideas crisscrossed, point’s stiff,
Eclipsing own breath and igniting a riff.

When timeless librettos play silence and squeeze
My land’s getting drier and lumpier knees.

Still slipping away from debates and saccades
I ran out of petals, of pulling the odds.

And lighter than swinging and brighter than soul
The poetry tautness gives birth to a foal.

Be ready, existence, to feed it and comb,
To tight “roam” with “foaming” and “loaming” with “home”.

Who’s coward, who’s brave one when heavens too thin?
The corps’ decoration – the way to chagrin,

To blame past for future and future for lack
Of vibrant commotion and fading to black.

There’s nothing as vivid as darkness in eyes
till mimics meet Death and become mimicries.

24 August 2010

(this is just thoughts
and they are nothing more...
and have nothing to do with my current state of mind)

“Report the status.”
“The status quo!”
All hopes were hollow,
in rims of war.

While searing air
Clustered in my lungs,
The gates to heart were burnt.
Dry shrills trespassed the tongue

Entrenching fears
On the stony face
And chomping smoke
To crack the craze.

What’s there for me?
To ease the grief
I held the breath
of bladed stiff.

The army’s hungry,
Thirsty for
A goblet more
Of bloody war.

For swords were honed
To dull the pain
While mothers moaned.
Their sons were slain.

For generals,
Were generous
And loyal
To the death…

Amalgamating red
With trampled waviness
Of grass.

June 30, 2010

Thinner and thinner are thoughts,
almost transparent and crystal…
Walking like loading a pistol,
talking like killing a throat.

Lighter and lighter is life,
dries up and weights like a feather.
Blades speak in winds, words are tethers.
Watch for the holder of knife.

Crisper and crisper is time,
moments of whispers are vapid,
heart lives on moans, hardly trepid,
innocence’s growing with rime.

Softer and softer is light,
fading, less viscid, exhausted.
Virtues are meant to be frosted,
flustered by feyness of white.

Lesser and lesser are gasps,
destiny waits for the quietness.
What a magnificent whiteness
strikes after losing the grasp.

June 28, 2010

VI.

Such as are forsaken words in endless fables,
which freed and eavesdropped, grown inside enamored,
you’ll find yourself a nest and turn the tables
by sneaking , as a cuckoo, bruits and glamour.
You’ll let it hatch, mature, dump out the conscience,
pull out its bill, and seize what makes the essence –
from wintriness on temples to emotions,
from tasting living to the rigors’ presence .
So much for syllables – a verdant stamen,
the tendency to reckon guards of moments.
The guards, as caravans in deserts – snooty,
received the barking, they will grind with tremors
amorphous mass of timeless lines in sonnets.
The past – a butterfly. It strikes with beauty.

March 24, 2010

VII.

The past – a butterfly. It strikes with beauty.
Gods' sweetness – nectar, pollen thickly covers
antennas of thin anthers slightly muting
this six-legged catchy touch of hungry lover.
Light’s watercolor dries on wings as luting,
impervious to morning dew on flowers.
It feels like words I sow are light and rooty,
a swan song for a minstrel to discover.
I long to speak with open eyes and only…
Here nothing could be shared when silence’s drifty.
Attached to wind are exhalation’s fossils.
It leads me to the thoughts so cold and lonely,
to golden ages prayerful for face lifting.
Dry aether is endured by hums and docile.

June 9, 2010

VIII.

Dry aether is endured by hums and docile,
snugs tightly as a serpent in a burrow,
digesting painfully nirvana, tossing
around the molted chat. And snaky furrows,
imprinted by unsettled hunger, crossing
the hissing lines and rivers of pure aura.
A bitter tang of something more colossal
that triggers guns and numbs a silence over...
A spring will take itself in hand, its tinctures
start feeding out of palms this brittle stillness
of smoky rains and bloomy trepidations.
A well of heart, each drop’s a perfect picture
of certain past and future colors’ shrillness.
Undying tear’s a soul of my creations.

June 18, 2010

IX.

Undying tear’s a soul of my creations.
Uneasy flow, non-confluent and timeless...
The subject for this evening’s “Knees & Patience”.
How much is not enough? For what the chime says
the walls of sky are perfect breath`s citations.
A ceiling of dismantled church is mindless,
while cherubim are burnt by godless nation,
when crosses were reforged and souls left rindless.
A grate’s the perfect symbol of God dying
out of the hands of tsars – the public servants,
who knew how to define the sunny squareness.
Who taught them to how spit without implying...?
Who shared belief in freedom and was fervent?
Who dug out brother’s graves for self and neighbors?

June 21, 2010

X.

Who dug out brother’s graves for self and neighbors?
Gun muzzles gape and muzzy eyes turn glassy.
A death squad hangs on triggers for a saber.
It‘s going down and draws off blood for bathing.
A body covers bodies, death’s in labor.
The shallowness of trench is brimmed and messy.
Gunpowder smoke is sensed as censers` vapor,
unravels silence by uncrowning shells` seams,
removes the cores of casualties and quickly
ignites the way for fires of bereavement.
It’s time to whistle, pull out winds, be reckless.
The sky is blue, incapable of trickling.
A bullet rain brings peace with its achievement.
The scattered world is an unthreaded necklace.

June 25, 2010

She is a teen. She hates her guts
For carrying God and growing jut.
She’s Mary. You might know her. Do you?
And semiconscious, half alive
The girl keeps secrets to survive
In her maternal strife is Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

Hotel. A burrow number “Four”,
A wolfram candle’s turned to pour
Internal light, it might subdue you.
The tremolo of window’s shut,
Confession groans in reeky smut
Composing notes for tender Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

As touched with pencil, slightly glazed
The contours thicken baby face
And spasms are painting pain, a new “you”.
Oh paradise, the opened cut,
How warm and tearful could be blood
When Heaven’s washed away with Hallelujah?
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

A void. The heart, as cut-through seam,
Which runs apart with thoughts to gleam
When there’s nothing left to cure you.
While window licks nocturnal tar
The brightness lives. It is a star,
The little star in edgeless Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

She waddles out with swaddled…blessed
But holds the key, her tongue, and breath.
A dumpster is your crib, oh new “you”.
And Mary swings, tears cellophane
In mindless state and wordless pain.
Oh God, forgive her madness, Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

A breath to hold, a plastic womb,
Three rats, as kings, as I assume,
Adore their chance to feel the true “you”.
Instead of angels coldness nips,
The silence’s seen through snow and lips.
It’s Christmas time. Forgive me. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.

June 17, 2010

O Lord, you are the tailor of my shade.
Sew it as solid one, not beetled over…
I dream to have your hands to aid,
Your love that is invisible and hovered.

Don’t segregate myself on these and those
For these and those are netted threads, self-crimpers.
With wobbly knees to strive to you and glow,
In prayers stop my helplessness to whimper.

My blindness is declined as well as pain.
I see now voices as I used to hear them.
What’s ever numb shall splatter once again,
Unspoken furtively might lynch with reason.

While counting martyrs, following a clef
O Mighty, please, perceive what was so instant.
Your heaven’s angles are acute and deaf,
the bullet jammed, a temple fills no distance.

A candle drinks my thoughts as time sifts sand.
The slayer’s stone gives wings for painless edges.
I lead the shade, and curves made by my hand
Still follow skyline-seams, beyond imagined.

The chills are stowed and dimness greatly heaves
to feed with echoes cries and weaken traces.
I’ll leave to dry what’s left to drink or grieve.
Suntraps are breathing hard in shady spaces.

June 8, 2010

A surf
The wave of consciousness to spurt.
My deep desire drifts and roves.
Ignore the meaning "being hurt"!
Who’s ready to be killed for love?
For having doubts about herself
The destiny still worships me
With mouth agape in someone else.
But pleasures bend the strongest knees.
What is a kiss? It’s worth a blink.
The soul shall fly and play with ink,
With shadows of discolored grass.
So dry as sentencing to death.
Lights` scurf, a surf,
a blast.

