Category Archives: Amelia

Amelia, Around Moscow, Moscow

A Moscow Scandal (an around-moscow poem)

Leave a comment

In the great old cathedral we wore no scarves on our heads.

Male choirs stopped chanting pretentiously

as we plucked the icons from the walls

and held them pressed against our hair

so Christ’s golden circle framed our boisterous faces.

 

In the cathedral we’d had our fill,

so we stumbled hazy-headed into the dark alleyways and closed-off streets.

Each street guitarist played faster and faster

long hair and bodies a blur of frantic movement.

And in the quickening music, the hysteria of the cold April night,

our feet lifted off the cobblestone.

 

The grandmothers gasped as five young women flew away.

 

Amelia, St Petersburg

canal girls/yellowcard girls (poem about st. petersburg)

Quote Leave a comment

we arise unwillingly, like springtime mists

and similarly, seep onto the streets,

float across dead water.

 

we wipe the sky clean with our hands as if it is a foggy window

and then, like mist, must settle onto a blade a grass, discarded trash, your forehead, you know.

the sun will kill us every day unless we hide in some shady spot and wait till evening.

 

on the backs of ladybugs and fruit flies we ride triumphant into the night,

defeating death to once again move forward on the endless wheel.

our faerie song is a simple one:

if you see us crawling along the banks of the canal,

smile, raise your hand, and wish us well.

 

 

Amelia, Murom, Rus', Suzdal, Vladimir

Poem about Rus’–the messenger

Quote 1 Comment
I’ve been his messenger for some time now.
And brown letter in my hand, walking across the wet morning field,
I feel like I’m hanging from a golden chain.
Of course I read them,
just like I steal a moment to spread my body across the exotic carpet,
like I hide fruit under my clothes.
Someone told me to tell him, if every bone in his body is split in two
and tears well in both his eyes,
I wouldn’t even know to deliver letters to a damp and quivering slope that was once a man.
Of course I read them, just like when I am almost alone at night,
I stare into the fire and cry tears of gold.
Someone told me to tell him that he alone split the cosmos down the middle
and caused a deadly rain of stars
and does he even know? And does he feel sorry?
Can you chase smoke away? Have you ever tried?
Someone told me to tell him that he’s a mold-covered boulder
that should be hewed again and again and again,
that there’s a nation of men ready to kill him one hundred thousand times over.
I return at night. The moon hangs from a starry chain.
I feel like I’m a prairie fire
the moment before it explodes in a flood of light.
Amelia, Rus'

Palm Sunday

Image Leave a comment
On our trip to Vladimir and Suzdal, we saw the Palm Sunday (called the Triumphal Entry in the Orthodox Church) ceremony. There were lots of nuns walking around with tall hats and young children. In the background a woman was selling pussy-willow branches (in the place of palms) from a little booth.

 

 

 

 

 

Amelia, Moscow, Moscow University

MSU poems and sketches

Image Leave a comment
On the first day of school I went out to the main entrance of MGU and saw two statues of students– one male and one female. I was struck by the size and impressiveness of the main facade. I captured the female statue here.
These are some students I saw on the first day of class at MGU. On the first day I was very excited to start my experience studying in Moscow.

All night! Every night!

The city dwellers keep it moving

with motorcycles, street music, screaming, whatever.

My urban lullaby followed me, like a child,

around the world.

 

The campus of the university summoned me one midnight.

A trail of silver stars lured me to the park

where the same kids were getting high on benches, all night

drinking out of the same brown paper bags, every night

still racing their beaters down the dusty driveway.

 

All night! Every night!

And the street musicians played faster and faster

All night! Every—

Man! I thought. Everything was the same

down to the press-on nails and the fake Nikes.

 

Just as I was getting home, the elevator broke, I fell about fifty stories down.

And in those milliseconds I thought up this poem:

 

I want to walk the lit up tunnels of the subway system,

or better yet swim through them if there’s water in them!

I’d swim through green and I’d swim through blue

and I’d even swim through purple if it’d lead to you.