letters (i choose to live...)

I choose to live without tomorrow,

like an autumn leaf, still attached,

touched by the memory of winter,

supping through the roots

from the permanency of the grave.

I choose to live like a ship,

separated with the land,

tides, winds and  bones

of the forgotten moon.        a feather

upon the violence of the capricious sea…

I choose to live like a migrating bird,

driven by  the harmony of invisible lines,

blinded by the fate of the moment…

as a whisper of the departed thought,

a spider web of blue and red,

under the transparent landscape,

deception when I am asleep…

I choose to sleep without dreams…

©  2012 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (a black raven)

a black raven, darker than the night,

a messenger from the past,

ravages the segments of the day

into a cloud of dust…

I immerse my hands into the substance,

of the past. I search

for a string, a stone,

a corner  of the map…

a clue, a direction…

while the colors are fading in the rain,

while the falling star is blown by the wind,

before it touches the ground,

before I can make a wish…

©  2012 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (I write your name)

your name bleeds
from my fingertips.
frozen solitude of letters
attracted to the paper:
virgin and asleep, cold and breathless.
gray shadow,uninvited presence,
bites a mouthful
of my day.
I try to decipher meaning
from the gravity of the echo
that vibrates
in my solar plexus,
like a violin, playing in the wind.
broken notes undress me
to the bones,
as I see them,
bleached by the elements,
scattered far in time.
sharp icicles of loneliness
float in my veins,
my mind stretched between
the ocean and the sky.
vertical…
vertigo…
lightheaded…
I write your name
on the water.

© 2012 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (uncertainty)

the whisper of a cherry blossom
frozen on my lips,
ready to rustle up immortal songs
with the wind, touch the sky,
drown in the green ocean
of the spring,
free and careless…

yet, stopped by my breath,
by the rhythm of my heartbeats,
the sound of mortality, attraction of gravity,
surrender in darkness, melt with blood…
every cell flooded
with sweet sadness

I picked a feather by the door of my house,
uncertain of the value of such a useless thing,
I let it go,
opened the door,
stepped inside…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(bittersweet love)

The first blizzard of the season in Detroit. I fear it and I love it, kind of bittersweet love. My immediate fear stems from the high speed rollover accident about six years ago. It never gets old. Every year, during the first day of the first blizzard of the season, I have to find strength and will to step over it, to conquer my fear. But again, there is more to it. The first blizzard awakes deep, deep feelings that float in a few drops of my blood. I feel as if every molecule of it shivers with the memory of my ancient ancestors enduring generations of the Ice Age and perishes at the end. And also the feeling of being home, when the whole universe shrinks to the arm stretch of a cocoon, where the fog of my breath freezes in midair and wraps me in a white soft blanket of sleep… the first blizzard of the season, my bittersweet love all over again…

fragments(the story of you)

the story of you
dressed
in soft silk of words,
stretched
over the landscape
of my thoughts.

the breath
of a delirious spring
showers me with petals
of blooming orchards,
invades my senses…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(shadows)

always low,
always to the ground,
soaking deep
through the graves,
flowing in underground waters.
sometimes
lay to rest with occasional friends,
creatures of eternal darkness.
…earth worms and shadows…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragment (этюд)

этюд

переплетённые
золотом осени,

озябшие от холода,
намокшие,

измождённые
дождливым сентябрём,

деревья стоят
по обочинах,
убегающей лентой,
извилистой дороги,

меченной,
выбоинами,

наполненными
седой водой…


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (we dance)

…the way we dance,
embraced, wrapped by the wind,
bonded by time…

taste of sea salt on each other’s lips.

Starlight,
shimmering memory, forgotten dream
…erased…
…surfaced…
remembered in a double reflection,
permanently fused in our eyes.

One mind,
immersed in the river of notes.

…we dance…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (about...)

About mosquitoes:
a self-righteous buzzing bastard,
surveying your skin for a safe landing,
probes your patience and nerve endings,
sticks to the fringes of your peripheral vision.
A predatorial thirst for blood, a meal,
one would not invite a friend to share,
even though, predators have no friends.
Self-preservation dictates the course of his actions.
I would behave in the same manner.

