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. 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.

2. The Next Chance

Carmine roses bloom in the midst of winter,

Drowsy violets peak from under leaves

And daisies stand white in the grass.

The sun heats the earth

And brightens short days with a warm glow.

I notice a tenderly embraced couple in a park.

Gracious fate gives them one more chance

For an unexpected meeting.

Eyes, surrounded by rays of wrinkles, laugh.

Wind ruffles hair, tosses delicate

Silver threads of gossamer.

And so, unannounced, tardy love arrived

They have a choice of a new path,

Maybe the last chance for happiness.

Life took away their naïve faith

And burned away old feelings.

It left them some dreams

And much hope for a better tomorrow

They are lost in thoughts

Doubts and fears spring up

From the shadows like ghouls

The head says: no… it’s not worth it… think it over…

The heart says-yes… go forwards… fall in love

Nature stopped the hands of the clocks.

Red flowers bloom.

3. Thief of Dreams

I was silent, smiling, undemanding.

You did not expect that I would take without consent.

I was too close, and everything was within the reach of my hand.

Like a thief, I stole your glances and loneliness.

Your thoughts, I tied in a myriad of knots, creating a dense net,

And from dreams, I wove a gentle curve of a woman’s figure.

I stoked the spark of passion in your eyes, and a fire erupted.

I wrapped us in a sweet scent of flowers in my hair

And we glided towards many, distant nights.

Day has no right to enter the precipitous depth.

It is a place, in which the contours of black shadows fall asleep.

Only at the bottom of the abyss, can dreams and starlight be seen.

You are from Mars, I am from Venus.

Far planets are the bright points on a firmament of tenderness.

Our words and hands attracts to the force of gravity of life.

4. The Train

I got onto the train of life

With nothing,

Without clothes,

Without feelings.

A blank sheet of paper.

Blotting-paper absorbing everything.

I will get out burdened with bundles of

Recollections and impressions.

I packed them carefully.

Some of them faded, like

Ink from old letters.

I tied them with ribbons of all colors.

These white ones are my

Inessential remembrances

And black ones are heavy and traumatic.

I met many passengers,

Throughout this long journey

And free-riders too,

Who were picked up

At different stops.

Each meeting,

Even this, the shortest one,

Like a flash of sun or

Flutter of butterfly wings

Enriched and filled my bag of experiences.

5. The Chat

I knocked at your mind.

Let me in - I asked
I have brought you something,
My crazy thoughts and dreams,
The works collected from
The sources of creativity.
Look how pretty they are,
Even the smallest ones…
Smaller than grains of sand.

I do not want them - you answered
My world is sterile,
Arranged and known.
Your every written poem
Can ruin my calm,
Which was built over years.
The recognition can be painful
Because of its insolence and ignorance.
The questions wake up the sleeping fears.
I prefer to stay safely in
Well-known loneliness.