Alexander Romanovich: 3 Poems
The Body Perfect
on the umbral mouth of a lake someone unwinds helming the bleached raft a daughter of the savage corona surrounded by the black floor of the sky
her eyes delighting in spates of shadowglass as the bandit fish nibble at the stars
a wind settles to sleep in the inky shallows warm with citronella to open the auric channels breeding asterism she draws a branch of fire
her eye flitting about the games of a blind thicket
the solid bones of the forest grasping at prowling night lamps
a tree twisting against the ashen nightshades she moves arm over arm leg over leg
architecture and balance throwing a lifeline to the twilights her column arched to the centerline of the sagittarii and poised like a pentaprism before the faint jewel box
releasing through the depthless bodyshell
open to the sky offering the heart naked as it is
she scatters all the tongues of her silvered sheathings one fears of losing but nothing is lost
what’s left when the body evaporates?
Danaë Downpour
there was a sudden loss of time under sweeping hands then the gentle flowing of fingers playing their ancient airs before a brief pause in the falling of gold
but now these wine-dark seas have churned far too long to still the watery dreams of your greening child
with its eyes barely upon the alpenglow
no, let it walk freely through the wilds of purple past the creeping violet fatigue of the rock faces
where the bloodstones ponder their naked transparencies
let it awaken with the ignition of hazy spumes the droning flames pollinating a frameless sky in airy coils of gilded ash
guide it safely between the magnetic panels of dusk under the lighted glass of luna moths
it must pass
like a clouded eye
like a storm without consciousness not accustomed to the incendiary effluvia that overturn the rains
let it cast a stone to the blaze of bearded altars ripe with their soft chimneys of grass
leaving alms to sting the virgin woods
reply in echo grant him a name
for already I hear the high-walled Earth
closing in upon the asphodel and screaming like a banshee
Alrescha
always we walk out into the evening with the mossy-eyed sleep of cedars
as the night rushes in to nurse great stars
taking these long voyages through grasslands starved of fruit through the mirrored underbrush past the
here-and-gone trees
together we invade the inglenooks with their gathering of ancient dusks
like the slow coupling of two rivers strumming the reeds of a detached dream
a dream of things that bear the depths alone waiting to pull themselves upward from the deep mists of the earth
there we find a night laced
with the haunting breath of greenery where the just fallen evening evaporates clear through the lunar nets
where we walk into the cold gaze of nightshades and pause in the cool breath of the mountain falls you and me playmates in the tall grasses
and if I ever fall away redshifted
adrift in the sleep of the living
you return amidst the calm whirl of signals from a far off place
so many things are written upon your cheek like words of snow drifting in from the sweeping wilds of night
your lips remain sealed burning
until that sole bird arrives to unzip this void
Alexander Romanovich is a New York City-based poet whose work is influenced by elements of mythology, Surrealism, and metaphysics. He previously published a chapbook, 'Mythopoeia,' as well as a volume of poetry entitled 'The Keeping of Lights' in early 2019 which was featured in the 2019 poetry showcase at Poets House NYC.