About CC

Alicja Maria Kuberska, born in 1960 in Świebodzin, Poland, now lives in Inowrocław, Poland. She has authored a number of books including poetry collections-‘The Glass Reality’, ‘Analysis of Feelings’, ‘Moments’, ‘On the Border of Dream’ ‘Girl in the Mirror’ and a novel- ‘Virtual Roses’ along with eight monodramas and a play for teenager. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines in Poland, Belgium, the USA, the UK, Canada, India, Italy, Israel and Australia. She was the featured poet of New Mirage Journal (USA) in the summer of 2011. Her poem ‘Train’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. In the 2015 she won the medal in Nosside and her poem ‘The Dance on the Dew’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Alicja was also one of the two editors of an artistic-literary quarterly journal ‘Metafora.’ She can be contacted at alicja107@vp.pl.

1. Conversion

It is a pity that I cannot buy a new soul.
In supermarkets, there are no special offers-

New Soul! On sale!

The old one is dysfunctional.

It is much easier to have a simple vision of the world.
Keep your feet on the ground and don’t have dreams.

Being greedy protects the heart.
Life has a physical dimension. Ideals hurt.

Gain a prominent place in the rat race,
Dispose of sentiments, tears.

My soul is able to forgive.
It cannot learn to trust again.

It says it does not enter the same river twice.
Unreasonable? Perhaps.
It does not listen to reason.
It pulls away from people

2. It is She

We pass each other nearly every day,

Distance of fear between us.

Life forces us to mutual disregard and acceptance.

At times, like an unruly child, she will spoil something,

To garner attention, to arrest with a gesture.

I see her in the wind, which carelessly

Turns over the withering leaves

And standing proudly erect in stalks stiffened by frost.

She paints shriveled trees gray, breaks limbs with a crack.

She is mute in the clenched throats of birds,

She stares with glassy eyes.

She is all-around and she reminds us of her presence.

She patiently explains the meaning of certainty.

I know she does not allow us to take anything,

When she plays the requiem and invites eternal sleep

3. To Live Forever

They wanted to live forever-among gods, equal to gods.

They ordered their names incised in the stone of stelas,

So they would endure enchanted in the hieroglyphs-

Immune to rain and wind.

They took necessary and valuable things on their last journey.

Carefully prepared, they crossed the threshold of eternity.

Dark, gazes, full of surprise, follow me from the sarcophagi.

This is not how they imagined Eden and the meeting with fate.

The Book of the Dead did not mention crowds of sightseers.

Their jewels disappeared in display cases, and thieves’ pockets.

Desiccated bodies and ancient linen wrappings,

Remain the only souvenirs of life.

No one knows exactly what she looked like or who she was.

Was her hair flaxen?

She did not know she would become the warm breath of a poem.

He fell in eternal love with her. Life parted them, but not death.

The song of sonnets erected an ephemeral monument,

And bestowed immortality.

The words of the songs remained more legible

Than stone pyramids.

She did not do anything, but exist

4. Oceania

There, where the wind has a slightly salty taste
And the golden crystal of the Sun melts in the ocean,
Throwing shimmering spots on the turquoise - blue water,
Pearls are born.

Turtles, like underwater flocks of birds, wander
Through the reefs of coral and gardens full of sea anemones.
They avoid the shoals of colorful fish
To reach the warm sands of the coastal beaches.

Slender palms trees welcome guests.
They dance in the rhythm of light gusts of wind
and draw the subtle contours of leaves

on the silk azure of the sky – like batik patterns.

The richness and the beauty of nature evoke in my mind
An image of the biblical paradise and cause longing.
I dream to be here for a moment, touch the miracle of creation,

Feel the breath of God.

5. Sense of Security

At dawn, the cat slipped through the open window softly,

and almost without a sound,

she jumped down from the windowsill.

She hid under a chair, and curled up into a little ball.

She closed the night’s adventures in her green eyes.

In dreams, the uncertainty of last night returned.

Fear, doomed her to wander over fences and roofs

out of the reach of furiously barking dogs

and powerful beasts speeding down the city streets.

She also did not trust the always-hurrying people.

A man’s white shirt draped over the chair

moved slightly, to the rhythm of the wind’s breath.

It quietly purred a kitty lullaby, and tucked her in to sleep

with long arms in the empty sleeves.