Olga Suvorova

 

 

 

 

It was too late
when she got the phone
and said she regretted her attitude.
I could never understand
her choice. We were just 19.
We should never follow the night
into oblivion and nobody told us
we could so why did you decide
to hide the roses in mud so late?

Denise, Denise,
tell me what you can see
when the midnight stars melt
the sweetness of your eyes
as they tell you he is happy
without you.

Denise, Denise,
your tender eyes deceived me:
I never thought you would
change life, calling out death
to sit beside you.
Did you think you would punish him?
We were too poor to claim for justice.
He was too rich to care about you.

Denise, Denise,
Are you still sleeping?
I was told you are in limbo:
you violated your spiritual contract here.
You were supposed to put up with
all the heartache and pain.
Some say you were courageous.
Some say you were weak.
I say you were my lovely friend.
I say you were suffering so much.

Life has never been the same
after I found out love can be outrageous.
Denise - did he say "I love you?"
Did you believe his god's promises?

You know Denise,
faith couldn't sustain me for
a long time and I got angry because
I couldn't see your heart moaning
as I should:
you were so quiet and smiling
even wounded.

When we meet again,
we will sit, drink some coke,
watch some bands, preferably The Cure
and Duran Duran and talk about
the past before him.
I should have known you would prefer to die
rather than facing dishonor.
I know Denise, I know.
( I can still hear you after all these years)
I know you loved alone.

The roses are half smiling Denise.
( Can you see them?)
and they are smiling just for you, my friend.
Just for you.

Karla Bardanza

Denise - I love you. You still live, my friend.

 

 

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2012

Ennio Montariello

 

 

I still don’t know

who you are or if you are

something aching between

9-5 as you bite your lips

waiting for the same insane bus.

 

We both are too old

to evolve and turn into butterflies:

our hands and stains would denounce

our lack of perception and sensory awareness.

 

Simple things don’t electrify us

anymore; we are too busy paying bills,

counting the money we don’t have,

 riding other paranoias.

We are strange beings.

 

I can’t find where your old poetic notebooks

are hidden. You used to like rhymed poetry,

high heel shoes and make up.

We are on the periphery of ourselves,

resigned to what I dare not to say

because it hurts so much to be less

than we once were.

 

I have been thinking

we are nature’s mistakes,

maybe we are like two dizzy moons,

failing to distinguish the east from the west.

Our apparent motion knows no apogee or perigee.

What have we become after all these years?

Just wax figures in sealed honeycomb

with a thin layer of hope , my friend?

 

We used to burst through a D major.

It is sad to see our tight strings out of tune.

I feel for us.

Who stole our voices and small miracles?

When did we start to stare at our own photos for hours?

 

Karla Bardanza

 

 

For Katia

 

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2012

Painting by Marci Oleszkiewicz

I bleed for you all.

Substance of love in a cloud,

murmur of my heart.

Karla Bardanza

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2012

Painting by Ellen Eagle

As estrelas suspiram entre elas. O céu deita-se para ouvir. Deito no telhado, querendo saber como medir a eternidade. Há algo que está suspenso no ar e a oeste da Via Láctea. Bebo o leite da esperança, alimento-me do devir. O que há em mim é inominável e grandioso. Arrisco-me a ir mais longe do que posso sem medo, sem segredos que não possam revelados para mim mesma. Descubro que algo pode viver feliz em mim independente do quantos nomes a felicidade possa ser chamada. Fale-me sobre você e de onde você veio e poderá ir. Fale-me de coisas que aumentam a alma neste instante em que o tempo perde o tempo e a vida vive em mim. Estamos vestidos de amanhã e amanhã seremos e saberemos o nosso lugar no esquema do destino e das idéias. Somos.

Cheguei onde deveria estar e estive onde sempre deveria. (Re)conheço este lugar, vendo pela primeira vez o que sempre vi porque você está aqui, olhando para este mesmo céu e abrindo as flores com as mesmas palavras que tocam os oceanos e os metais. Nada pode pertubar este momento de gratidão as nuvens e ao infinito que me deixa tão menor diante dos Deuses e tão maior diante da agonia. Fale-me das tuas procuras e de como o desejo precipita-se sobre a beleza. Meus ouvidos aguardam a delicadeza de tuas palavras de algodão.

Escuto a tua imensidão enquanto o meu silêncio te cumprimenta. Esta sou eu com as mãos abertas para o teu sol e os teus ventos. Estás na poesia que sempre me procura.





Karla Bardanza
Para George






While the stars are whispering to each other



The stars are whispering to each other. Heaven lies down to listen. I lay on the roof, wondering how to measure eternity. There is something that is suspended in the air and to the west of the Milky Way. I drink the milk of hope, I feed myself with the concept of becoming . What is in me is nameless and great. I dare to go further than I can without fear, without secrets that can't be revealed to myself. I find that something can be happy in me regardless of how many names happiness can be called. Tell me about yourself and where you come from and can go. Tell me about things that raise the soul at this moment in which time loses time and life lives in me. We are dressed in tomorrow and tomorrow we will be and know our place in the scheme of destiny and ideas. We are.


I am where I was supposed to be and I have been where I should always be. I recognize this place, seeing for the first time what I have ever seen because you are here looking at this same sky and unfurling the flowers with the same words that touch the metals and the oceans. Nothing can disturb this moment of gratitude to infinity and to the clouds that make me so small before the Gods and so big before agony. Tell me about your quests and about the desire that precipitates beauty. My ears are awaiting the delicacy of your words of cotton.


I hear your vastness while my silence greets you. This is me with open hands to your sun and your winds. You are in the poetry that always looks for me.


Karla Bardanza


For George


This poem was originally written in Portuguese. Then I translated it into English. I hardly ever do that but I liked it so much so I did it.

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2012

Painting by Alphonse Mucha



As we lay on the grass,

savouring and saving the world,

pretending our future is not diminishing

and Mother Earth hasn't been abused,

we profess our love to every living creature,

breathing a kind of peace we will never have.

For some minutes you forget apartheid

and I ignore twenty years of dictatorship,

celebrating life as it should be when

we were teenagers.

A wave of solidarity wash through us

and we go from oblivion to calm resignation

as we paint our memoirs, drinking our semi-sweet wine.

The whole world belongs to us:

trees, stars, oceans, flowers, mountains

no matter how difficult it might have been

for us to believe we were human beings too.

We are still breathing in spite of

blindness, ignorance, violence, intolerance.

We are still here.

Let's enjoy our picnic:

Our hour is here.

Our time is now.

Karla Bardanza

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2011