ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA

ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA

FORSAKEN YEMEN

There are ongoing battles on the great chessboard of the world

Mighty figures fight for influence, power and wealth.

They jump very high above others and bluster “checkmate”

Pawns are lost and chessboard fields  are more and more empty

Nobody is moved by the fate of the victims.

They are invisible from a distant perspective.

Today, I saw nothing new on television.

Someone raved about the singing woman with a beard.

A movie about the lives of famous celebrities was shown.

The newspaper described who was divorced and why.

In an illusory paradise there is no place for suffering.

Poverty and despair are not photogenic, too.

People look indifferently at each other.

There is no sympathy in their dead eyes,

Their numb mouths repeat the heard phrases

And stone hearts do not know empathy.

Icy hands forgot how to serve a slice of bread

For dying of hunger Yemeni children.

THE RIVER GANGES

Colors ripen in the hot sun of India and merge into the landscape.

Sky is azure and  petals  of red flowers  are similar to the pulsing blood.

Emeralds, hidden among the leaves, shine and water glistens like silver.

Even the roadside dust, swirling in the air, changes  into particles of gold.

The sacred river Ganga was born in an ice cave at the base of the Himalayas.

She defeated the Silwalik Mountains to connect with the Brahmaputra river.

The holy river spreads widely  her seven thick tresses in the basin.

Imprisoned by Śiva in her hair, she breaks away from this jail.

Where  millions of water droplets drip onto the soil from her blue sari,

The goddess leaves traces of her bare feet in the barren fields.

For centuries, she  gives a promise of eternal salvation

And as a good mother generously offers people the gift of fecund land.

POEM FOR PEACE

I will build a bridge made of sentences

And I will fasten it with positive thoughts.

I will use words “ warmth and understanding”,

Later I will add my mother's prayers.

I will replace the lies of war’s propaganda

With stanzas about friendship and love.

Next I will paint precise words

“Kindness and tolerance”.

Strangers will be connected firmly

With rivets of  powerful emotions.

Poem for peace, stronger than steel,

is free and immortal.

PRESCRIPTION FOR A POEM

It is not easy to write a poem.

You have to gather your thoughts

swirling quickly like snowflakes during a blizzard.

Catch them before they melt and disappear into oblivion.

Later add fever of feelings and strength of emotion .

Decorate your sentences with your dreams collected

from the silver dust of falling stars.

You can also

pick out a melancholy longing from the bottom of the lake

and hang it on eyelashes to shine with tears

Then collect the wet haze of sadness

shimmering like drops of dew on calamus,

add grayness of the November’ s landscape

Season it with a bit of bitterness and regret

Or you can

Capture the laughter suspended by an echo

between high mountain peaks.

Catch the merry words in the net of butterflies

carried by the warm breath of the wind.

Turn the rainbow over to add a smile to the sky.

Sprinkle it with a touch of humor and joy.

Finally, crazy metaphors must be released.

Let them draw colors from the imagination,

that the poem would acquire a transparent lightness

and like a soup bubble rise above everyday life.

Allow it to fly off in an unknown direction.

ALICJA MARIA KUBERSKA