Best Georgian Poems
Attached to the trees,
...of his mind’s fascination.
Caressing virgin pages
With a borrowed pen.
Trapped in a time...
...of being owned by someone.
Where freedom was only,
for the birds in the wind.
He’s heard of New York,
He’s heard of LA...
These are the thoughts,
He shares with the moon...
The humid day...
...blows dust on his face.
His father runs over,
“Get ta pickin’ boy soon!!!”
The freedom has silenced,
Reality...came back to mind.
No one’s ready for the truth he uncovered,
Not even the land...that he proudly calls home.
Freedom does exist...
Within the mind of a poet.
Not just in the sky...
Where the freedom bird’s flown.
At his father’s request,
He starts pickin’...pickin’ inspiration...
.. on desolate plantations of lies,
...of his father’s 40 acres and a mule.
Shackled to his dreams,
The wind whispers slavery’s sorrow...
Hummed by the workers abroad.
Lord, this boy’s not a cotton pickin’ fool.
Uneducated...his creations are sketches,
Poems in pictures of young boy dreams...
In the midst of slavery...he’s only a slave to his art,
And only...on the page can he run and play...
His music...is the worker’s song ...pickin’ cotton blues,
The rhythm of chains, and whistles of security afar.
For now...he sneaks off to his muse...a shade tree,
Hiding from the hot Georgian sun at bay.
While American kids ride their bicycles,
His recess is confined to his mind.
As the whistles grow farther into the distance,
It’s time for his imagination to play and run.
With bloody hands...he hums aloud,
Cooled by the un-racial breeze...caressing virgin pages...
...sketching his poems with a borrowed pen,
Under the very tree...where his forefather’s hung from...
________________________________________
Note: Inspired by the work of Christopher Higgins
I open my eyes.
All around me,
everything is unfamiliar:
unfamiliar wallpaper,
unfamiliar white leather sofa,
unfamiliar country.
I moved here to teach,
and here I am learning
that I’m underprepared,
underqualified,
underdressed,
and hungover.
He wouldn’t let me leave last night,
you see.
As the party was dying,
I coloured his bathroom
with oversweet Georgian wine
and washed down chicken wings
that came back up.
He decided:
I could miss the last metro,
sleep on this atrocious sofa,
recover.
Of course,
now it’s 7am,
and I have to teach a class
of engineers,
bridge builders,
about ing phrasal verbs
in less than two hours.
And I have to do it
with a hangover and a smile.
I think to myself
as I struggle with front door locks and keys
before climbing out of a downstairs window,
what a strange story this will be.
And yet waking up here,
it could be a whole lot worse
than this beautiful Baku sunrise.
Translated from Georgian into English by Manana Matiashvili
All that figurative language
I’ve acquired from you:
“Life is tough”,
“Sweet is the soul”,
“Sky’s the limit”,
“Truth will out”.
“Knowledge is power”,
“Weep and you weep alone”,
One can be “all at sea” sometimes,
“The heart of man is like waters of the well”,
“Guest is sent from God”,
“Let go and let God”…
And so on… and so many sayings
Am collating now into poems
And stitching stories…
But seems as if Alazani River
Has washed them out
And taken all the words.
Three years passed,
Hence our roles have changed,
I play the same games, mostly “housing”…
Just now am standing jammed
At juncture of the ground and sky,
Hesitating to choose direction, it means,
I have no idea to blow warmth up
Or to blow down…
Who will play with me with shifted roles?
The games named: “schooling”,
“housing” and “motherhood“?
Genres: life, family, sad, personality
Glancing down from breathless heights,
Amidst climey sighs,
The looming colossus awakens from slumber
And stretches across Thelwalls linear skies.
The hot engines hissing steam -
Recalled from fond memories long back -
Tumbling like huffing little rain clouds
Down from the lofty metal track;
Wherein brightly painted carriages:
The publicans daughter, the verger,
The magistrate, the chief executive -
Seated first class, all habitually sat.
Swift grandiose arches, a celebration
Trumpeting the artful masons cunning devise,
Boast loudly of the great towers
Parallelogram of terrific forces:
Crossing over in giant leaping strides.
Here below, like Hercules reclining,
The stoic gates of Latchfords black fortress locks
Lift to brace against the immense swell
Far and beyond the chimming remarks
Of Greenhalls absolute, mechanically proven,
Georgian bell;
When, ensconced within a purpose-built,
Purple brick tower:
Strikes the centuries old brewery clock
On the twelfth
Of every God given hour.
A rich bankers cantilever
Pushes doggedly against opposing, sheer,
Red Sandstone walls;
Again the mauve and azure rock pigeon claps...
And then...coo, coo, cooingly calls.
Dry buzzing heat blurs over
The hum of a high noons imcumbent midday;
The coup-de-gras scimitar wing stoops -
To fasten onto its slower-witted prey!
Steeped sides slipping amidst tumbling yellow
Gorse and sporadic flowers
Balk at the foreboding waters edge,
Where, over the denizens swirling bowers,
The resolute little rusting lugger,
Puffing and chugging,
relentlessly dredges and scours;
Churning the murky Eastham silts
That drab Manchester draw:
Into the vast hollowing quays
On beachless, concrete Salfords industrialized,
High-rise dockland shore.