7 June 2010

bees come
become
beekeepers’ wring

beloved
bees love
to hum and sting

between
bees twins
she is the one

your hive_nesty
it’s time to swarm

inhabitants
who hates old queen

in her bees tend
to see their kin

betrayals
scaled by rough
beliefs

bee trails
by a hive
bees leave

the bumbling horde
forms honeycomb

be sweet to lords
they’ll take you home

2 July 2010

What is left of me?
I am snow-white scattered news,
melting in a heart,
as a winter’s scalded fuse.
Since the poignant chest’s
broken by the solar spears,
should I bloom in grey
when the scythe’s beheading near?

Its refection crawls,
smoldering in shades for days.
It’s the harvest time.
Harvest all my dreams to pray.
Sift me, chanting loud,
thinning out the lonely light.
What is meant to fall –
silent in the paws of night.

What is sown in you –
solar spears and lambent swords
striking through the chest
in the name of nameless lord,
what is left of me…
blues
and snow-white scattered news.
I feel fondled like
an explosion… being used…

26 May 2010

(Translation of Oleksandr Diachenko "ТОВТРИ")

These blunted mountains stay congealed, completely twined
By trembling air. It’s scattered everywhere.
It’s not a stereogram, nor the one-of-kind –
This wondrous landscape reached heavens` stairs.

I see those streaks of colors on its valleys here
With straining, for some reason, moisten eyes.
An oval is the mottled water-lilies` mere.
I promised to return, my compromise
Was made of copper coins thrown in the waters` sways
It scared to jump all tiny zestful frogs.
The past absorbs the seconds, minutes of my stay,
My presence trace… “Oh boy, just look agog…”
I whispered to myself with a commanding tone.
A bus starts coughing – we are leaving soon.
“Just wait for me, my everlasting lack of own…
We lived two weeks – a fairy-tale had bloomed.

I left my thoughts so far untrimmed,
But chances to return are slim.

19 March 2010

*Tovtry – strongly divided, rocky limestone ridge

(Original text below)

ТовтриЗастигли, тремтячим повітрям увиті,
Затуплені гори, розкидані скрізь…
Не стереознімок, єдиний у світі -
Це дивний ландшафт, що сягає під вись.

Я бачу на ньому долини строкаті,
Напруживши очі, вологі чомусь,
Овальний ставок у рябому лататті,
Якому я вчора сказав, що вернусь,
Жбурнувши у воду монетки із міді,
Прудких жабенят налякавши якихсь…
Вбирає минуле секунди і миті
Моєї присутності... «Хлопче, дивись», -
Шепнув я собі, повелівши неначе.
Закашляв автобус – від’їде ось-ось.
«Очікуй на мене, постійна нестаче,
Два тижні з тобою казково жилось», -

Продовжив я подумки тиху промову.
Та шанси мізерні приїхати знову.

2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "І ЗНОВ МЕНІ ТРИВОЖНО")

Anxiety kicks up – to fuddle might…
As genes of freedom, birds are in the skies today.
And homeless God just asked to step inside
My soul. On sadness’ cosmic basses is His play.

In me – expending Universe fades now.
The dreams are hard to bear. I see blue-juicy snows.
The sad aversion grows against cash cows,
It saves the world from what is known as friends-&-foes.

Once and for all – we follow made once charts.
The plan’s within the limits –
as to drink or be.

Barbed-&-electric wires –
my horizon’s charged,
As for an endless jailbird,
shines and smiles at me.

18 March 2010

(Original text below)

І ЗНОВ МЕНІ ТРИВОЖНО

І знов мені тривожно – хоч напийся.
Як гени волі – птиці в небесах.
Бездомний Бог у душу попросився,
Космічний сум зігравши на басах.

Зника мені, розширюючись, Всесвіт.
Нестерпно сниться синій сік снігів.
Сумна відраза до ділків і сесій
Спасає світ від друзів-ворогів.

...Ну тобто все і всі – як Хтось задумав
У межах битія і питія.

А горизонт –
Колючий дріт під струмом –
Мені, як зеку вічному, сія...

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ВІТЕР ІСТОРІЇ")

The wind of history rolls stubs of ferias over
the white, like bread or snow or even petals, world.
After uprising we are not the same. We hover
And dandle myths about the grown in us revolt.

It shall be propped, secured by solid spines and crosses,
And loved as ourselves in it and it – in us.
It should be touched like swords are kissed by their embossers,
Like lovers – offered to the naked fortune thus.

Newspapers cut the yarns. Those strings, as hands, are shaky.
This marble’s dressed in pink… A falling star is free.
The world is crucified. The window’s crosspiece tacks him.
The blaze is going down in his black-blooded spree.

Not our happiness is shared by beasts and babies,
A petrol draught of sprite in veins as if from gloom.
And bombers in the sky are often seen – as cabbies…
What’s happening to us? Where is the errors` room?

Until you read your evening news from fresh still papers
The wind is strong, inert, it carries sadness` dust.
The stars are falling down as coins meant for beggars.

Perhaps, a sorry felt… for us.

17 March 2010

(Original text below)

ВІТЕР ІСТОРІЇ

Вітер історії котить недопалки буднів
Світом, що білий, мов хліб, а чи сніг, а чи цвіт.
Після повстання такими вже більше не будем,
Адже повстати – то значить злеліяти міт.

Потім підперти хребтами його і хрестами.
Потім любити у ньому себе і його у собі.
Як до вина, доторкатись до шаблі устами.
Наче коханці, віддатися голій судьбі.

Ріжем газетами струни, тремтливі, як руки.
Мармур рожевий… І падає вільна зоря.
Світ, розіп’ятий на хрестовинах вікон на муки,
Чорною кров’ю тихо в собі догоря.

Звірі і діти радіють ненашому щастю.
В жилах русалки бензиновий протяг з пітьми.
І бомбовози у небі літають занадто часто.
Знову щось коїться із людьми.

Доки читаєш вечірні свої газети,
Сильний байдужий вітер несе печаль.
Зорі нам падають, мов жебракам монети.

Мабуть, комусь нас жаль…

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ТУТ ТІЛЬКИ ЧАС")

Out here the only time does exactly what it should.
My every song is mostly frozen on its poles.
Now Jesus and Barabbas enjoy their babyhood.
A dewless silver branch – the cross.

Dreams’ portraits were hanged out without a single nail.
A rain is dancing with a candle in his hand…
And baby sphinxes’ shivers are caused by fears inhaled,
On their mother face – the end.

A country club… The movie,
it plays about the kill.
An old man lays the window’s cross
right on this chest.

And straight from hands of Pilate
a tear`s about to spill
On those who’ll crucify
at last.

12 March 2010

(Original text below)

ТУТ ТІЛЬКИ ЧАС

Тут тільки час свою ще робить справу.
В моїх пісень замерзли полюси.
Малий Ісус. І ще малий Barabbasа.
І хрест – срібляста гілка без роси.

Портрети снів розвішені без цвяхів.
Танцює дощ зі свічкою в руці…
А сфінксенята щуляться зі страху,
Бо бачать фатум в мами на лиці.

…Це клуб сільський.
Це фільм іде про страту.
Дід хрест кладе з вікна собі на грудь.

І скапує сльоза із рук Пілата
До тих, що всоте
Бога розіпнуть.

19 січ. 1992

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "СЕБЕ НЕ ХОЧУ ЖАЛІТИ")

As for myself – I don’t feel pity…
And slothful to have pity on mankind.
I left behind made from the flowers wine,
And murky sweetness – a woman’s beauty.

Look at this Moon – an eve is tepid.
A morning’s cold – just stare at coming Sun.
Somewhere near borders with Iran
The shoulders of my friend were fretted.

I think I have betrayed my living –
just sold myself to poems, painting falls.

