"Do Młodego Przyjaciela" - A Guest Poem from Nanynka

We are exploring various loves for the moment, and my dear friend, Nanynka offers her poem for consideration. Love, friendship, longing, and reflection.

Thank you, Nanynka for sharing your lovely, heartfelt poem: Do Młodego Przyjaciela (to a young friend). Your loving comments, gentle critiques, and responses are appreciated!

  

* * * *   * * * * 

I like you

as I liked my little sister

those few days when she was vunerable;

when I saw in her someone who mirrored me -

unexpectedly-

and was beautiful.

I yearn over you

as I yearn over a different life I might have lived

had I been braver, more aware

a life in which my parents made me stick with my sonatinas

when I was too shy and childish to make myself.

A life in which I traded top bunks:

my own for a distant college dorm's.

A life in which I married young - 

young enough to become a mother

with my own sons and daughters to yearn over.

I dream of you

as I dream of a girl I wish I knew

though I am afraid to approach

because the crowd around her 

neither asks to be remembered,

nor expects to be carried onward.

She owns so many of my dreams

but so many more belong to you.

I love you

with some share of the love I have for the boy you remind me of

and I love him

with some share of the love I have for you.

And I don't know how you are all of these things to me

when all I know of you

is a little music;

an hour at your side; talk of snow

and small towns;

also, countless times I've watched a light come suddenly into your face

and attempted to understand why.

It's a little shameless of me, that watching,

but it's hard to miss the chance to know you better.

We have you for so little time.

I pray for you

as I prayed for my hedonist, who sang Handel -

two hours of fervent music, two hours of wild prayer -

and I pray for you

as I pray for my long-ago student, who mocked fear

and laughed at God

but shared his earphones

and hugged me to his trenchcoat;

and I pray for you

as I pray for the ones who are mine by blood

though not my own -

upheld in empty arms and heart spilling over, as you are -

when I see in them "the pure, the bright, the beautiful"

and intercede without words,

terrified at what could happen to their hearts

and their minds,

 their bodies

and their souls

in this rapacious world.

I pray for you because

there's almost nothing else I can do for you

so I do it with all my might.

 

Poem: Joseph

I'd love some direction on this one..it's another old one, edited, re-edited, and sort of hovering in uncertainty..I'm not sure if I've edited into complete confusion - just a collection of images that go nowhere. So let me know..in sort of a gentle way. Thanks!

Joseph

Mumble your prayers, father;

     I know

those hands call up lilies like songs.

Keep watch. Hold

    your almond-

eyes still. 

I wait on you.

Unsteady tonight -

    again my toes

       trace - awkwardly bright,

whore’s red and swollen

        cold -

along the crack between us

        that grows.

Fourth Friday Prompt From Spinning Straw into Gold

Martine Johanna, website

Christie has her Fairy-Tale prompt up again! It runs through this Friday, and then another will begin. 

There is a lot I like in this poem, and a lot I feel very uncertain about (the whole second stanza is especially subject to moodiness and editing). The prompt Christie gave (Martine Johanna's image on the right) is fascinating, and I just fell into a tiny part of the overall picture.  

Advice, edits, critiques, and comments are always appreciated, even if you write something like "Oh Masha, oh no..no, no, no..".  

 Where Dreams Wait

Night builds her stars

     from heartache,

  and all the tears lonely women lose

       holding arms too full of longing.

Under the half-moon

     rising; she gathers in

long fingers full of silver, to burn-

   votive, against the dark sky-song,

until all hang waiting

    for that moment 

when, falling they call 

  all our dreams to life.

Open Editing #1

So this is my attempt to live out courage in writing. This poem is very much at an in-between stage, I haven't even begun to look at arranging the lines - visually, but feel free to suggest anything. I've changed everything so many times that I really don't know what exactly needs improvement. But I do feel sort of an unfinished, dissatisfaction with it..maybe it just tries too hard..any thoughts??

“Hush,”

sing the demons.

        “Sleep close, soft dreams -

the winter moon’s rising,

         a dead air drowns the night.

The time has come for dreaming.

Don’t wait; don’t cling

         to beads and lose

the chance to see ahead.

         Cover the Icons,

put out their lights -

          close the way for them.

With bread and cream at table, smoke and sweat -

          bodies tangled. Lie still while we

and the dead come calling

           to dance along your palm in moonlight;

and sing tomorrow’s song.

Fourth Friday Fairy-Tale prompt (from Spinning Straw into Gold)

(I almost gave up month, because I'm not happy yet with this one, and I generally don't like sharing poems I'm not completely happy with, but the prompt is designed to encourage us to open up a bit writing-wise with each other, and so here it is, warts and all. Be kind with criticism, please, but do give it!)






Rusalka

 

Why do you call us
angels? Laughing at our bird’s wings
The river gave us?

You, smelling of incense and dark, earth-
birthed greens. Soft-eyed
boy under dying tree; thoughts
like early apples bursting in the sun-

come

               
              nearer. It will be

a baptism with us, while your eyes
reproach and tiny wings
sop the blood.