The Birth of Verses
The Birth of Verses
In servitude to muses, there comes a brake,
That leads to tightening of torment’s screw.
How much archery practice does it take,
For inspiration to pierce the mark right through?
On the table, peel lies freely scattered:
Golden fruit’s oval clothes freshly shed.
See conciseness, the sister of talent
Get cocooned in oblivion’s threads.
Now showers make good on their threat
To leave pen strokes on April’s fresh mornings.
There’s worth in their puppy-like zest,
Of the kind verse lines’ clandestine birth brings.
Those aren’t flower petals, whose swarms
Fall to earth, like snow’s white fluff —
Watch the verses arise, see their bonds
Grow so strong, getting numbstruck with love.
In them, sunset melts into night sky,
Russian language flows strong and unsullied.
A true poet’s tongue never grows shy,
Forging poems that air freely carries!
Based on the poem «The Seagull», by Georgi Leonidze
I love the way the waves remind me of…
The Victory fireworks are resurrecting in a flash
Past battles’ moments’ undisputed zeal.
The surplus remnants of half-burned-out stars
Fade over sea waves, night air’s growing chill.
It’s prey clutched in it’s beak, a seagull — a good omen! —
Flies skyward secretly from a foaming crest.
The waves grow restless, blobs of gloom are forming,
As if on a camel’s hump, in lumps they nest.
And then, at last, avoiding anyone’s notice,
With eyes like lakes and face two-thirds concealed,
Familiar features dart. And, with birdlike motions,
You spread your arms, intent on flying with the wind.
Intents like these don’t help us spin the world
By power of our gaze, like prize ball of success;
They aid inhaling life, while savoring our bond
With loved ones, giving them our heart’s kind rays.
I love the way the waves remind me of
The circle of your arms, that beg to let them bring
A sanctuary to my body and my soul —
A joy that I’m not blessed enough to sing.
I will miss..
I will poignantly miss the Black Sea,
The rumble of waves, rubbing the back of the quay.
Will I ever come back? Will joy prove stronger than grief?
Will the end the beginning’s mistakes outweigh?
Who can tell. To this day, quaint doubts don’t suffice
To hinder my life’s full-steamed roll
To my own Parnassus. The sense of these lines
To my heart’s like air, like the origin of all.
A process can feature a counting down,
Do grey locks bear crowning silver of wisdom?
Without wings, can a true takeoff be planned?
Can slyness make up for the shortage of reason?
I would feel bored if the heart in my chest
Would grow more life-like due to illness.
To foghorning poems it is suited best,
Let it siren with keen longings’ shrillness.
And, if words of love aren’t winds,
That rob the days of their garments of wilting —
Love, neither alive nor dead, I will
Heed to your polyphonous singing!
In Memory of the Charge of the Light Brigade
For life — there is life, for death — there is death.
The Light Brigade — the tears shed by widows,
Whose men will never return from those fields;
By mothers, who wait for their sons at the windows,
But will never see them, and won’t nurse their kids.
A hail of shrapnel scythed down a regiment
Of gentlemen, in battle that once froze
The nation’s blood. Their duty, without relent,
Led them into Gehenna’s fiery jaws.
Thrown into the flames of Hell — the six hundred,
Against the buckshot and the Russian bayonets.
A doubled profit on that day Death counted,
Without discrimination into «ours» and «theirs».
The mountains are still, the birds are racing
Across the heaven’s boundless swathe.
Hundreds of pale, worry-withered faces —
Mothers’ faces — turned to stone that day.
To the Immortal Gift of Forgotten Poet
The final gasp condemned the heart
To turn into a stifled flash, one of a list.
Like patina, immortality is spreading wild
And peeling with the paint of the obelisk.
It all has ended long ago. At times,
It used to be out of the trap and to the gallows.
Among the granite, homeland’s trembling lights
Are roaming, making stones less callous.
The moon shines ever brighter on the pillar,
The lampposts’ shadows hanging low.
Where’s his former fame? The praise of readers,
That, in his lifetime, never-ending flowed?
If an outlander dies, how would relate to him
Your gift, anointed with bygone age’s laments?
Without memory, body’s towering shelter is
But an echo of servility that ends.
Summer Heat
My friend hurdy gurdy, you’re also a maiden
You sing in your owner’s diligent hands.
Familiar faces grow happy and radiant
And gods become reckless in offering alms.
Should I take it kindly or, once more, oppose it?
Should I pout my lips or just watch on with «Aww!»
As heavens are baking and thick air is working
On making fresh-cooked treats go off?
Give me a glass of clear, ice-cold water,
That’ll make my teeth tap-dance all over the rim!
Let thirst’s foamy wave retreat and be smothered,
Let trickles run, teasing my swanlike neck’s skin!
Since summer is playing cruel jokes on us all,
Most sought after is the turquoise of the sea.
Let wind press it’s lips to a pipe light and hollow
And blow out a bubble of coveted chill!
About the author:
Victoria Shulika. Vctoria’s works first saw publication in The Sevastopol Almanac, the Green Lamp literary magazine and, later, in the Golden Verse. She has personal poetry pages on various social networks. Victoria became the winner of the «Golden Stanza – 2009» contest. Her public performances include taking part in the International Women’s Day and Victory Day concerts.
Victoria’s first collection of poems, «The Light, That Works Miracles For Us», was released in 2016, by the Moscow-based «Pero» publishing house. She is a candidate for the International Union of Writers.
Victoria has received higher education in Economics. She is married, with two children.
