Discernible Sound

  Somehow I know that I will never lose you

  As we awake and watch the sun arise.

  III

  I watch you sleeping and I’m short of words.

  I lay beside you and I hear your breathing,

  And life is wonderful again, - although, of course,

  The last few times have proved to be deceiving.

  I know that life is predetermined in some way,

  That any choice I make is inadvertent,

  That not a thing will change from day to day,

  And every time I pull aside the curtains

  As we awake and watch the sun arise,

  Somehow, I know that I will never lose you;

  I will not miss much if I close my eyes,

  As one might do when listening to music…

  During the day…

  During the day, I resurrect the dead. I dash

  across the classroom where my students

  are slipping in and out of coma as they crash

  against their desks. I work on their endurance.

  I like to think it’s not in vain. There’s no mistake

  and something’s cooking if their brains are fried…

  I know that one fine morning they’ll awake

  and see Pythagoras and Euclid in new light.

  They’ll rise up from their seats, still half asleep,

  with love of math and new-found thirst for knowledge.

  If nothing else, perhaps, they’ll learn to keep

  their checkbooks balanced as they sleep through college.

  Again, I smile to myself…

  Again, I smile to myself

  While reading poetry aloud.

  The world is beautiful - it swells

  With every single spoken sound.

  The cotton-candy clouds melt

  And let the sun shine through.

  This all began the day I fell -

  Headfirst - in love with you.

  The cardinal won’t end his song

  Until the moon emerges

  And every birch’s unique among

  A dozen other birches.

  The sunset sky is tangerine

  With just a dash of cherry.

  Let’s ride our bikes to Dairy Queen

  Across the cemetery.

  SOS

  The generational gap is a snare

  And the price that we pay is steep.

  With no free minutes to spare,

  Our cell-phones sing us to sleep.

  Our guardians stayed in the past –

  We’re alone. We demand an apology!

  With no one to look after us,

  We are raised by technology.

  We follow the latest trends,

  And create our friends in our likeness

  In our virtual world of pretense.

  We worship our desktop icons.

  We scream at the deep blue square,

  But no one inside it is listening.

  We sit, transfixed by the glare

  Of a thousand pixels glistening.

  We are social butterflies bound

  By the world-wide-web of distress, -

  No, we aren’t “laughing out loud,”

  This is our S-O-S.

  I must confess…

  I must confess before I burn in shame.

  This time, I fear, I broke the sacred bond.

  Last night, I called another by your name,

  You - didn’t notice. He - did not respond.

  No one cares to bring charges against me…

  No one cares to bring charges against me,

  Though I’m guilty of something or other.

  Well, for one, I’m in love and my lover

  Shares my feelings and loves me immensely.

  Though I hardly deserve any freedom,

  The authorities choose not to censor me.

  I write letters to you and you answer me, -

  I write poems to you and you read them.

  I see future and it isn’t unbearable,

  And the past is the past – let’s not mention it.

  The mistakes that I thought could potentially

  Tear our lives apart were repairable.

  Life is peaceful, - I imagined it turbulent.

  And I’m happy, at least, for the moment.

  When I imagined becoming a poet, -

  I imagined that grief would be permanent.

  I imagined more sweat, tears and rage,

  I imagined my whole body wrenching.

  I imagined a cross, and a crowd and stretching

  Arms across centuries, begging for change...

  You surrendered to me…

  You surrendered to me light-heartedly,

  Only to overtake me suddenly -

  Like a window curtain, you parted me,

  Looking through me and past me solemnly, -

  As if wanting to say something quietly,

  You started telling me about him timidly -

  But I understood everything silently –

  And I saw your pain rather vividly.

  And with tears in my eyes: “Don’t leave me!

  You and I are one. You will fracture me…”

  You didn’t answer me, thinking naively

  That I didn’t mean what I said actually.

  I’m a hunter…

  I’m hunter, a predator, trying to capture

  The wing of a cardinal on a camera screen.

  But startled, it flutters, escaping the aperture

  And flies away, - scarlet over emerald green.

  Perhaps in a poem, if not on a photo, -

  If not on a screen, the perhaps on a page…

  So strong is my passion to conquer and cage

  The cardinal wing and birches in autumn…

  Haunted house

  I tell her time and again that the house is haunted,

  That it’s time to move on, but she doesn’t listen.

  I look at our beagle and his eyes start to glisten, -

  He scowls at me, grins and howls, undaunted.

  As I walk up the stairs, there’s a man in the mirror,

  He watches me calmly, without ever speaking.

  I squeeze on the railing until it starts creaking, -

  I rush to the bedroom, but still feel him near me.

