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Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, Russia, 1983) is a Russian-born Belgium-based poet. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press “Maintenant”, “AntiNarrative Journal”, “Crannog”, “Duck Lake Books”, “Writing in a Woman’s Voice”), Marina is a frequent performer, she has been shortlisted at different poetry/ film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes. She is the author of the verse novel “Tishe…Piano”, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ‘The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015. Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is PR Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’ (Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in audio-visual medium” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).
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So, What is Your Question
I
I hear the river
in tender white,
under the black
bridge
warmed by red city trams,
ironing
the silver rails
in -36,6 agony.
I care no longer but for one thing –
my hand
opens the white tunic,
delves deep into the snow,
and forces its way
between
the naked ice shores
of the Volga.
The icebreaker-ship, my palm,
clears its way
through frozen
waters,
follows the wind,
breaks towards,
I don’t know what,
but silent and certain.
The ice below
scatters
like a clowder
of frightened chicken,
bed-sized plates of ice
splinter
into my body
and under my fingernails,
some pieces got sucked under my eyelids
and explode out
with wet bangs.
I am rolling violently from side to side,
between the two banks of the great river,
making waves
shoreward,
shaking up the locked something
under the untranslated waters.
Am I to outthink the ice
or to outmuscle it?
The trick
isn’t
barbaric force.
It’s balancing my move
inside
the nature’s.
Still, you do need muscle.
At worst,
my icebreaker-ship will choke
within the white,
the best of this scenario –
my icebreaker will bulldozer
till the river sees spring.
Then,
I’d stop the engine
for a second
to hear the river
in tender green,
under the black bridge
wobbled by red city trams,
ironing
the silver rails
in +36,6 agony.
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II
At lunch I don’t feel hungry,
but write straight through.
I barely hear Bologna and the wind,
I barely feel Italy.
Solemnly, I sit between
the margins of my notebook,
I blindly conduct the wine scene,
replaying your gentlewoman’s
and noble manners,
your fingers are orchestrating the wine bottle
and my impatience.
A scent of Sangiovese rises from within my memory:
I feel your being and your security,
your jazz gestures
are too vivid,
your palms answer the accents
of the piano that stands inside my hell.
Your voice wraps around my mouth,
where it melts upon my tongue,
sentences escape my lips,
my hands do their play
over a napkin ring.
I feel us moving into a curtain,
invisible even to us,
and , certainly, to others,
probably, nothing significant has happened,
it might have been just our rhythms
rehearsing something
irrythmical and unimportant.
My first impression of you – a close-up-
the bony Egon Gilles’ shoulders,
fingers for rings
but are without them,
the one who goes under the rain
without an umbrella,
under the sun – without a parasol.
My neck does rounds
following your maritime pine silhouette,
your shirt and jeans and me
like silk
flow
like a liquid
down your body,
all of my being is the gloves
covering your music fingers –
without the rings,
the telephone rings and brings
all:
me, the city of Bologna,
the porticos, the noise of students
– back.
The margins of my notebook are gone.
My hat is flying off
across the lunch tables,
when a hologram of you
comes serenely,
with all the noble manners,
your fingers
sink into my hair,
then
in a second
they put back my hat on
and disappear.
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III
I am freeing my palms,
as the rain flows often
onto Brussels –
unceremoniously
and with no bounds.
At this magic moment
of our Earthly existence,
I give you not only my hands,
but also my overcoat,
my Anna Rizzo Firenze hat,
my high gloss black shoes,
and my bracelet – as well.
I finally let my hands rain.
I let them lock the door.
I let them set the heater on,
that your ink and fingers
won’t freeze,
and that you can write and touch me without
gloves on.
I let my hands rain upon your
trembling
silencio.
My heart just missed a beat.
I let my hands rain over
your burning
typemachine.
I let my hands rain
the Russian rain
upon your
freeing Da Vinci palms.
The Russian Rain
over Da Vinci palms!
The rain
that watered Tarkovsky’s characters,
among which the most memorable
are:
the rain over the burning house
observed by children
under the shower,
and the rain that floods the hotel room
in “Nostalgia”.
I let my hands rain inside the
building
where we slowly
are starting off
towards the ceiling,
levitating
in a tandem –
in a symmetry
of open everything,
reminiscent of the famous
L’Uomo Vitruviano –
fitting into both
the circles and the squares of each other,
seeming to fly
but standing firmly
on the ground
under this thick rain
dripping from our palms…
*****
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