About spiders:
soft, numerous legs whisper phobia in your ear,
paralyzing fear, convulsions in your solar plexus,
you are reduce to the helpless fly
trapped by an intricately weaved tent
over her wings. He is silent in comfort of invisibility,
dark corner vibrates with your cry for help.
He’ll devour you part by part at the moment
when you give up… anesthetics are rare in nature.
In fear, you forgot that the time of dinosaurs had passed
and spiders reduced mostly to nuisance.

About fireflies:
Some say they carry flashlights
for your imperfect human eye to see
the presence: silent, noninvasive…
others say, their shoes caught on fire
when they tried to cross the line
between dark and light.
…a friend never to meet, invisible,
on the other side, a spark in the night.


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(a spec of light)

I watched a speck of light
deceitfully trapped
in the drop of dew,
lost in a flower,
drunk from the heavy,
like an aged wine,
fragrance.
A trembling prism,
trying to reconstruct
a collapsing reality
around the particle of dust.


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(i make my wish)

I make my wish
when a meteor carves its trajectory
over the dark horizon.
A burning star, white lie,
disintegrates
before it reaches destination.
The ashes
imprisoned in graves by gravity.


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (a Butterfly lands on your hand)

The presence of happiness
is not an absence of pain…

I finger-paint perfection
over the fog of my breath
on the cold glass. Meaningless,
it dries out quickly, erased
by the fleeting touch
of the sunrise.
My mind draws a few broken lines,
in black, a staircase
to the thirteen floor.
I step over the ledge
on to the lower deck. I am wrapped
by motion sickness,
vomit over the salt
of red water, colored
by the sunset. While you,
from the top of your captain’s deck,
glimpse with pity at my body,
contorted, swept unconscious
by the last wave of nausea…
The shell drowns,
descends to the ocean floor.
A butterfly flies and lands
on your hand.

The presence of pain
is not an absence of happiness.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (magician (Russian translation))

Ночь... Темнота...
Она ему необходима чтобы скрыть свои грехи,
или может быть, смутившись,
он не достиг успеха, провалился.
Он не признается и не покается.
На восходе солнца его расплата ждет.
Он верит, как и те, кто жил на краю жизни,
что не достиг усреха из-за нехватки времени.

Да, он виноват.

Его судили за ересь, судьи из того мира,
границы которого он пересёк уже давно.
Он смотрел на убегающее небо и видел
как зияющая пустота проглатывалa угасающие миры.
Он представлял их последние мгновения в цветах:
тёмных, светлых, цветных, бесцветных.
Он был готов пожертвовать все свои жизни
чтобы познать, чтобы воочию увидеть сии миры.

Его последний час почти настал.
Он обратил последний взгляд на восходящее светило
и представил заворожённую толпу
и сотни глаз прикованных к песку,
где брызги алой крови запеклись
и где блестяще-сероe, окрашенное кровью,
лицо гильотины отдыхало,
опершись на его обезглавленное тело.
Он представлял, как толпа,
вздохнувши с облегченьем, и с привкусом железа на губах
рассыпется по переулкам.

Ночь растворялась и постепенно надвигался день
но тьма не уходила,она оставалась висеть в углу,
где Смерть, истuнный волшебник всех времен,
отдыхала, опершись о стену.
Спешить ей было некуда.
Она прислушивалсь к музыке точённого металла...
Палач готовился к работе...
Тикали последние минуты таинства исчезновенья.
Она симпатизировала магу,
его бесстрашию, его душе, пeреплетённой с вечностью,
спокойствию в оследнее мгновенье
и его готовности к встрече с ней.
В конечном счете, это удел для всех...
но не все готовы...

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (the last breath...)

The last blue breath of you
left my heart.
Black and white show,
fiction of the what was before,
fading with the winter cold.
Occasional dreams scream
from the fog
like a flock of birds
with a broken compass,
driven by instincts… lost
in the past.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya