THE SHINE JOURNAL
Flash Literature, Poetry, Art and Photography!
Two Poems By Boris Glikman
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS IMPERFECT
It is the middle of a sunny summer day
I am running down the stairs
quickly and excitedly, with my neighbors following me.
We all want to see the Sun
It just fell down in the front yard
I saw it coming down like an overripe cantaloupe,
staining the sky with sticky, succulent golden juices.
There it is,
lying on the ground,
a giant orange, trampling the grass it landed on,
squirting its warm essence all over our bodies.
The neighborhood dogs are running around,
barking at this strange visitor.
I approach it warily. I touch it.
It is warm and beautiful,
glistening in the mid-noon light.
I remember well the feelings of amazement, incredulity,
inexplicable joy overwhelming me
and the comical expressions of confusion
on the faces
of my neighbors.
I WROTE THE STORY OF MY LIFE BUT NEVER ONCE DID I STOP TO READ IT
I wrote the story of my life but never once did I stop to read it.
Words, plots, characters gushed out of me, yet never once did I take the time to see.
If the words were apt, if the plot had inner consistency, if the characters were realistic and likeable.
Not once did I peruse the footnotes and attempt to research further the story I was writing.
Not once did I check for for the minor spelling and grammar errors nor contemplated whether indeed the whole construction of my work-in-progress was fundamentally flawed from the very first word on the very first page.
Never once did I pay heed to the better advice of my elders, to keep a constant tone to my novel, to not portray realism as fantasy, to not turn tragedy into comedy.
But recklessly I mixed passages of horror with passages of humor, blended magic realism with surrealism and clumsily juxtaposed soaring poetry with indifferent pedestrianism.
Not once did I look back to see if my story made any sense, leaving it instead to others to try and make sense of the story of my life.
And so preoccupied was I with the writing of this book that I forgot all about existence and my life instead became this book itself.
And now as I come to the final page, I think to myself...
Is there still time enough to begin the book anew?
BORIS GLIKMAN shares...
Motivation?
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS IMPERFECT
The origin of this poem is a very cherished and dear childhood memory that persists to this very day. This memory is so vivid and life-like that, despite its patent absurdity, I still refuse to accept that this event could never have taken place.
I WROTE THE STORY OF MY LIFE...
This is an allegorical piece employing one central metaphor from beginning to the end. Once the idea of this metaphor occurred to me, the poem basically just wrote itself. Given the nature of this poem, I have inserted a few self-referential ( i.e relating to the poem itself ) word plays as well as one line that is so paradoxical that I myself am still trying to comprehend its meaning. I leave it to the discerning reader to discover these puzzles for themselves.
You may reach the author here: bozlich@yahoo.com.au His website: http://bozlich.gather.com/