And Faust, the old man laughs receiving:
“It could be even worse.”

12 March 2010

(Original text below)

СЕБЕ НЕ ХОЧУ ЖАЛІТИ

Себе не хочу жаліти.
А людство жаліти ліньки.
Позаду – вино із квітів
І темна солодкість жінки.

На Місяці – теплий вечір.
На Сонці – холодний ранок.
І друга мойого плечі,
Прострілені під Іраном.

Я зрадив життя, здається, –
Продався осіннім віршам.

А Фауст старий сміється:
«Могло бути навіть гірше…»

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ПАМ`ЯТІ МОЄЇ МАМИ")

The woodland was inventing me and scattered
All coral-necklace beads of morning birds.
Though not a lord, a sonnet – fresh, unaltered
I am – the grass which wants to grief its hurt.

Blowballs… grandpa… a bullet in his shoulder.
My mother died. A fate gave me a smile.
A dog slept in the hands. I wasn’t older…
A little whiny vandal, just a child.

The past, a sickle in the sky set rusted.
A horse and I, two looks were crossed and met.
The past had passed. A sleep of lakes was busted.
It broke pink wings against the ice for that.

The straw is old. A fog stays weather-tainted.
Ancestors’ graves are washable by rains.
And something’s missing or not yet invented
In us, in comets, in who-rests-in-lanes.

My snowflakes, flames will eat you up! Don’t fly near…
My precious star, oh why you are so high?
Beloved one, dear, dove of palms, am I still here?
The following – eternal rest, no sighs.

The woodland, who are you – my grandpa, brother?
I am your bird flight to the South, a chart.
Return is soon – the one way or another,
Like temples` stairs, with a shambled heart.

10 March 2010

(Original text below)

Пам’яті моєї мами

Поліський край придумував мене,
Ранкових птиць розсипавши коралі.
Я не господар, а лише сонет
Трави, якій схотілося печалі.

Кульбаби й дід із кулею в плечах.
Померла мама. Доля усміхалась...
І спав старенький песик на руках
Маленького плаксивого вандала.

Минало все. Ржавів у небі серп.
А ми з конем вже поглядами стрілись...
Минало все. А грішний сон озер
Ламав об лід свої рожеві крила.

Стара солома. Вицвілий туман.
Могили предків миються дощами.
Когось іще, когось уже нема
Між ними, між кометами, Між нами.

...Мої сніжинки, нащо ж на вогонь!
Моя ж ти зоре, нащо ж так високо!..
Кохана, мила, голубе долонь,
Після такого – тільки вічний спокій.

Поліський край, ти дід мені чи брат?
Я – вирій твій. І не жалій, не сердься.
Вже скоро, скоро я вернусь назад,
Мов сходи храму, вичовганим серцем.

The heart has lifted a curfew
Imposed since Remember First.
I’m free to go blind and curve fumes
As far as it stops the curse use,
As long as it’s – hit and miss.

The miss is as good as a mile.
The hit list – roof, brakes and fan.
And wiling away for awhile
Canine… then vulpine… and sessile
My soul involutes to a man.

How beautiful is the distance
Of striking by wanted eyes.
How wild go the dreams? The beast – tense,
It waits for its kill-in-instance.
Remember First – love or die.

10 March 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ОДКРОВЕННЯ")

To T. H. Shevchenko

The winter sleeps in green-most rye.
A bullet-train took you. Backfired,
Without a clue we push the lives.
We stop the preaching to the choir.

My conscience, as a dream once, though
Keeps singing during black nights’ suasions...

The thorny crown is hard to doff,
less painful than with coronations.

9 March, 2010

(Original text below)

ОДКРОВЕННЯ

Т.Г.ШЕВЧЕНКОВІ

Спить зима на зеленім житі.
А Тебе забрав поїзд скорий…
Ми не вмієм інакше жити!
Ми не хочем співати в хорі.

Наче мрія колись, так совість
В чорні ночі мені співає…

Як знімають вінок терновий –
Це болючіше, ніж вдягають.

A point ‘A’, a line “AB”,
The clock I hardly try to beat…
And barely beaten time is gone,
The point ‘B’ is now a sun.

The sun without acute-deep rays,
It waits and grows and sends the waves
Of utter love in sonic forms,
and melts an anger when it swarms.

It leaves for worries only spume,
The sun – the center of a womb.

5 March 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "СИНІЙ ЛІС")

Blue forest paints the spring.
Water sprites cry in foliage.
Reaching the yang and yin –
Standing – before Thee – holy.

Facing the people – fine,
Svelte as Chinese-known writers,
Handfed – the sea mealtime,
Sensing as steppe wild life.

Ruling is not his stand,
“Freedom” – the word for counting…
He’s not a boy – a man.
Call him a clump. It’s clumpy.

Call him a clump with grass,
Tender as blades. Don’t prattle.
Grown enough to caress –
Get ready for a battle.

3 March 2010

(Original text below)

СИНІЙ ЛІС

Синій весняний ліс.
Плачуть русалки в листі.
Той, хто до себе доріс,
Перед Всевишнім чистий.

Перед людьми такий
Тонкий, мов китайський лірик,
Море годує з руки
З чуттям степового звіра.

І не влада йому,
Тільки свобода мила.
То вже не хлопчик – муж.
Брила.

Брила.
На ній трава,
Ніжна, як лезо бритви...

Той, хто до ласки доріс,
Доріс і до битви.

(Translation of Vladimir Shkliarenko "За музыкой слепца")

It flows above the roofs, and over melted flurries –
A brilliance of a star, collapsing moon is lean.
A blind musician gazed, he didn’t wish to tarry.
He seized the world of seen… and shackled in a string.

So marvelous – the sound of unfulfilled desires,
It seems a distant path is difficult but mine.
And you are so in rush to find predictions’ gyre,
Forgetting all about – the crossed preceding line.

Wake up! Not only are you looking for redemption,
With all your hopes at last, in agony to swim.
And being lost for good, you’ll leave, without exceptions,
Untouched, as if it was... And follow blindly Him.

2 February 2010

(Original text below)

За музыкой слепца

Над крышами домов, над талыми снегами
Холодный блеск звезды и месяца обвал.
Какой-то музыкант незрячими глазами
Увидел этот мир и в струны заковал.

И слышен дивный звук несбыточных желаний,
И кажется знаком далёкий, трудный путь.
И ты спешишь узнать правдивость предсказаний,
Забыв, что никогда былого не вернуть.

Очнись, – не ты одна последнею надеждой
Стремишься избежать возможного конца.
Теряясь навсегда, оставив всё, как прежде,
Уходишь, не прозрев, за музыкой слепца.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ОСТАННЯ МУЗА")

My sadness is a well,
The greatest fall – can’t match it.
It’s almost time to snow –
How light’s the pain in fall?
We are as one, we are…
A hair-to-hair – thatching.
Nine times we died and raised,
But ready to enthrall…

The essence of the life…
The bronze of bells, it sacks me.
This world is just for us –
Amor and times for wars.
Who knows what’s over there,
Who’s striving for the acme?
What is the way to hug?
Who’ll pour the wine from jars?

The autumn paradise –
A river. World, I’m grateful
For warmness of your nest…
This is your hand… and mine…
I haven’t flown this way.
The flowers are so graceful
In these heartbreaking lands.
The story flies with rhymes.

The autumn, and the blue,
As youth, it is swayed-vernal.
Fatalities in falls –
As much as fires built.
A baptism of it – shared,
The venom – strong and verbal.
Why don’t we start this flight?
For pure we are and thrilled.

2 February 2010

(Original text below)


ОСТАННЯ МУЗА

Колодязна тоска.
Осінніше за осінь.
От-от і сніг піде –
Легкий осінній біль.
А ми, а ми, а ми...
Волосся у волоссі.
Померли дев’ять раз...
Й воскресли –
Й знов у бій...

