 |
 |
Comments welcome--thanks- Larissa New Life 2 Variation on a theme by Joseph Brodsky et. al. Imagine that the war is over, that peace has reigned, That you can look at your face in the mirror again. That magpies, not bombs, whistle down upon your head That outside the city, homes are not destroyed-instead A baroque burst of laurels, palms, magnolia, pine; Instead of hot gun fire a white hot Venus shines. That war’s cast-iron swamp is cold and then The boredom is over: Life has to start again. Imagine that all of this is true. Imagine, that you speak Of yourself, speaking of others, that now you can seek The irrelevant, the unneeded, the luxuries, the toys. Life begins anew exactly thus: with noise With erupting volcanos. and such catastrophes A sloop lost below, friends lost beneath the seas . Look straight at the tragedies, with the feeling these engender That you alone can see them .With the small and tender Feeling that, any minute now, you’ll turn away To home, to the moment, to ask it to stay. Imagine that the epoch ends in an idyl. The words that came In monologues are rain dialogues now. And the flame, That consumed others better than you, greedily, like logs; In you it saw little use or warmth, and, like the dogs, That’s why you were spared, why shrapnel gave you only fear. Imagine that the more honest the voice, the less it has tears. And when any Polyphemus asks you who it is that speaks. “Say, Who, me? No one” like Odysseus the Greek. Larissa Shmailo _http://myspace.com/larissaworld_ (http://myspace.com/larissaworld) _http://larissashmailo.blogspot.com_ (http://larissashmailo.blogspot.com/) ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.