Mike Ravdonikas: Poems

Humanity coughs.

Post / An unfinished letter to my Grandma— she would never listen to my stories, feeding me her trademark barley porridge with meat, picking bone after bone with Grandad, or recalling basketball days in post-war Leningrad, her handsome coach who died, that captain, fleet or army, who dared resist the charms of her blonde braids and how she married “just to spite him,” or that day in Yalta when she had a chance to be unfaithful and should have taken it, and so I took to writing for a hope to get a word in— sat on my desk too long, too long, before it joined her bundle labeled ‘dear Misha’s letters and cards with foreign city views’ (my uncle sent them back).

Have you tried sitting on it? Live at Bocasu

Single Issues \ When AI takes away all words, at least we'll always have our pictures. When AI takes away all pics, at least we'll always have the music. When — time to learn to keep our secrets. @verse by MR

Have you tried sitting on it? / I was trying to finish a poem. The poem was trying to finish me. We both reached the end of language – where he begins and I stop – and stood breathing, eyeing one another with contempt. Him refusing to become whole, me refusing to pull any further by his lank hair. "I will disauthor you!" The smug toad belches, not blinking. You try dragging that stupid head, tongue stuck in concrete.

Night Closing In / Now, as the sky turns pink, chase everyone else out of your skin to see how violet it can get all by yourself before the pre-OLED screen blackness puts a lid on us, before the green spaces release the sulphur from this day’s recycled waters, before white glare infests construction sites, before the Gulf retreats from sight and leaves the sound to the hotels and villas squeezing empty beaches. @verse by MR

@verse by MR

Pine Scented Night / An empty pool of frog, behind a brick wall in Antibes. A window with a slice of ceiling, ceiling fan, its groping shadow. An accelerating van to rip in two the croaking, dwindling taillights as it sneaks together at the break. @verse by MR

Homage / I didn’t buy Bukoswki’s book for fifteen hundred bucks, signed, first edition. He would have laughed his ass off: tiny earthquake in Green Hills, LA. @verse by MR

Out of the corner of my eye: an open fan. Who brought the cake? Who took the slices?

My granddad’s birthday, but he won’t get older. Starting last year, every summer, it’s just me.

Cycling alone Past Andrew Wyeth fields – No lid on the world! #haiku by MR

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. (Seneca) I’d fill my sail at once with prayers and sweet winds, were I to know which way my prow should face, to hasten me toward the shores on which it grew and first extended gentle branches to the moon – before the shipwright’s hand had hewn it into this, the homeless figurehead; the shores I do so miss. @verse by MR

MBA Any poet in Business class Dreams of First. @verse (Disclosure: I don’t; first is lonely AF, at least on Emirates.)

Misfiring platitudes / How many people reading “you’re the product if it’s free” went “O-M-G! Why, I’m a product from a major corporation! Move aside!” @verse by MR

Woe, awesomeness / A ballerina trains for decades to keep her head up and her straight defiant back and — smile! — when burning at the stake for the affront her mastery inflicts on wretched hearts like mine. @verse by MR

Now post this / Try to remember for a day: a war is on. Try to remember every day it's there: it's there. Try to hold on to that while war thrives anywhere. You will have lived a life of wars: untouched, un- spared. You will have sac- rificed so much, they — left unscared? @verse by MR

Catjutants / For my mother Remember this: Wherever you might be, No matter what your task, No matter what your deadline – At least one cat Has been assigned to you and me To dream on our behalf Upon a blanket, like it’s bedtime. @verse by MR

Holy cooked / contemplating a too modern crucifix The charred remains of Jesus, blending with his cross, fit for a world past nuclear demise: I search his face for seared-shut eyes to drive back the imagined smell of kofta (or kebab, depending on the customs of your land) – and pray his gaze be softer than this stab, the hide of this cocoon – when He arises from the blaze to leave the tomb. @verse by MR