Оце і є життя.
Кругом дзвонарська бронза.
Оце і є наш світ –
Кохання і війна.
А там, у тому, десь...
А хто його?..
А хто зна?..
Чи хтось пригорне так?
Чи хтось наллє вина?

Осінній рай ріки.
Подякуємо світу,
Ще теплому гнізду...
Твоя рука... моя...
Я так ще не літав.
Так ще не пахли квіти
У цих краях.

А осінь, синь оця
Завеснює, як юність.
Фатального у ній
Багато, як багать.

Це хрещення вогнем,
Ці голоси отруйні...

Нам – чистим і тремким –
Чому б не політать?..

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ЧИТАЮЧИ МОЮ ПОЕЗІЮ")

You read with your body my poems through –
It’s slender, as if a spring.
Those verses I kept under veins obscured,
Like sips of the wines we drink.

In this crazy-sacred and pensive night
a chasm of the words seized you
Since love was to feel. You knew it or might…
How I can adore and lure…

A sleepy sunflower – you are for me
Inside of the soul in dance.
It’s where for others I lost my means,
A scar of horizon – stance.

And where is so cold, as cold as you mark
the boiling point of wine.
We’ll chant, “Our Father” and that shall spark
The boiling of over-mind.

The wine, it’s so crazy, extreme, and kind,
As love, for it tasted tart.
You read with your body what I define
By listening with my heart.

1 February 2010

(Original text below)

ЧИТАЮЧИ МОЮ ПОЕЗІЮ

Ти тілом читала вірші мої –
Худенька, немов весна,
Ті, що від світу в жилах таїв,
Наче ковток вина.

У божевільно-блаженну ніч
Падала в прірву слів,
Бо відчувала
(А може, й ні…)
Як я тебе любив.

Сонна, мов сонях, була мені
В танці душі, десь там…
Де я для інших віддаленів
За горизонту шрам.

Там, де так холодно
Аж-аж-аж,
Аж закипа вино…
Ми шепотітимем «Отче наш» –
І закипить воно,
Ніжне й безумне,
Як і любов,
Задля якої був.

Ти тілом читала знову і знов
Те, що я серцем чув.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "КРАСИВИЙ ВІТЕР")

The wind is graceful.
So human – eyes of wolf...

That’s it, that’s it…
My grandpa used his wit
To open eyes… The world –
It’s not the same
at all.

The soul –
As if a cradle without a child –
The distance sways.
And from a cell – a ringtone plays
An ancient, vernal song.

We were born
In time… before… among…

For whom we shall be famous
When everyone is gone?

26 February 2010

(Original text below)

КРАСИВИЙ ВІТЕР

Красивий вітер.
Людські очі вовка...

І – все, і – все...
Ще мого діда золота примовка
Про світ
Не цей.

Душа –
Немов колиска без дитини –
Колише даль.
А із «мобілки»
Пісня старовинна і молода.

В такому часі народитись
Припало нам.

Кому ми будем знамениті,
Як всім хана?..

A piquant lore –
in spills and spells,
the nascent hoar
and plangent bells.
It’s learnt by heart,
with ardent eyes
the killing art
of pledged for aye.
A trenchant sword
in peccant hands –
those pungent words
are firebrands
with lambent light
but mordant burns.
They writhe inside
and strike with spurns.
My latent dreams,
my dormant yells –
they are on stream
as cancer cells –
to blunt with smile
the errant calls
I’ve felt awhile
since bells lost tolls,
to bear the brunt
of lost in time,
run love through shunts,
and melt as rime.
The puissant cold
is nothing more
than getting old
all soaked in gore.
A blatant lie,
an arrant fool –
my ears well-nigh
a blah-cesspool.
Bombastic rants,
torrential snorts…
Where is my stance?
Should I retort?
This is my turf,
my salient
in every curve
in every dent
I sense and nib,
dyed in a blue…
Behind my ribs
a bird’s-eye view.

19 February 2010

Distant voices, sentenced to bespeak,
settle for the emptiness to carry,
linger in the drops of heart on cheeks.
Stay with me, inhale the dusk. Be wary.

Have enough in lunges to ‘blah’ and ‘ah’.
Throaty doves depart and fly through Sigh-Land.
They will gather in the barque of Ra,
their cooing warms a soul that’s silent.

Angels of Salvation are cockcrows.
Need more eyes? Use third one as self-finder
for the world’s more strident as it grows.
I define the patience as my binder.

As dry wines, I’m squeezed. The tartness sneaks,
bobbles in the cooing – strives for settling.
Drop-by-drop – the heart slides over cheeks.
Should I fall, I’ll straighten shoulders greatly.

Take a look, the current burns and dies.
Angels of Salvation, yell up steeply.
Save me from this quoted world and I’ll,
as a wound of God, stay opened deeply...

17 February 2010

Rock-a-bye, the sky
spills the song for you.
Ears are cribs, and I
swaddle warmth in blue.
Catch it and imbue,
learn to love anew.
When pasque flowers sigh
dreams drink lullaby.

Whispers, time persists,
leaves a paper path.
Iconostasis –
stars from skies to earth.
Meant to love by birth,
we deserve the mirth –
Angels’ trumpet’s missed,
wait, you – on the list.

Heart is bold and gold,
Heart is not as glass.
Waves of breath unfold
seas of singing bless.
Inflammation’s pass –
words are free at last.
All the petals rolled.
Where are you? I’m cold.

All the words are doused
as a sea in shells.
Lips land on your mouth
where rainbows dwell
and a kiss shall melt
like pure souls in bells.
You are mine as clouds.
Seas with ease are roused.

Rest your head, be calm
in my palms. I’ll sway.
Winds of trouble, storms
I will keep away.
In my heart you stay.
In my heart you stay.
In my heart you stay.
In
my heart
you stay.

11 February 2010

You dried out slowly in a teardrop on my face,
as rivers of caress, strong spirits in a glass.
You leave no space, a shallow breath when eyes embrace
of chosen ones, for stranded once – you bold as brass.
I cup my thoughts, as one, for memories to grace.
You like to dance through our past as wind in grass,

flee hastily as Cinderella, losing minds.
For what is lost, it goes away with tapping heels
and bleeds as skies, refinds the way to stay refined.
The breathing is outlined by what would cool or kill,
it munches pious dreams and flies completely blind,
persistently retains its under-blade-caught thrill.

When lips are touched and flapping like a waspish swarm,
the words are sweet, as if to freeze to death in snow.
I’ve nothing left except to thank you for the storm –
the firebird that circles in the sky of love.
You dried out greatly, fluent in recalls and charms,
coagulating slowly in a quid pro quo.

February 10, 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "КАМ'ЯНА ЧИ СНІГОВА")

It’s winter time.
I see the rowan berries
as drops of brilliant red.
A bellowing of bullfinches –
the harvesting on blood.
I should expect a woman –
mysterious and sad.
She’ll brighten all my thoughtlessness,
enlighten ways to spud.

Then somewhere in a forest
we’ll make a lady out
of snow. She’ll look ridiculous,
unlikely to abhor.
She’ll bring the same rejoinders
as that – with stony pout.
But which of two is timeless more?
…the one who’s poignant or…

8 February 2010

(Original text below)

КАМ'ЯНА ЧИ СНІГОВА

Зима.
Горобина – мов краплі блискучої крові.
Прилетять снігурі – склюють.
Прийде жінка містична.
Скрасить мою безтолковість.
З’явиться ціль і путь.

Зліпимо з нею у лісі
Бабу смішну снігову свою –
Таку як в степах кам’яна.

Яка з них вічніша у нашім раю?
Та, що більше сумна...

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "У СКЛЯНІЙ КОРЧМІ")

The North is flickering
Like pupils in a fox.
It’s autumn.
I am sitting in a pub.
Where are we going now?
What is this pointless vox?
The strata –
Flawless sadness in a hub.

