Luton Airport
People, passengers, everyone going somewhere, somewhere else
I love seeing them; there are so many nationals. Hmm. A half hour ago, I shopped
A white Bacardi, and beside me, I heard Polish words. I looked there
A very likable par. A young Polish woman and a man. I asked them.
(They shopped at the self-service checkout)
Are you Polish? “Yes.” They answered. Nice to meet you, I said. I am a Hungarian
I told them. We talked a bit. Not too much time. They were friendly. Polish and Hungarian
They are brothers and sisters. They are on a different line. I just think. I am still sitting here
So many people walking in front of me, I am sitting on a bench, and the pubs are full here
In this airport. Always
Good to see these people here. How many nations are there? I don’t know. I don’t know
Someone is going to the Parish, someone to Bucharest, Someone to Warsaw, Someone to Krakow. And to so many places, cities, and countries. They're just flies, from my mind
I saw all of them—many faces, souls, characters. My heart is in pain. I can’t see them anymore
Have a Good Journey!!
God Bless You!
All the Best!
All to You
Love You!
There once was a dumb blonde from Warsaw
'twas the dumbest blonde I ever saw.
She was bound for Krakow
but wound up in Moscow
holding a kielbasa in each paw.
This dumb blonde headed back to Warsaw
without kielbasa in either paw.
Under a chair beneath
she had lost her false teeth
and had to eat sausage through a straw.
written March 15, 2011
I checked the syllable counts in each line myself
In Bedzin and in Krakow they breathed in
What they denied in conscious thought or word.
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin
Penetrating lungs so deep within
The dead unburied mixed, in air secured
In Bedzin and in Krakow, mortal sin.
The nearby people turned to burial urns.
The human dust by breathing was allured
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin.
So Europe took their human ash within.
A graveyard we became unknown, impure.
In Bedzin and in Krakow, more of sin.
And who they thought destroyed lived on in them
Controlled their lungs, their hearts their minds uncured,
The ashes of the Jews, borne in their skin.
Like a mass communion without words
We ate and breathed the Jews, the gays, unheard
In Bedzin and in Krakow we walked in
The ashes of the lost, the glades of skin,
A career path
The fireplace is full of ash and cold spring is here
walls full of sooth time to either get someone to clean
or paint the room.
A cleaner came she refused to clean the wall, a painter
wanted to paint the whole house since that was not
needed, he left in a huff, something about time wasting.
I called my friend from Krakow he has got a steady job,
but is willing to earn some extra the money he saving up
to send his daughter to university, the locals do not see
beyond lunch.
The slow thinking painter came back offered to do the job
painting after five, too late the man from Poland was
coming he left in the darkest of moods.
As for the cleaner she is selling herself at 30 euros my wife
has got that news from the hairdresser; when thinking of it,
an easier job than cleaning soothed walls even if she has
to unplug rusty pipes.
single malt sanity, sanitized, ionized,
with a little communion salt.
sprinkle replace, sprinkle to taste,
sprinkle with haste to the holy face.
yet still ground balsa wood icons
perfectly semitrical work to preserve
lesser linoleum countertop grains.
Like in winona minnisota where the midwest
vacuum sealed religion remains intact.
renewed morning by morning
by olive shaded stanley thermoses.
Displaced only on occasion by rubber
gripped cellphones and coffee mugs.
winona Minnesota....
where the Mississippi is the only
true dialect.
home to sugarloaf bluff and
the basilica of saint stanislaus.
that lesser known bishop of krakow
who may have been martyred but first
got stoned at fourteen underneath
the sugarloaf.
See him now stacked up and slid down the bar
the bishop of all cardboard regalia.
Holy under a golden pint ring halo of IPA..
The American Scholar,
professor of English at Dartmouth College.
Books for children
were your domain.
From “The Trumpeter of Krakow”
I learnt the second part of the legend.
“The Golden Star of Halicz”,
has ancient story of Galicia.
In Mexico you helped the refugees,
while working for the U. S. State department.
They were descendants of victorious people,
later abandoned by their allies.
You traveled through the foreign countries,
observing people’s fates and faiths.
Learning their history,
you produced the literary gems.
Bricabrac. Old and sick in Krakow, Czeslaw complained of his to a fellow (Irish) Nobelista. My fate too (though I am not a poet, I think, and so do I deserve it?)? Like alphabet soup. Lots of letters. Enough to make a small book. Swimming, refusing to join others in the sparest, most economic, incarnation - a monosyllabic word. Let alone a sentence that might be read front to back. Bricabrac.
2016 June 29
I will go now to Krakow
To the streets of the free
To the place where we sat
In the summer of oh three
Where i stole my first kiss
And you took part of me
There once was a dumb blonde from Warsaw
She was the dumbest I ever saw.
She was bound for Krakow
But wound up in Moscow
Holding a kielbasa in each paw.
Who says a limerick has to be Irish?
Vania Konstantinova was born, lives and works in Sofia. She graduated Classical Ballet in
her native town and in Petersburg as well as Polish Philology in Sofia University and
Jagiellonian University, Krakow. She's co-author of the poetic book Four Cycles (along
with Bozhidar Pangelov). Her collection of short stories Thank You Mister One is published
in autumn of 2008.
http://www.public-republic.com/vania-konstantinova
With all the Homesickness of the Foreigner
"You'll present me one Paris
with all the homesickness of the foreigner"
Vania Konstantinova
He's looking for a job,
but has no shirt,
Rose,
and expectation even in the pocket.
Whether sometimes he doesn't bend
to look how the Seine passes slowly?
Whether it's cold
(that's an author's thought)?
In this circus gleam only
the blue glimmer of the knives
(which yesterday were pawned).
It's a French movie.
Paris is somewhat little
for one grief
and nothing.
Compared with your arm.
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