Through the deepest part of the black
Channel
A salt grimed hulk smoothly slips...
Attached by a twisted hemp to the tugboat
That hauls the great ships.
Stirred by the bow waves
Flowing and ebbing like currents in time:
From the trough to the peak
The jettison and flotsam climbs -
Before succumbing to powerful undercurrents
Of irresistible designs!
Cucumbers, celery and stem-vine tomatoes
were hobnobbing with my Russett potatoes.
Pears and plums and one Georgian peach
winked at the Wisk and Snuggled the bleach.
Pretzels and popcorn and the Tostitos chips
ogled in awe as Meyer's bacon strips stripped!
Mr. Clean and Mrs. Dash espied a risqued art -
when double-clipped coupons tainted the cart!
With the grandeur of prairies and canyon
With Georgian welcomes from Springer Mountain
With cooler welcomes of Katahdin
America rises with five million feet
To exult among more mosses, mammals, trees
Than have survived in spaces smaller than countries
A president named Teddy signed off on it
America rises with these five million feet
With delirious descent of peregrines
With the swooping swish of eagles with fish
With raising and saving whooping cranes
America still rises across millions of feet
Grace as in the disappearing Chestnut
Timelessness and wonder in the redwood
Gifts of Euphorbia, Aster, Camelia
America rises in chlorophyll and feet
With red and green blood that will unify
With Hibiscus threatened by goats in Hawaii
America rises and falls from view
America for all, always preserved by the few
(c) First published with gratitude in 2005; God Bless America - and the rest of humanity. Shalom, shalom!
June 11, 2016
I sit on the balcony of a research station in Georgian Bay, disconnected from the world.
The vast waters open up before me, with the rocky beach expanding off to each side,
A blue sky ahead dappled with little white tufts, the sun slowly retreating to the west.
I am engulfed by cedars, spruce, birch, aspen...
Surrounded by waxwings, vireos, sparrows, robins, warblers, chickadees…
And though I thought of nothing when I stepped out onto this balcony,
I find myself seeing us – you, me, and humanity – in everything around me.
There is the ever-present thunder of waves pounding the shores.
Deceivingly pristine, looking warm and peaceful on the surface,
But with tumbled rocks – evidence of a tumultuous past – visible just below.
The predictability of the powerful waves is comforting.
It is familiar yet humbling, and exposes our imperfect human traits.
Like a mistake we repeat over and over – ‘history is destined to repeat itself’.
Though initially it seems different each time, the end result is the same: we get drenched.
The songs of the many birds compete for the attention of mates,
Like the voices of seven billion people all trying to be heard in some form or other;
As with the birds, some are heard louder than the rest,
And there are some who will remain forever unheard from where we are standing.
In the trees I watch the leaves flutter – particularly characteristic of the trembling aspen.
I remember how we feel together, running our fingers along our skin so as to barely touch,
As if we would shatter like glass into a thousand pieces.
The wind taunts sea birds seeking to land, and appears to enjoy rustling the trees.
Hundreds of Sandhill cranes take a rest on the alvar from their migration,
They seem to tiptoe unknowingly across this precious landscape of moss microcosms,
Like many who pass their lives not seeing or appreciating the subtleties of human interaction.
The sun paints the horizon – a woman in red and gold waiting to be forever chased.
The Bay is choppy, yet I can see us staring back at me in everything.
The picture of imperfection. A perfect reflection.
At Cafe Bacho
This evening we sat in Cafe Bacho on King George street after
House of the Flying Daggers
The most poetic film I ever saw
I said
And I sank into a romantic triangle
which is not possible with this bizarre
waitress with a chopped hair-cut
I said to her
that she is special
She said
So are you
Then I reminded my ex-husband that a sentence can lie within another sentence
He used to hold my hand with courage for courage's sake
Tears fell down my cheeks and sank in the jasmine tea,
which the waitress
Brought
Maybe it’s she who really made me cry
She seemed like a Christian Georgian woman in a homely pub in Tbilisi
You said:
The cushions are over here
You mentioned that Erez called and didn't mention me
You said:
He got burnt
Not a word about
You
I said that I also thought about him
I said that Oren called
And you explained how she died a mysterious death she the poetess
Who went after anyone who wanted her
In Eilat
An investigation won’t bring the words back
I spoke with a free spirit
But the butterfly didn't fly
translated from Hebrew:
Michael Simkin
(A little poem written at a research station)
Adventurous cottagers challenge blue waters
They feel as homely as the gulls screaming ‘mine!’
With white sails they traverse the great blue horizon
Expanses of Canadian beauty – a shrine.
The waves they come crashing on limestone beaches,
With crustacean fossils from eons ago,
While people keep trodding and paying no mind,
They step over history they’ll now never know.
Oh Grebe Lodge, near an alvar, in Wingfield Basin,
You host many minds intrigued by your treasures,
Unsung insect heroes, the great tree-topped bluffs,
And all in between, a naturalist’s pleasures!