The smoke of modern songs
contaminates the air.
The livid
Tunes come out in steady waves.
But we are breaking codes
Of secret signs and share
The spirit
And above-the-people Grace.

The light is light and sad,
The light is gloomy, chalks.
Perfumes eat
Crowded space and search for more.
And someone says to me
That trains go “West” and flocks
Resume its
Fall routine, the destined soar.

A candle as the tears
of old and ailing elks,
It’s trickling
Till the dawn when manners – gone
For everyone who’s here,
For those who buy and sell.
Keep drinking,
take your time to pull a gun.

They wear their scars, tattoos.
Their bitches bitch... and blue.
I’m wordless.
I am senseless to their pains
For what they feel and do
For poems,
fatherlands, and flying cranes.

Or maybe they still drink
Because the sorrow shows
as church is –
women age that no one tells,
Or hungry children who
Forgot the touch of love
And searching…
Barrels with the blank-bang shells.

The door’s a coffin lid,
Wide-opened for sunrays.
I welcome
Plans the world possesses, brings
Its Likeness to God’s soul.
As mercury – dawn’s gray
and stays calm.
Choose to go by any means.

February 2, 2010

(Original text below)

У СКЛЯНІЙ КОРЧМІ

Північ тремка –
Мов зіниці лиса.
Осінь.
Сиджу в корчмі.
Куди ми йдемо
І де взялися,
Такі сумні і самі?

Пісня сучасна
(Якась ніяка)
Із «брехунця» димить.
А ми розшифровуєм
Тайні знаки
Того, що над людьми.

Світло сумне
І парфумів запах
В цій от корчмі старій.
І поїзди (каже хтось)
«На запад»...
І – журавлі вгорі.

Свічка – як сльози
Старого лося,
Капає на калган.
Тим, що сидять тут,
Не раз довелося
Братися за наган.

Шрами у них,
«Татуйовки» сині...
Бляді... і мало слів.
Що їм до віршів,
До батьківщини,
До журавлів?..

А може, їм,
Саме їм сьогодні
П’яна печаль болить?
Церква-бабуся,
Діти голодні –
Як холості стволи.

Двері відкрилися
Віком гробу.
Ранок сивий –
Мов ртуть.

Світ набирає
Божу подобу.

Я вибираю
Путь.

My blood’s my ink, a liquid form of thought.
It’s visible as wind and touchable by heart.
It flows and circulates; in every drop is God
for every stroke of nib is palpable and wrought.

My quill`s my voice – deep-downed, re-echoed fluffs,
a watcher of the swirls of brainstorms in my head
where drifting words are yearning tingly to beget,
the journey coast-to-coast depends on sailing crafts.

My nerves – my strings, desired pitches vex.
Who knows how long to press on golden silenced frets?
Minds convex and concave in puffs of cigarettes,
once spirit saves my day I’ll put on fire texts.

Oh tunes of hope, composed by pros and cons –
my running ink through channels blue like mothers` wait.
Where, as a river mouth, the nib meets salty waves
my heart that made of touch is prone to halt in stones.

29 January 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ХРИСТОС")

The wind of subway – the tunnel smell,
eternal ways for masqueraded souls to fly.
When Christ stepped in, as to a desert from a dell,
they sat
and ate,
they laughed at him
but didn’t crucify.

They blamed on rulers – the heavens’ ones and plain.
Before the crowd calmed down, it was as tight as fists.
Then someone slapped him gently on the shoulder, "Say,
be honest only – who are the winners, losers on your list?"

He, who was tired of endless revolutions, came
and threw a branch into the ancient fire’s arms.
He asked them, as Barabbas once, their names.
He was a carpenter…

And nails were blooming
on his palms.

January 28, 2010

(Original text below)

Вітер метро – запах тунелю,
Яким у вічність душі вертепні летять.
Прийшов Христос, як у пустелю:
Не розп’яли…
Посміялися з нього.
Сіли.
Їдять.

Владу «ругають» земну й небесну.
Натовп стиснувся в кулак і затих.
Христа по спині поплескали ніжно, чесно,
Питаючи – за тих він, а чи за тих…

А він, хто втомився від революцій,
Підкинув суху галузку в старий вогонь
І запитав, як колись Варраву:
Як вони звуться?
Бо він був тесля.

І цвяхи цвіли
Із його
Долонь.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ПРИДУМАНО")

The wind was invented
As well as those waters and stars.
Enjoyable paintings
of crying, presented by cheeks.
The joy is a river,
The left arm embedded so far.
I call it – a giver
Of pure salty droplets, a shriek.

More scars on the right one
That loves holding crosses and pens.
For being a knight once
I know how to grip tight the hilt.
The strings were invented,
As tendons, so endless and tense.
Bread pulp, slugs to enter
And seal ruby entrance with guilt.

The hole from the bullet,
The pulp can’t repair it or plug
When grounds are truly
Hot lavas that flow under feed.
You destined to follow
The steps of ancestors to snug.
Return from the hollow
As spring weeps of cranes, as a seed.

And someone will greet you…
And candles, as chorus, shall sing
About how “I’m freed” used,
About what you cherished the most.
Create then the bloom-floor,
Caress barkless maples and think
Again you will die for
What others would keep for a toast.

26 January 2010

(Original text below)

ПРИДУМАНО

Придумано вітер.
Придумано води і зорі.
Слізьми намальовано
Щастя на людській щоці.
Тому – по краплині,
Солоне тому і прозоре.
І русло тому воно має
На лівій руці.

А шрами на правій,
Що хрест і перо полюбила
І п’яної шаблі
Тримати змогла рукоять.
Придумано струни,
Тугі, безкінечні, як жили.
Придумано м’якуш
І кулі червону печать.

Ту дірку від кулі
Уже не затулиш тим хлібом,
Коли попливе під ногами
Гаряча земля.
І підеш до предків –
У руси, древляни, дуліби.
І вернешся звідтам
Весняним плачем журавля.

І хтось упізнає…
І свічі співатимуть хором.
Про волю, про долю,
Любов нетутешню свою.
Придумаєш квіти,
Заласкаєш клени безкорі…
І знову загинеш за те,
За що інші п’ють.

dogs of the seizure were here
barking appeased bitten through
pain has no chains to accrue
skirmishes wait to construe
hush-hush
that’s it
don’t ask dear

why is the face white as flag
woven with karma-strong yarns
Chapel of Sun needs a darn
crowded as chili con carne
stay
be my guest
be my gag

lyrics – the larynx to fluff
lungs push the aura with fears
what is the quorum for tears
disparate voices are clear
hush-hush
that’s it
that’s enough

22 January 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "СНІГ ЧАДИТЬ")

This snow still fumes.
It’s time to make a horse.
A will looks really cheap without revolts.
A stubble field
Was shaved, and now it’s coarse
that stabs, as Love once tamed but never sold.

This life goes fast, much faster than the time.
It hardly touches happiness and smiles.
It leaves no traces, only bells to chime,
to roam through native places and exiles.

I’ll trample down the snow for “easy go”.
Such way diseased are kissed and those with wings.
I recognize myself among my woes
As wines of pristine rivers do begin…

Whatever’s funny – comes with bits of jolt,
And what is broken – would be hart to bend.
Perhaps, the time will catch us after all,
Look straight in eyes, and leave for After-Land.

The world is simply simple, such as snow,
But its complexity – in every flake.
So, therefore you’ll see a frosty brow
Of roadside-flowers windows try to make.

A tiny wick
becomes a blood-streamed vein,
Groves to transparency –
a mystery…
This snow still fumes,
I hear an endless say –
How in advance is written
history.

22 January 2010

(Original text below)

СНІГ ЧАДИТЬ

Сніг чадить.
Ліпитиму коня.
Бо дешева воля без повстання.
І давно не голена стерня
Коле, як приборкане кохання.

