The Exclusive publishing series by Olga Slobodkina

1. Nothing else will pan out tonight...
   I've taken pix of some gorgeous roses in the park,
     prodigious reflections in the ponds,
      fantastic abstraction in the city - constructivism...

I'm coming back home
  with pre-prepared food
   bought in a popular store,
     which can't hold a candle
       to my granny's cooking...

Why did I argue with her?!
  Hers was the best in the world!
   She'll never wait for me at home
     with a ready hot dinner anymore...

I'm coming back...
   So little is left...

And yet
  after a short rest on a bench
    I can see somе great lines of branches with leaves,
almost tires...
   I take out my camera -
this is a hope...

Maybe there will be something else...



June 27, 2024



                ***

2. "A man, young lady, such a man!
  Ah"!

Remember
  "Romeo+Juliet"
by Baz Luhrmann?

Her parents wanted
 to marry her off
  to Paris,
  but her fate was Romeo...


"His name is Romeo! And a Montague!
   The only son of your great enemy"!

It was too late - they fell in love
 before they knew
who
  their parents were.
And their tra-
 gedy
did put an end
  to the unfair war.

And what will put an end
  to our current wars?
The question's in the air
 as it was.


July 31, 2025


                ***

3. But this... before the waking up... -
     Ineffable...
It was like that in my sweet childhood,
   and in my passionate youth
     and always...

Then - I am ordinary,
 when during the day
  I go about my business.

But This - the Exit to the Incorporeal Bliss -
  remains before the waking up...
     It's inexplicable...
Like all conditions of the soul...
  Ineffable...
    A thread stretched to Eternity...



June 3, 2025



                ***

4. Tiran Island



It arises
   like a mirage in the desert,
    this island,
and floats towards the horizon.
 
 
  Tiran Island
    is now
just a dream
   to remember...
 
 
   It's good that I saw
  this aerial flight
   o'er the sea...


The sea is changing its color -
 azure,
   turquoise,
aquatints


Tiran Island
 is
in my memory.
 
 
   Now,
     whatever it is,
   I have seen it,
    I know it.
  It's a part of my being...


   And what do we have
except for our memories,
 our impressions...


We,
   particles
in the Memory of God...


December 19, 2015


5. My ideas are strong
  while I'm getting weak...
Weaker and weaker every year...

But for the epidemics and the wars
  and for the evil force
life would have been just fine...

However, things are what they are
  And we could not have changed them so far...


June 9, 2025

                ***

6. Life is waning...
  Whatever it is...
So little is left...

The best friends have died
  and so have all mine -
granny,
  stepfather,
    mom...

I'm a little girl,
   alone in this world...

But when I had just come to this world
  and didn't know its ways
I had a mom
  who was the whole of my life...

Now she is gone...

Where is she?
  I do not know...

I'm still here,
  but this is not for long...



June 7, 2025

                ***

7. All these great women,
   including Cleopatra,
    who I admire,
are alien to me...

I do not know their hearts.
  I cannot read their minds...

They are just fine examples
 of how to promote my arts...



April or May 2025


                ***


8. I have my little happiness in the morning
   when I'm half awake
and my Angel
  is writing His Poetry
in my mind...


May 14, 2025



                ***

9. T'is love
  that makes us tender
And lack of love
  can harden up the heart...




Dec. 9, 2024


                ***

10. There are no dead for me...
  Those who are gone...
continue to live in my mind.


But this is true
  only for those I love...


And those I don't
  are dead for me...
    even if they're alive...


So what I said at the beginning
     is not true -
  some are really dead for me...


This is my mind's reality...



June 7, 2013


                ***

11. That is what makes me alive -
  Oh, this great upsurge of spirit at dawn,
  Ebb of the feeling when the Light
  Wants to dissolve in the cavity womb of the Night.
 
  Maybe, the same I shall feel
  Making the Last Change on Earth?
 
 
 
 
  July 2, 1997
 

                ***

12. There suddenly came a miracle -
He and She.
Two white butterflies
Floated in the sea
Of a white flower's love,
Their wings overlapping.
They were happy.
We watched them from above -
You and Me.




Summer 1988


                ***

13. With the years
  you begin to realize -
no one will love you
  as much as your parents,
your grand parents,
  especially when they are gone...

Your grown-up kids
  don't need you
as much as before...

Your great love
  forgot you long ago...

Your husband
  has just been
the father of your babe...

Your brothers and sisters
  are having their own lives
and only the childhood memories
  are a connection...

Your friends
  are no friends,
but acquaintances -
  better or worse...


Your contribution to this world
   is miniscule
and your death is not such a big deal...



July 6, 2011



14.  Luxurious jasmine...
  But... it's raining cats and dogs...
Indeed!
 The English dogs retreat,
  cats even more so...