  She turns off the light and the walls become gray.

  My whole body shakes as I lie down beside her,

  And the black chandelier starts to sway like a spider,

  Slowly stretching its tentacles towards the prey.

  One day, I’ll convince her that it’s not in my head,

  That I was telling the truth right from the onset,

  That the painting frames change their colors at sunset,

  And that a skeleton’s hiding under our bed.

  There were four women in my life…

  There were four women in my life. The first

  Reached down and took my heart out of the cradle

  And rocked me in her arms until I dreamt

  A different world in which I was submersed

  I stumbled as we walked. I was unable

  To force myself to let go of her hand.

  The second one was made out of my rib.

  We danced on puddles, calling for more rain,

  Played hide-and-seek, and lost each other as

  The puddles froze just when I learned to skip.

  I never meant to cause her any pain.

  I slowly side-stepped through the looking glass.

  The third was waiting on the other side,

  (Or did I wait for her?) In either case,

  She gave me wings and opened up my cage.

  She set me loose and I was lost in flight,

  (Or was she lost?) Maneuvering with grace,

  She vanished in the mist as seasons changed.

  The fourth one flashed like lightning in my eyes

  And briefly blinded me. When I awoke,

  She wa
s still sleeping, tranquil and sublime.

  And to this day, she has me mesmerized

  Just as the day she asked me for a smoke,

  And I will love her till the end of time.

  They grabbed her by the neck…

  They grabbed her by the neck and squeezed

  Their drunken fingers, made her pale.

  They struck her chords until she wheezed,

  They shook her up until she wailed.

  Whole crowds rushed for her, enraged,

  They shoved and pushed ahead, refusing

  To wait their turn. I cried, off stage, -

  I was too scared to face the music.

  My sixth sense says…

  My sixth sense says:

  - “Do what you want”

  God will forgive our sins,

  Since we won’t.

  There’s nothing left to explain -

  It’s as plain as daylight -

  Why extend this pain,

  Leave it by the wayside.

  Don’t think of it twice.

  It’s wise to walk away certain.

  It was all rather nice,

  It’s becoming a burden

  To carry (nothing inside)

  All of it on our shoulders

  While pretending to glide,

  With the weight of a boulder.

  Autumn

  Either Autumn came

        or something’s out of order!

  The maples, in crimson flames,

        are begging for some water.

  Smoke rises from the cement.

        But there’s no lightning, no thunder!

  A beagle picks up the scent

        of the fleeting summer.

  The sun sets, covered in ash.

        The evening skyline’s darkened.

  The temperatures rise and crash,

        like stocks in the open market.

  The lungs expand and collapse,

        fragile, brittle and frail,

  And centuries seem to elapse

        before one can even exhale…

  Before one can take it all in,

        the fingers release the pencil

  And sweat starts to seep through the skin,

        like ink through a stencil…

  Lullaby

  You were taken from my rib-cage. -

  From my rib!

  Now my heart beats with new passion

  In a crib.

   

  I observe it sleeping soundly

  From above.

  Wrapped in soft and fluffy blankets

  Of my love.

   

  When the evening sky descends,

  Stars will shine

  To ensure that all your dreams

  Stay divine.

   

  I remember when I first fell

  For those eyes,

  When your mother held me with them

  Mesmerized.

   

  Now the same two precious fires

  Light my day,

  When they wake up with the sun,

  And look my way.

  Go unplug your television…

  Go unplug your television,

  Constant rain and markets crashing,

  And the hundredth repetition

  Of the season’s latest fashions.

  Go turn off the grim prognosis,

  And the doctor’s new prescriptions,

  For depression, runny noses,

  And your cancers in remission.

  Go switch off the hottest action,

  Sex and money, drug addictions,

  And the search for satisfaction

  That is full of contradictions.

  Turn your back on wealthy Christians

  And their arms of toothless smiles

  Asking you to fund their mission

  And those children’s endless trials.

  Close your ears to regulations

  Of self-centered politicians

  That assist big corporations

  With a friendly disposition.

  Break away from your attachment -

  Shark attacks and train collisions,

  And instead use better judgment, -

  Go unplug your television.

  I think this calls for a drink…

  I think this calls for a drink

  Though I’d rather not drink alone.

  I’m ready to give her a ring

  Though she never picks up her phone.

  I’m ready to tie the knot -

  The rope on my neck doesn’t faze me.

  She loves me? She loves me not?

  I torture flies when I can’t find daisies.

  Rockport in spring…

  Rockport in spring, with its photo galleries,

  Ice-cream sundaes, dogs of all breeds -

  Here you suddenly feel the disparities

  Between time and its cobblestone streets.

