While the Thunder Rages

 

—Poetry by Petar Penda, 

Bosnia and Herzegovina

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of 

Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

THE QUIVER

I wake up with the inner quiver,
Thousand possibilities as in my twenties,
Glamorous life before me,
Promising journeys, spiritual and other.
The wide world is to be conquered,
I just need to decide which way to go.
And then, after two coffees and four cigarettes,
I go to wash up and brush my teeth
And in the mirror, I see an unknown man,
Probably in his early fifties,
With the thinning hair and the double chin,
The indifferent eyes and the unsmiling face,
And for a second I wonder
What he is doing in my bathroom,
Should I, as a good host, introduce myself
and nicely say how do you do,
Ask him if we have met before.
After all, these days common courtesy declines.
A flicker of recognition stops me from being polite,
And I rudely go out and leave the man in the mirror,
Angry with him as he turns my precious quiver
Into the longing for the former vigour.

 

 

 

 

 

THE THUNDER

"After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying..."
        —T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

The thunder took away
Our generosity, compassion
and self-control.
We are not who we were,
And the thunder isn't what it used to be.
We hardly speak the same language now.
But we know the thunder rages
and rumbles the warnings
Of the times to come and
Of the division within one's self.

It forebodes ruins in place of cities,
Fear in place of inner peace
And death in place of life.
The thunder rolls stones in the sky
Ready to hit us with the fiery truth
Of our nothingness and futility.
There is no hope of redemption and
The peace which passes understanding
Is just an unreachable echo.

 

 

 

 

 

SEA LOVE

I want to hold you dispassionately
Between my hands and legs
To talk to you without words
Until you become quiet and asleep
And reveal to me your dreams
To see if you are as true
As your ebbs and tides declare.
Your dreams will tell me
If it's the craft or love
When your waves caress me.
Anticipating the answers
I nudge you and dive my head
Into your treacherous salty depths.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I had a vision—and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened—the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams—and I heart a voice saying, “Such is your luck, such are you called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it.”

—Nat Turner

____________________

Petar Penda from over the sea is a professor of English and American literature (University of Banja Luka) and a translator. His translations have been published in renowned journals in the USA and the UK. His poetry has been published by Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Trouvaille Review and others. Welcome to the Kitchen, Petar, and don’t be a stranger!

Today in Diamond Springs, Poetry in the Sierra Foothills features Katy Brown and Allegra Silberstein, plus open mic (2pm, Love Birds Coffee & Tea Co.); plus Four Men in Black at the Celebration Arts Theater in Sacramento tonight, starting at 6pm. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area.

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Petar Penda

 

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