My hands are busy - cannot make a take!
  And holding the umbrella lightly...
Tomorrow it may be too late, may be no fate.
  And who can look into tomorrow tightly!


The rosehip fruits
   are hanging green
and soon they'll turn completely ripe and red...
 Its flowers are gone...

But Royal Jasmine!
   You are not forlorn.
     Poems and verses!
You stand in blossom
   like a steady rock.
Among the flowers
  you are the Gorgeous White and Fairytale Peacock!


June 13, 2024


15. All that belonged to us -
  the little yard with trees,
    with little wooden houses,
      the mansion's also ours -
        PALACE FOR CHILDREN...

Yes, poor we were.
  Who wasn't at that time!

We didn't care.
Nobody cared.

But we felt rich -
  inside,
    we were in love,
      our parents young
       and full of life
         and happy...

And life itself
  that seemed to be Eternal
   was evolving
    like happiness itself.

We were in love...

We thought
  that all the happiness
   was well in store for us
     and that was just a bridge
       to happiness,
         just the beginning
           of the future treasures
             while it was real bliss...



We realized it later,
   later,
     later...





Oct.22, 2004




16. Who wasn't caught by the net of the Lord of Desire?
Who wasn't driven to the verge of ecstatic oblivion
  to be then scooped and hollowed out
   by lovers' night work?

Who didn't become the great slave of passions
  at least for a while...

Very few managed to disentangle themselves
  from this cobweb -
   to go Further and Up
     Where the Spirit is Kind and Upright
       in the Gardens of Truth and of Light...

Those who did
 will remain
  with the Lord
   for Eternal Life...




Aug. 31, 2003


17. What makes a poet?
  No one knows...
But if poetry comes to you at night,
  by daylight,
on the tram
  or in the bathroom,
at a meeting,
  in a landscape
when you do not expect it just one bit...
  You may as well start thinking
you're guided...


The only question is by Who...?




August 1, 2023


18. In my sleep-dream
a posh estate
 in a mountain valley
   was preparing for a multi-day celebration.

And I was choosing words.
  The words formed into ice floes
    and - into a matrix
     on thin glass.

I remember
   the last two lines:

"Where, where are you, Beauty?
     The Ideal not found in me..."



December 20, 2007

19. The twinkling of the Sun
  in the dark green kingdom -
between the trunks (black graphics)
  of black trees -
in the forgotten swamps...

I looked inside
 and down -
  my soul got overwhelmed
   by the underwater
     mute
       depth.

I embroidered these strange pictures
  of flickering,
like silver on the silk,
  but only without a needle
or a hoop...

I clicked it - frame by frame -
   just lowering my finger on the camera,
     with every inch moving a little to the left...

My heart, the Sun were playing hide and seek
  with the Invisible Otherworld...
The Sun did follow me
  meandering
behind the trees' black trunks
  and flickered
with my destiny
  mysteriously rich
and deep...



April 25, 1999


20. In my sleep
  there comes somеthing -
snatches of emotions of the past,
  dense pieces of spirit...

When I wake up
 I can't even define it.

It was sо meaningful,
 then dissolved in the night.

So is my life -
  now it seems so important
and useful,
  then will dissolve in the Eternal Night...


Dec. 9, 2017


21. Whatever I do,
  wherever I go
my regrets stand in a row
  in my soul...

I cannot quench this sor-
  row...

A prayer helps a little,
  but it comes back tomorrow...



Aug. 28, 2023


22. Those who I love
   are alive -
they live in my heart
  even if they are gone...




June 5, 2012


23. This tree,
   this pine-tree
was absolutely lovely in the field
  and absolutely round -
like the head of a close-cropped Tobago girl.

But all the snows of Russia
 did not let
me make such fine comparisons,
  because
I do not have to lose myself
  in mysteries of an exotic mind,
my sense of orientation in the world
  of both - reality
and wild imagination.



Jan. 7, 2005


24. This Summer is hot
  and things seem to be close,
even though the city is huge.

Sometimes I go to the river
  and when I'm in town
I imagine there's the sea somewhere near...

I need the sea, really,
  after so many years of staying at home...

I thought I'd be living in Egypt,
  but life is a better guide...

How much is left?
  No matter how much,
life is short
  and there is so much to do
and so many more places
 I'd love to go to...



Aug. 17, 2022


25. They say
  love stays with you
until the end
  after you leave your sweet...

No, that is not true.

It is archived and locked
  somewhere
in the back larder of your mind...


And if after a while the spirit touches
 the strings subsided long ago
  it may but break the lock and fly...


However, until then
  it'll be archived and locked,
   archived and locked...




Jan.13,2020
New Year old style




 
END OF PART VI