  At every corner, the view is enchanting -

  The same gray seagulls above the marinas.

  …But if the universe is ever-expanding

  So too is the distance between us,

  That is to say I’m not who I was then,

  Even a year ago, - it’s rather astounding,

  But as kids we mark the wall, as men

  We track our changes by our surroundings.

  Perhaps, this is why I’m drawn to the coast,

  Every spring, by this quaint little town, -

  To cherish the details that will soon be lost, -

  Every sunset hue, every spoken sound.

  Intimate

  Like inmates, we became intimate,

  Like we had no choice in the matter,

  Intimate, like we were infinite,

  Like we became matted,

  Became indifferent to differences,

  (They became intangible,)

  Until we became interchangeable,

  Impalpable, and indistinguishable,

  Same features, same fingerprints,

  Same lungs – inflammable,

  Same tongues - inextinguishable!

  Coffee but no cups

  It’s the end of August and the rain won’t stop,

  And the cars all drift through this water maze,

  People watch their feet, hardly looking up,

  And I float along through this smoky haze.

  How this city’s aged! – It is gray and cold,

  Buildings fall down flat on the puddled street,

  And I feel as though I don’t fit this mold, -

  Everyone seems dull, everything’s concrete.

  Do you remember us in that tiny room,

  With the curtains drawn, and the candle lit?

  Though we understood: we’d be parting soon,

  We naively thought: we could handle it.

  We were happy then, in our little nook, -

  You read me poetry on the windowsill.

  What we didn’t know is the tears it took,

  And the years it took, and the strength of will.

  It’s the little things that you’ve left behind

  Or took away with you that I cannot bear,

  Coming home from work, all alone, to find

  Coffee, but no cups and an empty chair…

  Cadillac, Bar Harbor

  The stars burst all around the slopes

  Of Cadillac, where we lay, huddled.

  The universe - under the microscope!

  We, - dazed and befuddled.

  Beyond the bend, the sun felt no need

  To rush to the harbor’s revival.

  Under the veil of night, the speed

  Of memory had no rivals.

  I strained my eyes, as if I could glimpse

  The past, far enough to observe

  Every second that passed by since

  The quiet day of my birth.

  In this bitter c
old, with the wind biting

  Our limbs, clutching for us in the dark,

  A star rolled down, alighting

  The sky with a fizzling spark.

  The peak of the mountain was then erased

  To the width of a needle tip,

  Our bodies locked in a warm embrace,

  Compressed, so as not to slip.

  The universe and our blood pulsating

  In step, made a permanent link.

  We fell asleep, with the night permeating

  Our dreams with its prevalent ink.

  This autumn’s different from the rest…

  This autumn’s different from the rest, - more golden-mouthed -

  I’m charting out my life with zest from north to south.

  The sun’s dispersed in orange leaves and cloaked the ground

  I smile to myself as if - I’m lost and found.

  The days are growing short, - you’ll soon arrive here.

  I wish that you could send a word that you’re alright there.

  I think about you at night. Somehow I'm certain,

  If not my speech, then all I write is overheard there.

  Alexandra

  Your mother wanted “Alexandra”

  But I prefer the shorter - “Sasha”

  There’s such proximity and passion,

  There’s something so distinctly Russian

  That’s captured in that second “s” -

  There’s strikes of lightning and thunder,

  There’s skies of cobalt, emerald eyes,

  There’s willows swaying, butterflies,

  There’s music playing, improvised,

  With feelings words cannot express.

  Sure, “Alexandra” has its merits -

  There’s leather gloves and broken hearts,

  There’s dignity and high regards,

  There’s history, performing arts,

  And firmness that will not be softened.

  There’s secrets known to only parents,

  And while the time is passing slow,

  And while we watch the melting snow,

  Though we won’t say it, we both know

  That you’ll be “Sashen’ka” most often.

  We are still worlds apart…

  We are still worlds apart at the moment,

  But already you’re playing your part -

  You’re my muse and I’m writing this poem

  To the calm metronome of your heart

  Falling stars, on the horizon…

  Falling stars, on the horizon,

  Crash and burn…

  One’s still shining for the wise men,

  Sasha’s born!

  Bring your frankincense, and myrrh,

  Bring your gold,

  Bring your open hearts to her,

  Young and old!

  When the pain you feel is unbearable,

  When it’s pure,

  When your sorrow’s incomparable, -

  She’s the cure!

  In the morning, when the chill

  Shakes your frame,

  She will warm you till you’re still -

  She’s the flame!

  When you come to her, all beaten,