А життя йде швидше, аніж час,
Важко прикладаючись до щастя
В тих світах, де вже немає нас,
І у тих, де всім побути вдасться.

Протопчу стежину у снігах.
Так цілують мертвих і крилатих.
Впізнаю себе у ворогах,
Наче вина в ріках непочатих.

Що смішне, те трохи і страшне.
Те, що поламається, не гнеться.
Може, час життя наздожене,
Гляне в очі – і назад вернеться.

Світ простий-простий такий, мов сніг,
І складний, ну як сніжинка кожна…
Тож лицем в замерзлому вікні
Стане, може, квітка придорожня.

Ґнотик свічки веною стає
І при тім прозоріє, прозоріє…

Сніг чадить.
І чується мені
Наперед написана історія.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ЖІНКА")

Neither joy nor sorrow to restore,
Dreamed about her as a crane to soar.
Do you see the woman? She’s a sea
And I love her as a song to sing.

On the blue porch of a tale, on hay,
On the right side of a tsar she lays.
She’s the woman which received the grace
Such as monastery icons face.

Look – a fox sleeps on her pallid neck,
And a sable plays with tresses – you can check.
She is neither holy nor a slut
For she’s blessed with children, in a rut.

And when Fate was changing finger-rings,
As a willow all its golden strings,
Falling down – like bleeding heart in size,
Going up – the Passion of the Christ.

Who’s the one who should embrace her now?
Angel binds the Satan as tree boughs.
She’s the sea to wander and address,
In a black-white sail she should be dressed.

21 January 2010

(Original text below)

ЖІНКА

Не було ні радості, ні горя.
Снилася, як небо журавлю,
Жінка, що хотіла бути морем,
І яку, як пісню, я люблю.

Десь на сіні, в синіх сінях казки,
Одесную квітки і царя...
Жінку, що зазнала стільки ласки,
Як ікона у монастирях.

Спить лисиця їй на білій шиї,
Соболь – на розплетеній косі...
Не свята вона і не повія,
Бо жила й родила, як усі.

І коли міняла доля перстень,
Як себе вербина золота,
Жінка впала, наче кров на серце,
Піднялася віями Христа.

Хто її у світі цім пригорне?
Коли ангел в’яже сатану,
Жінку, що хотіла бути морем,
В чорно-білий парус одягну.

They follow me by stomping on the newborn quest
and watch their steps as if an abyss glares out there.
Beneath the Roof of Lord, inside the moving chest
they wash themselves with warmth, dispel a froth of air

from carmine chalices. As prayers – pain composed.
They’ll bathe in gold, in my strip-worded out-of-sight.
Some try to fit what fallen glories rarely clothed
by crumbling on the Holy Table loaves of light.

The muse of being cornered makes ears sharp as fangs.
I catch – how rains are kneeled behind the window glass,
how Pisces Constellation in a fish soup tangs,
in sleep & milk the body grindings thicken fast.

I open all my wounds for those who are betrayed,
who’s burned or plays with matches, in the blaze of grief.
God looks inside of me the way that screaming fades
and I could feel how I become a falling leaf.

I leave. My swirling drop lands on the Land of Gray.
I’m thrawn and scorched, as made of muddle-headed clay.
My flight was over lives, myself, and through the flame
of all I gave to sons, for what I’m proud or blamed.

I lie down stretched, the blue runs over me and drips,
whilst in the color of the veins the trickling wraps.
As seized up fire, voices soften moves of lips.
They shake up shades of my ancestors step-by-step.

13 January 2010

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ВЕРТАТИСЬ ПІЗНО")

Too late to rally,
The game – a battle…
My song is sallied,
The prayer settles.

While snow gets sleepy
Because the lute chants
The past is leaping,
As chasing future.

The heart is savvy,
Became a bell ring.
Inertias – bevies.
One crown to once-win,
One empty pocket,
One love – you must-mean.
You sense how lucky
Last moments have been.
And honey’s darker,
Less honest pain is
For great the markers
When silence reins us.

The wind is endless,
A star – a mortal.
The shirt of candle
Torn by black-portals.

Too late to rally,
The game – a battle…
My song is sallied,
The prayer settles.

11 January 2010

(Original text below)

ВЕРТАТИСЬ ПІЗНО

Вертатись пізно.
Вже гра – як битва…
На зміну пісні
Прийшла молитва.

Сніги заснули
Під гру на лютні.
Уже минуле
Стає майбутнім.

Душевне серце
Зробилось дзвоном.
Є сто інерцій.
Одна корона,
Одне кохання,
Одне безгрішшя.
І мить остання
За міт миліша.
За мед світліша,
За біль чесніша –
Найбільша тиша,
Остання тиша.

Там вітер вічний,
А зірка смертна.
Сорочка свічки
Об світ подерта.

Вертатись пізно,
Бо гра – як битва…
На зміну пісні
Прийшла молитва.

29 серп. 2001

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ЛЕТІТИ І ВПАСТИ")

To fly – it’s easy, to fall – to slam well.
Who is the scratcher of doors to trammel?

Who is the beggar for fame or money?
Here, all are givers – from fools to honeys.

The mix of water and blood – old vintage.
You fell; the homeland takes up with drinking.

It goes with songs out, returns are salty.
Three deaths, one wedding – seems odd and faulty.

The honey-moon is a footless fighter.
Out of three hundred – three left, oh Mighty…

This is a white dove, my father’s grayness.
He is so lonely, his charms amaze me.

To fly – it’s easy, to fall – to slam well,
To break the doors and to feel the trammel.

11 January 2010

(Original text below)

ЛЕТІТИ І ВПАСТИ

Летіти вміли. Не вміли впасти.
Хтось дряпав двері своєї пастки.

Хтось жебрав славу, хтось хліб і гроші.
Тут всі давальці дурні й хороші.

Вода із кров’ю – то їхні вина.
Де впав, набравшись, там – батьківщина.

Ідуть з піснями, вертають – сіллю.
На три вмерлини одне весілля.

Медовий Місяць, безногий воїн.
Було нас триста, зосталось троє:

То – білий голуб, то батько сивий.
Такі самотні. Такі красиві.

Летіти вміли. Не вміли впасти,
Зламавши двері своєї пастки.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ЗА ПРАВО БУТИ САМОТНІМ ВОВКОМ")

The right to be a wolf, a lone one – costs me,
Paid through the nose,
As skies would pay with whitish silk and closely
Watch how it glows.

There was a paw, the front paw trapped and throbbing,
Shots reached my back.
The fall rain falls, my heart receives the sobbing
Thought white-round cracks.

From times of yore, presumably, black-listed
In lefts and rights
I am among den-brothers coexisting,
No-picking-sides.

Oh mother, you aren’t here to melt the curses,
As well as toots…
A cross that on my chest is thin as mercies
And tall as flutes.

The shadows come of legendary writers
In waves and ranks.
They are as out of space, as autumn-gliders,
As Lethe’s banks.

Their honest glory – posthumous and ceded,
Partaken wealth.
The right to be, the right to die as needed,
As being Self.

6 January 2010

(Original text below)

ЗА ПРАВО БУТИ САМОТНІМ ВОВКОМ

За право бути самотнім вовком
Плачу «по повній».
Так небо платить біленьким шовком
Землі жертовній.

Була в капкані передня лапа.
Хтось в спину вцілив.
Аж дощ осінній на серце крапа
Крізь дірку білу.

Від роду, мабуть, у чорних списках
В лівих і правих,
У побратимів великопиських,
Та й у держави.

Була би мама – зняла би вроки,
А так – горілка...
І хрест на грудях тонкий, високий –
Немов сопілка.

А ще приходять великі тіні
Легенд-поетів.
Такі космічні, такі осінні,
Як берег Лети.

І чесну славу – щастя посмертне –
Ділять зі мною
За право бути, за право вмерти
Самим собою.

