Andrej Bilovsky's Poems
I traveled to Mexico
to see the star
from some place
where there
were no competing stars
on earth
I chose the desert,
the terrain to match
arid emotion,
a spirit composed
of mostly lizards
and occasional snakes
I wanted just
one consistent twinkle
amid the lights
from the universe's
hundred billion galaxies
something to take with me
on my next expedition
to the heart of the insanity
with its wretched neon
or suffocating cloud cover
I gravitated
to the middle of nowhere
while my eyes sought out
the first light of somewhere
I was hard ground
long-lived fire
dark as my surrounds
but hopeful
My Presence
I walk around at lunchtime
clanging change in my pocket,
whether it's San Francisco
or New York or even Paris.
I'm like one of those cows
on the Swiss hillsides
that jangle the bells around their throat
every time they take a step.
Whether you're waitress
or construction worker,
I'm the sound you hear,
rattling away with my fingers,
on average four or five times a week.
And then some down-and-out
asks me for a quarter.
How can I tell the guy
I've got no spare change
when I'm playing castanets
with my silver and coppers?
Yes, I have some change
but my presence can't spare it.
The Loss of a Party Girl
Can you believe it—
a free spirit culling her own wings,
adorned in black sequined bodice dress
or long-sleeved striped tee
stretching at the stomach.
It's not her everyday response to clothes,
dispensing with belts,
burying her swelling cleavage
in a coffin bra.
Suddenly so ripe,
her taste for other harvests fades.
And, more and more,
she's drawn to her nest
of cotton, blanket, mattress,
with a mad peanut-butter, ice-cream diet
to feed her days of confinement.
We know her better than to say
she loves the man
but she favors him
above all others
for the father of this child.
Friends come by, in awe, in disbelief,
that she no longer parties.
But light parties on her cheeks.
Her lips party with the words she speaks.
Her shape parties with her body as it was.
Even the kid's a party—
a kick escorts a cramp,
a dream state comforts a waking state.
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