LITTLE COSMIC DUST POEM

   Out of the debris of dying stars,
   this rain of particles
   that waters the waste with brightness...

   The sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
   collapse of the giant,
   unstable guest who cannot stay...

The Wanderer

     Doom is dark and deeper than any sea-dingle.
     Upon what man it fall
     In spring, day-wishing flowers appearing,
     Avalanche sliding, white snow from rock-face,
     That he should leave his house,
     No cloud-soft hand can hold him, restraint by women;
     But ever that man goes

A WOMAN RUNNER'S ATTEMPT AT WRITING A LOVE POEM

Waking up in your arms

My sun baked hair blending into the dark hairs of your chest

Your arms are as soothing as good run

The jam on the wheat bread I baked yesterday

RUNNING TWO YEARS AGO

My legs imitate the rhythms of my heart

Learning the joy of putting my feet down most effectively

Rain drops in the eye

Green pines bounce by

Mists emanate from the black asphalt roads

NIGHT RUNNING

When a daylight runner runs into night she gets another world

Rick-racking on simple side streets

Avoiding pollution and eye-jabbing car headlights

My feet are road eaters of smooth roads.



The golf course is painted by sprinkler ghosts

Bending their bodies to the ground

RUNNING AWAY

At 5 am, I had to run away

From the threatening phone calls of my husband

My body welcomed the morning

I was in control of the peopleless, dogless, semi-lighted world

I was invited to conduct the birds' chorus

WHY I RUN IN THE FLORIDA MORNING

For forty years, I have preferred to sleep late

Now

Mornings are always pastel colored

Sprayed by fluffy mists

Flitting through the age-grayed trees ahead of me

The sugar perfume of the orange blossoms

Hits me like running into a scented featherbed

LUNCH RUN

Running to my attorney's office to sign my will to

                        disinherit my alcoholic husband

The next client

Was dressed in the same suit my husband had worn at our wedding

I ran away to the river two mile cross-country course

Where I had previously run my fastest miles

THE WILD THING

Who can understand the wild thing

Clinging to the crying tree

Running over mountains

Long hair held like a wedding veil by the ghosts who sing.



Who can understand the wild thing

Balletting from one man to another

PEOPLE I MEET RUNNING AROUND

I was jogging and he rode his bicycle beside me

Giggling, gabbing along

Laughing at our joint silly comments

He pointed out new views on my old back street jogging course

Seven years he had worked on an excellent poem

MARATHON MEMORIES

At the starting line, carnival-like preparations for the day

Just like any distance race

But I wonder if I am in reality

Knowing that I will be permanently changed in a few hours.



Shadows make black footprints on the road

A RUNNING LUNCH

Escape from work on fleeing feet

I run to the river where I can't get lost

Feet flowing through the flowers of the river park

Trees very pregnant with blossoms

Giving birth to purple flowers

A FINGER TO YOU, GREAT MOTHER GODDESS

I read in Runner's World that running with a virus-caused fever

                        could result in death



A finger to you, Great Mother Goddess

For sending me the muscle-pulled leg so that I wouldn't run

                        with a week's weak fever

TRUE CONFESSIONS

When I first mentioned my pending long run to my Dad

Asking him if he would mail me my shoes along the way

He said, "Buy your own shoes."



When my husband made the threatening phone calls

PAINFUL RUN

The Monday morning run was routinely spring beautiful

But even running

Every cell of my body was just plain pain

I was starving for tender fruit

ANOTHER MORNING RUN

Last evening a mocking bird tried a lullaby

As I ran by

Darkness came up behind me

And folded me into his/her cool arms

Shoving away the heat

So I could sleep with the windows locked and the doors

AT ELLIE'S IN ERIE PA.

Like a recalcitrant horse who doesn't want to leave the barn

I take my body out

Always finding woods to run

Leaping to embrace a clearing

Chasing a groundhog

YEAR AROUND RUNNING WITH BAD TECHNIQUE

I'm a spring person

A tip toe runner

Eating with my eyes

The sugar candied first buds of spring.