(Translation of Ihor Pavlyuk "ДІВЧИНКА")

The doorway leads to Granny.
A barefoot girl, she cries.
Wraith-wristed, in its waning
The fall is foiling eyes.

A rooster’s crow stops pouring
When coolness fills her soul.
“For whom do you feel sorry?”
The girl replies,
"For all…"

30 December 2009

(Original text below)

ДІВЧИНКА

Плаче дівчинка боса
На бабусин поріг.
Розчарована осінь
Клигає по дворі.

На душі, прохолода.
Навіть півень затих...
– А кого тобі шкода?
Каже дівчинка:
– Всіх...

Silently woe betides me,
leaving myself in ruins.
Woes, such as wars, get pricey –
out, in the vault my blue is.
Winds croon, “Alas, thine creature.”
Make tarter croons to storm me.
Flames on the right cheek… preaching...
turning my left – to warm it.

Give me myself to come round,
stay as a guest or wholly…
Let me outpour the light up
till all my wraths stop calling.
Let me sublime in limbo
as native tongues would vanish.
Streams of my word are drying.
What should be left to banish?

Someone stroke wings of stillness,
eyes – looking glass of sorrows.
“Quiet!” – I try to live on,
sensing the dust of morrows,
bringing a lump to my throat,
“Hush-hush… Amore Mia.”
Moments are resurrections,
peace holds untapped ideas.

Sounds grew, the heart was patient,
parted – no pounding needed.
Pain is the depth of my roots,
drops of the moonshine’s bleeding.
Somewhere betwixt my home and
steps with its careless distance
Sun keeps inlaying landscape
under my eye insistence.

Burning of grieve is lengthy.
Longer – own faith to treasure.
Be my cloaked-always slayer,
have for my sentence measures.
Basta, enough with chanting!
Can’t hold with morns and bury…
Steps out of me in tears…
Mother of Pure Love, Mary.

17 December 2009

To take the bit between the teeth –
to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Those tittles tattle on my words.
For pens are mightier than swords
I’d rather turn swords into ploughshare

and put the pens to paper for
provoking ink to go to war.
A war of words, a war of nerves
where each iota nails and serves
a purpose to unleash emotions.

My heart as octopus with ink
connects the dots so I could think
in black and white, in blue and red
in all the colors in my head,
about the plumaged pen’s devotion.

Oh what a bomb, oh what a splat,
the mechanism of trickling chat –
from puppy love to making it,
from not at all to thrilled to bits,
from dropping drops to gaining oceans.

So take the bit between your teeth –
and dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

15 December 2009

I’ve dearly wondered how her hair would look in gray,
since she became a golden rush of my endorphins.
The blatant noise, as through my chest, gravediggers nailed…
How soft should be my soul to leave her in a coffin?

She prayed out loud and bared the last breath to implore,
so God could stretch a minute more – to touch kids’ tresses,
to sob the heartbeats out and share a word of Lord…
A skinflint was the breath. He shoved her to embrace us,

at last, to joy the light and feel the warmth of home.
Oh, no – the dirt had snatched and stiffly wrapped the shoulders.
The silence grew in fast and whispering was done
about the fortieth – the day when dirges called her.

The time got watertight for tears and for the pain
which blocked a throat with barren words and senseless pauses.
It kept my blood as chill as wounded minds insane,
as loosen soil beneath a coverlet of roses.

I was a sandbag frayed by bullets of the past,
their traces crawled, as spiders, plotting mournful rebus.
She couldn’t find outside her final place to rest,
I left her in my eyes to welcome jointly Phoebus.

And when the soul was purified through tears and strayed
it was obscure which spirit’s good to clear the passage.
I’ve dearly wondered how her hair would look in gray,
since she became in me the angel of a presage.

24 November 2009

A holy place where shadows like a swarm of locusts,
who bares the street perplexity straight to the bones.
The city’s silent and had lost a bull’s-eye focus
as drones – the rights to take a queen behind her throne.

Its keys are hung as time in charts on railway stations.
While money burns a hole – the pockets full of luck.
The morning only knows the depth of devastation
and if the fortune’s bang was really for the buck.

A congregative place is where a question needles
with promises to numb while peace goes through an eye.
The shiver doesn’t fit while winds use nerves to fiddle.
It’s not in vogue for men – to shiver as to lie.

19 November 2009

The day was born to be as black
as Friday’s shopping spree.
He rushed and stalled, put on the rack
what's priceless – duty free.

I kept on waiting waded in
the task of crossing minds,
was out of it, but never mean
what should be next to grind.

A grating thought – to step aside
of riddling alphabets,
to take a look how senses tied
good wheezes in my head.

My bets – my pets, I tamed them well
as gibbets – tattlers’ tongues .
Unknowing where my heart should dwell
I lost it to the song.

With what was left I stacked the deck
and issued a decree,
“From now and on all Fridays – Black,
as love is – duty free.”

12 November 2009

The chintz of night is in the bureau
and takes all seven draws of sky.
Two moonshine breathers – Moon and I,
two pale, as chalk, just painted murals.

My roots are dry, a yarn spins slowly.
I hummer down the pulled up stakes
and raise them high for what it takes
to breed new sanchos, rank them lowly.

The crosses shall be seen all over
erected, anchored in the ground.
I see the temples, banks, and sounds –
saloons and pennies, drinks and bovver.

Who said who’s first – resides as Master,
possessors – ones who bust a gut.
I’m here to heal the prairie’s cut
inflicted by the plow and dusters.

Oh ruthless bigots, come for ointments,
not for the scalp. We’ll drink and feast.
Those bottles make you rest... in peace.
Those balms are blizzards of enjoyment.

After anointed to exhaustion
we might divide the land and chintz
so you could take what draws may tin.
The rest is mine – the pact is Faustian.

A skin has shades, but blood is crimson.
To drink claret, to shed – the same…
Who would remember redskin names?
Who could forget, forgive or blame some..?

I came between the wind and water,
you left as peace-pipes blowing smoke.
And when Saint Martin’s summers spoke
they whispered names of sons and daughters

the last of the Mohicans.

9 November 2009

To please an ogle – to shed the scene
where rays were caught by full-grown pupils.
An iris on a blue and green,
the mood ends counting crows – the scruples,

quadrupling heavens in my eyes,
as trebling trembles of the thunders.
To hear “hellos” from old “goodbyes”
I hold the sky and crows asunder.

I keep an ear to breathless ground.
Corroded umbrae are too webby
to stop nativities of sounds.
The mimics of the clouds in ebbing…

27 October 2009

When I’m holding the breath as a bird
In the cage known by heart and for grieves,
All my lions I promised to gird
Run away as notorious thieves.

I espy from the dungeon of soul
How the time nibbles moonlight as cheese.
While my wishes untamed and befoul
Catch the perfidy, landing – for knees.

Made of sun, made of sky
That’s my moiety left to pry.
I have never been told
How the dice should be rolled
In the way no one wants to try.

Marigolds, marigolds
From the country of blue and gold
You are making me bloom
When it’s hopelessly gloom
For the loss is five minutes old.

When marooned, stripped of friends for a sond,
Feel the melting of pride, take a look
How the sand through your fingers absconds,
And the beckons of airstreams get cooked.

What is meant to be broken – will break,
What it has to be spoken – could hum.
When a smile tapers off in the ache
Something pensive as Silence shall come.

Made of sun, made of sky
That’s my moiety left to pry.
I have never been told
How the dice should be rolled
In the way no one wants to try.

Marigolds, marigolds
From the country of blue and gold
You are making me bloom
When it’s hopelessly gloom
For the loss is five minutes old.

26 August 2009

I.

