(Verb, 2018)
Obolon
Obolon’s raspberries.
the full summer
that enveloped us has been caught in a box.
amid gray balconies and dis-
interest there was no time to
see where deep summer streamed to.
babel slips spryly amid towers
and manipulates its multi-tongued mouth.
amid towers amid blobs
amid the city’s pre-september gray
Boreas is already unbridled.
his notorious howls are in my head
tufts long since set on end
and snowdrifts will soon line the roads.
Yellow leaves
you know your face goes through yellow leaves.
the leaves are cold and smell of decay.
but you don’t care. it’s autumn. all is sure to decay.
the sky is grim and your bundles are packed once more.
a map of the world lies at your cold feet on the floor.
though now you are no longer boundlessly free
to stray where the north wind might lead you.
now, you are just as open as this bay:
rebel as much as you may, but only within the shore’s limits.
you’ve nowhere to go or hurry anymore.
cities and castles crumble.
so what.
the bay remains. and you float in its murky murk as in butter.
the autumn remains. you walk through its yellow leaves.
they are cold.
they smell of home.
Winter in the east
winter breathes through the window once more,
roofs leak and your nose drips,
it comes pontificating already:
what’s up, winter, everyone’s end is the same:
strip-stark, cold, and fog-dark.
some lands aren’t covered in a blanket of snow,
but a bona fide burial shroud.
light draws grooves and water freezes in pipes.
February stretches like a bitter smirk.
but in the cellar, like winter apples
(not all that rosy-cheeked),
people store themselves away
so they might last till spring.
is anyone else preserving them?