 

I am a summer person

AFTER THE RAIN

Cool rain-washed morning

I ran into the egg white clouds pounding the

                        spring flower smells

Till the gray-navy curtain came down and I thought

HEAVY HAIR NIGHT AFTER THE BOSTON MARATHON

I was too slow to go

 

Lonely night

Thinking of my long absent husband

My heavy hair drinking more the night moisture

So it becomes even heavier

SPRING FLORIDA FOG

Morning Run in the spring fog

            It holds me

Protecting me from all the evils of obscene remarks

From sons of dogs of the human species.

Only the familiar barking of the fenced dogs

ADVICE TO A FEMALE RUNNER

Honor your body

For it is the only one you will ever have.

The wind came up

And I counted the muscles of my body

FOR THE LOVE OF RUNNING

The love of running

Gave me running feet

Running mouth

Running typewriter

Classical Roses

     Once, when the dreams would bloom - the times were those -
     In peoples hearts, transparent and aflame,
     How fresh, how beautiful have been the roses
     Of my love, of my spring, and of my fame!

     The years have passed, many a tear flows -

They all speak about the same thing

 



 
     Nightingales of monastery garden,
     Like all nightingales flying above,
     Say that there is but one joy in living,
     And that this joy comes in form of love.

     And the monastery meadows flowers

Praise to the Fields

 



 
     My fields, my wave-like, foaming fields!
     With autumn spinach, brown as if of bricks,
     And lettuce, clover, heather and daisy.
     How much the eyes can hear and ears can see!

     I walk along the side of the river.

To One Different from Others

 



 
     Youre in no way like other women at all:
     You have laughter controlled and expressive,
     You wear dresses measured and fashionably long
     And you slip out from my embraces.

     You do not cut your hair to look upscale,

Poem to Death

 
 
     In name of the Lord I forbid you to come
     Into the house where Lord willed for life to bloom
     In name of God I forbid you, death!

     Is there not enough space in the whole wide world -

To Felissa Kruut

 



 
     My dear Felissochka! My most exquisite!
     I give you "Minstrel" and all my dreams.
     You are beloved by all thats delicate,
     My sweet Felissa - My violin!

     May to the crude one you be an egotist -

Cultivated Lilac Blooming

 



 
     In violet and purple bloomed the lilac,
     The lilac bloomed in pink and white and pale.
     We headed toward it on a tortuous trail
     Across an ancient fur and furrowed park.

     Sea to the left; river ahead, and hills -

Brilliant Poem

 



 
     I do not want to live my life, like all,
     Living like squirrels in a hamster wheel,
     Walking around in circles, being slaves,
     Afraid of storm and of the ocean waves.

     I want to live uplifted like an eagle;

Poem of Feeling of Spring

 



 
     You are ready from gloom to suicide,
     Hang yourself, or shoot in the mouth.
     Wait a while - and the spring will come to your side
     After just three more snowy months.

     Nightingales of the cherry will whistle,
     Full of nightingales cherry will stand.

Poem to Refugees

     In these miniature Russian colonies
     Those who are hiding from lawlessness
     Their sinful bodies and souls,
     Interests are so pitiful
     Feelings vicious and hypocritical:
     They seek only food and warmth.

     They all eat - it is only appropriate,

Poem of Old Rhythms

 



 
     O you the ancient rhymes and rhythms,
     Seized on by many poets,
     The banal, cheap, and puny ones,
     Cliches overcooked and boiled!
     You sound with the guitar strings,
     With rhythms and rhyme impoverished,

Poem of Despair

 
 
     I know nothing, I trust in nothing,
     I no longer in life see its brighter side.
     I approach my friend as if he were a lion
     I need nothing else. I am bored and tired.

     Someone knifes someone, smothers another..