Still tourists fly great distances to seek beauty,
Ontario: what a home we inhabit!
Yet we plunder and pillage without reservation,
How lucky we are, we don’t often deserve it.
The shipwrecks that litter the Bay and its neighbours,
They carry ghost sailors of centuries past,
With mysteries untold amidst scattered cargo,
The people, the vessels, are resting at last.
The islands like flower pots and caves unexplored,
Attracting spelunkers from far and from wide,
The Sturgeon returning like fossils reviving,
Miraculous homecoming brought in by the tide.
How fortunate are we all on the Georgian Bay,
Where the waters are freezing and get very deep,
Just maybe, dear Nature if you would allow us,
We might one day discover the secrets you keep.
June 11, 2016
This Regency Dandy flying across the river,
Jumping Jack Flash of kingfisher blue that
I was lucky t see, this dainty dandy of English rivers and streams.
A compact colourful apparition my sore eyes waited some
Sixty years to see, others boast much earlier visitations of these
Bluish-green, orange and red feathers attached to a Cyrano De Bergerac
rapier beak,
Outshining the honking harrying flotillas of Canada geese not capable of
Competing with this fisher of minnows, as we strolled across the Georgian
Bridge at Blatherwycke straddling the nonchalant flowing Nene of this
shire of shires,
Now of only one squire, but still many fine spires in this shire of Northampton.
Shattered glass
The glass all shiny
Stands almost invisible
Filling a gap to form a window
In the old Georgian house
Letting you see the wonder beyond
The shiny pane of glass.
Until one day
It begins to fall apart
Looking dull and broken
As slowly it crumbles
Piece by piece
The glass shattering cascading down
Resembling a ferocious waterfall,
As you roll away
Being washed by waves of glass
Tumbling down, swept away
Like shattered glass
Restoring far-off times,
With stilted, Georgian rhymes,
He tried repealing Fate
Two centuries too late.
And when he saw the worth
Of poems dead at birth,
He turned his pen to write
Strange fantasies at night.
Then when the morning came,
He signed his unknown name.
To one more priceless page
Forgotten by his Age.
Forgotten, all except
For friends who paid their debt
By publishing him till
His fame no Fate can kill.
What is my conception of love?
Now that I let me straw hat rest
On the rocks of Moses’ teachings
Now that I behold robins pick my seeds
What is my conception of love?
Love is an old cotton Djellaba
I wear early sometime in December
When Goethe’s muse rambles alone
The deserted Georgian streets of Borjomi
Eliza found a perennial Canadian love
Probably in the wings of a broken dove
She tends to it by late May rosewater
Sadly, she shuns the idea of a second abandonment
You know that I know that nothing remains the same
Not even my grandmother’s sesame candies
Let me just sip alone those cups of rusty mirage
My brown Turkish beret shall rest alone
On the broken trim of a shaded window
Overlooking a battered copy of Truth and Method
While out and about
an unexpected over bare ring bout
to defecate arose,
where sphincter asserted clout
and would excrete
despite without doubt...
if closing distance
(to reach rental abode)
beaten out by loosening sphincter muscle
transmitting excretory code
set sights on prowl for outlawed, secluded,
and wooded make shift commode
and essentially for naught negating
toddler toilet training, sans
getting potty trained undone
via my tushy ready to explode
and blast immense solid waste byproduct
(oh...close to the size of Rhode Island)
thus a marathon race against time
found immediate readiness to pull off roadside
to access make shift water closet
generating image firmly in pooping mode
grabbing hold of a tree trunk
(a mini rocky horror picture show, -
this analogy included for no particular reason
other than as a non-sequitur)
and also to convey, how I tried
to allay distractions
while painful contractions flowed
(perhaps approximating woman
on verge of giving birth)
but...no matter, aye could envision,
an ever increasing heavy m*****f****** load
hence approaching Highland Manor Apartments
this chap abandoned
prior simultaneous evacuation plan
starkly aware probability for secluded spot sunk
(nonetheless, thy darting darting
anguish, futile lizard like lookout,
a geico Gekko whose cheeks did blush
even for a measly Georgian bush
quickened nsync with rectal spasms
visual scouting industrialized
where backhoes didst crush
once a time sacred happy hunting grounds
of native Americans, now royally flush
with newly built vinyl city re: urban sprawl a gush,
where cookie cutter houses long since bringing hush
puppies muzzled, yet never the less and mush
a doo doo about nothing) except sprint
ting to the verizon with a void push
immortalizing indigenous tribes ghosts rush
peopling infrastructure affixing
urbanization with lamb basted,
and sigh lance warrior whoosh!
Home
the place where my roots
hold to the very centre of the earth
yet wander beyond
the edges of the universe
made of tree and rock
pounding georgian surf.
shared with loon and goose and wolf,
seasoned through seasons turning,
cradled, I flourish find words,
held fast here in time and space.
I have eaten from the earth,
my tears and joys fallen into its soil.
our substances intertwined
we know sisterhood.