Whilst getting used to words, as to a dungeon,
I muse. Like ashes in a hearth or swishes,
remembrance makes a shroud of paper grungy.
Some thoughts die burst in inks and some are wishes.
They spread out widely as lianas’ branches,
inlaid in lines, like skin on lasts in stitches.
And maybe Peace becomes the one who stanches…
Your spear is welcomed as the word that preaches.
The sky is out of wearing a straitjacket.
I hear some native voice. It is escaping
and fondling rhymes till they replete with glosses.
It flows down in the tears to find two brackets
between the “losing hopes” and “being happy”.
The thoughts are broken up, as knees on crosses.

21 July 2009

II.

The thoughts are broken up, as knees on crosses,
and solar plexus is my spirit’s prison.
All roads with ancient pain are closed, and losses
prolong to paint between the eyebrows reasons.
No wind could bring a balsam for the roses,
for they are cut to wilt. What makes you listen
to how departing moments break to clauses,
to phrases, words, and something warm as pleasing?
An eye is hosting planetary rallies,
but step inside liaised with love and courage
to catch the severed light and self-reflection.
A check-mark on my left side meant for sally.
It’s time to conquer blues and narrow forage,
words nail the sole of firmament with passion.

13 August 2009

III.

Words nail the sole of firmament with passion,
cross-weaving nights with comets’ shiny laces.
They push through holes the solar supplications
and use long prowls for cosmoses’ shoe-spacing.
The stairs are chirpy, leading to Gazebo
where angels of the death, who hook libretto
with savors of nocebo and placebo.
I could descry in pails the splashing ghettos.
A bit up high – the roof is made of chosen,
who earned the place though agonies and sages.
The vane controls all winds, they love to crumble.
Blow molding news, as always, taste ambrosian.
Since eyelids shut by silhouettes of angels
feel oxygen starvation. Cosmos mumbles.

11 September 2009

IV.

Feel oxygen starvation. Cosmos mumbles
when hands of Atlas are too numb from stiffness.
The hauberk of the stormy cloud with rumbles
slips off his back. I am the only witness
how skies sit down and sift the gloom thought pebbles.
They long for long and earthy games with sleekness
of clammy body laid with hopes to cobble
the lonely heart. To heave a sigh with meekness
the body, drop-by-drop, unwraps the bosom,
concealed in tided lips of ocean’s ceiling.
Such way, ballades are wishful for rhymed music,
such way the timbre of the bell would pass on
the gossips of the wilted day in lilies.
The sonnet lights the written scene for musing.

18 September 2009

V.

The sonnet lights the written scene for musing.
A spider’s web gets pregnant with piñatas
of rain drops where the stars are jolted cruisers.
The moments breathe as universal strata
keep losing tracks of all galactic fuses,
claim victories o’er solar light armadas.
The wind smokes chimney pipes, drinks echo’s smoothies
where love starts journeys chirping through cicadas.
She turns to white in mothers’ breasts as timers,
forgets for everything except the wa-wa
and tries to put the cries deep down in cradles.
The spiders are lung-weavers for a summer.
Their web, when torn, set aimlessly to travel
such as forsaken words in endless fables.

9 October 2009

She harvests rains I dream about,
I’m waiting for, and tend to strand.
Her weary face is up the spout
with marigolds and arid pouts.
Nevertheless, she’s Motherland.

Forget-me-not, forgive-me-all.
The heart is stout and far from home,
it bears the silence made of cold.
Oh marigolds, oh marigolds,
you sowed the seeds in distant loams.

Someday, I’ll grow to be the place
for dappled birds and echoed flicks,
and wear a mask – her weary face,
while marigolds shall blaze in Grace.
She harvests rains, she cares... while ricks.

9 June 2009

Panes are readable by the nightfall,
East is catching the sense of shading.
Solar licks are indeed delightful,
Streets are lollipops, slowly fading.

Treat the roads, as my own belongings,
Share a smile with the fate and strangers.
Leave the best for my hope and longing
And the worst for the dogs in mangers.

All returns keep the journey loopy
And the thinking’s in pace with stepping.
As the eyes of the loved ones – groupies,
Hands of watches are droopily-sappy.

Eyes of loved ones create a distance.
God forbid! It’s the last of macons…
Storks are clattering with persistence,
But the old home protracts forsaken.

Clatters fade while the nests grow bigger,
Little beaks are wide-open. Gliding,
Only pain can sustain its vigor
For the journey, as Blue as Monday.

Think of East, when I’m downed and praying,
When it’s nothing to brim, but bounty.
Home’s the best place for love and graying,
But my home’s in a foreign country.

4 June 2009

As soon as levities of blows had ended with a trough,
to moor the tarnished ship, the sky exhorted meddling clouds
with heavy metal whip. It rigged up out of branching rain
the shed for shaking shades, that incubates in whispered banes
the choreography of aqua-bells, cryptography of lips.
For what it’s worth – no payments made were paid in vain, no tips.
What had befallen must become the moments to outlast
when in the graving dock of sky the rainbow’s burnished grass
would harvest billions drop-size suns and draw the waterline
where ocean licks the sand and dries with every tide its brine.

21 May 2009

When it’s nothing – nada left in me for you to love
and the meaning of the words compels them to expire,
I will make it crystal clear, free to stay or go,
out of burning midnight oils and exhausting fires,

in perspicuous exonerative way. I’ll rain
in your times of drought, when silence’s killing for survival ,
when the last of scribbled hopes is down the drain
and the lore connects two eyes of your split-tongue-like rival.

O’er my pride I’ll freeze – a monitor from vicious bugs
and accept the heaven’s package deal with peccadilloes.
What was dearly bought and given free for us
lives and dies in me like haunting, flung, and wrathful billows.

8 May 2009

The world is staring straight at raven’s eye,
so desperate to shelter from Aloofness,
it tries to spread its coldness. On the sly
the only its fatigue steps in and roofless

minds stay – in their bonnets they have a bee
to hive the humming sound and hearty honing.
The raven’s moaning is as used to be
the shrilling of the livid wind in cacophonies.

While stumbled over leaves the sun grows rime,
so its ubiquity is lost to girdle
the surge of tears, suffocate the time.
The raven’s eye reflects the world in twiddles.


28 March 2009

***
hey Bloody Mary
you’re the last one to shed
catch up with Stoli

***
so what can I do
Caruso on carousel
with Vodka induced

***
Kamikaze flies
you can kill it just for fun
pilots are buzzing

***
Johnny plus Walker
making haiku to go higher
but Johnny can’t walk

***
straight Sex On The Beach
Margarita was salty
John looked slightly flushed

***
The jack from the deck
goes to the jack on the deck
a straight flush with queens

***
my roaming charges
Bahamas go with Mama
Twister to Zipper

***
Jamaican Sunset
feel the spirit of Zombie
another Bam-Bam

***
who plays a rummy
we are corky collectors
the popped world looks green

***
when the saki sucks
and the geisha’s (free) to go
time kicked the bucket

16 April 2009

The day has reached the point so easy to peruse
about two grackles strutting with beaks chock-full of news.
They vocalize the gossips regarding flying geese
and keep abreast of plumage by preening out a breeze.
The sun makes bells and whistles in crafting filigrees
and leaps as frogs from puddles to play with shades on trees.
Senile bedridden winter is weathered and abused
by two conceited grackles with beaks chock-full of news.

9 April 2009

Her smile is sculptured scarcely with muscles.
It makes the lips convincing and seductive,
it seizes tardily the breath’s possessions
and clogs at once blood vessels with obsessions.
The time is wedged, enslaved, and self-destructive.
Its warps are obsolete and turned to fossils.

Her eyes possess a tang of wishful tango.
They craft two arrows, while the lips are hiving,
to perforate the heart and elevate attentions,
and trigger dancing moves in all dimensions.
Their depth is too oblivious to dive in,
the tongue is weak to twist and mangle.

Adrenalines are rushed as banderilleros
with gaudy-rainbowed darts of dazzling passion.
This pure transfixion’s palpable as wind is
for birdies’ wings or wildly shattered windows.
Translations from the dancing to confession –
the spell of body language checked by Eros.

31 March 2009