Poem to Luminous Brother

 
 
     To birds and to poets the Lord all their sustenance gives:
     I dont reap or sow, but for a second year I exist.
     And for kind song-poems the people whore also kind
     Will forgive your errors and sins, too, if any they find.
     Who needs the art now? Who needs it - I do not know,

Poem of the Reason for Cheer

 



 
     We live in astounded wonder
     At change of contrasting events.
     Viennas horrors and hunger
     Threw us into chills and cold sweat.

     And that, which we left on the east side -

Painted Ones

 



 
     Theyre "red" today, and theyre "white" tomorrow -
     Ah, no tapestry! No flowers, this!
     Tiresome to me to the point of nausea,
     Small people hideous and turned to beasts.

     Lowly today and tomorrow lowly,

Love is causelessness

 



 
     Love is a causelessness. Thoughtlessness even.
     To love for a reason? I love for I feel.
     Love is like a troika, demented and rabid,
     Rushing toward a ship that is leaving to sail.

     Where to? Does not matter. I like aimless journeys.

Introduction

 



 
     Im nightingale: no traits I carry
     And without special depth I sing.
     But everyone, from crone to baby,
     Will know me, singer of the spring.

     Im nightingale, I am a graybird,

Overture

 



 
     Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
     Deliriously tasty, sparkling and bright!
     Im in something from Norway! Im in something from Spain!
     Im inspired in bursts and I sit down to write.

     Planes are screeching above me! Automobiles are running!

In Luminous Darkness

 
 
     Tuxedoed, attired immaculately, the high-society gentlemen
     Stupefying their faces, brought themselves into a room,
     I gave a forced smile, sarcastically ash and darkness remembering:
     A new poetic motif unexpectedly breaking the gloom.

     Every line - a slap on the cheek. My voice - torture, atrocity.

Champagne Polonez

 
 
     Champagne in a lily! Champagne in a lily!
     With health and with wisdom it sparkles and shines!
     A shot of Mignon with one of Escamillio
     Champagne in a lily - a sacred wine.

     Champagne in a lily bursting and sparkling -

Oblivion in Sin

 
 
     All joy - in the past, irretrievable and evanescent
     But in the present - prosperity and despair.
     The heart is tired and thirsts in fire at sunset
     Of love and passion - its lured by freedom from care.

     The heart is tired of prosperitys narrow confines,

Spring Day

 
 
     This day of spring is hot and golden -
     The citys blinded by the sun!
     Im me again! I am emboldened!
     Im in love, happy and Im young!

     The soul sings and bursts for the fields and

It Took Place At The Sea

 
 
     It took place at the sea, in the foam of the ocean,
     Where the carriage of city rarely arrives.
     In the tower of a palace the queen was playing Chopin,
     And to sound of Chopin the page fell in love.

     It was all very simple, it was all very dear:

Envy Not Your Friend

 



 
     Envy not your friend if hes more handsome,
     More intelligent or wealthier than you.
     Let his merits and let his successes
     Not tear up the laces on your shoe.

Breathe in the Sunlight

Breathe in the sunlight, live with the sunlight -
     And with the sun you will glisten too!
     The earth will be warm in the living sunlight
     Of hearts that knew of the light and good.

WILD SONGS, NOCTURNAL LOVE

                          WILD SONGS

                           Karl Marx 

                              II

                        NOCTURNAL LOVE

                  Frantic, he holds her near,
                      Darkly looks in her eye.
                  "Pain so burns you, Dear,
                      And at my breath you sigh.

WILD SONGS, THE FIDDLER

                               WILD SONGS

                                Karl Marx

    I.
       
                             THE FIDDLER

                 The Fiddler saws the strings,
                 His light brown hair he tosses and flings.
                      He carries a sabre at his side,
                      He wears a pleated habit wide.

TRANSFORMATION

                     EARLY LITERARY EXPERIMENTS 
 
 
                             TRANSFORMATION 
 
               Mine eyes are so confused, 
                   My cheek it is so pale, 
               My head is so bemused, 
                   A realm of fairy-tale. 
 
               I wanted, boldly daring, 
                   Sea-going ways to follow,