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There's a Russian fairytale of snowdrops in January
a girl meeting the twelve seasons in human form
who lead her in the middle of winter to where snowdrops grow

I never thought once that I'd live in a land where snowdrops grow in February rather than in April
& where the snowy winter has become a memory

& where in my childhood we weren't able to buy sauerkraut & pickled gherkins done the way we liked
yet which now has become more international

& where people smile & say ' sorry' to you politely
if you tread on their feet
as if their feet were the problem

& where time is measured by the Big Ben & Greenwich
instead of by the Kremlin
& it always rains in summer but there are rarely any thunderstorms

& people holiday in places like Majorca & Benidorm
if they're working class
& France, if they're middle class

& where I went to a public ( private) girls' school
& wore a red uniform
& sang the hymn ' Jerusalem'

believing in this green & pleasant land
with all my heart
until I left & came back again,

this time, an adult, a European
living through the British recession
& shocked at the newly hostile attitude to migrants

yet even now when I see those snowdrops
in February
my heart soars & I'm back living a fairytale

a child in wonder
just as before
We dine on Tuna & Merlot red wine
a single car's headlights shine

                                                          ­                                traveling down a road
                                                            ­                             so many stories untold
you're selling your old flat
in the Georgian house

                                                          ­                                              we all lived in
                                                              ­                 back in the colorless nineties

when the music was bad -
Westlife, Take That, Spice Girls

                                                          ­                                               & everyone
                                                        ­                             wore either black or blue
it seemed, on this Island
& your boys were still small

                                                          ­        & my family holidayed in Cornwall
                                                        ­    & I didn't yet know I could write poetry

when you move away
I shall be sorry to see you go
Well-tempered
As Bach's staccato joy takes hold
Of Book 1: Prelude No. 3
A clavier so mild, calm
Lagavulin-scented air
Peat moss, weather fair
The happy harpsichord
And the placid piano
Join in my glass
Mingling, giving the whisky
A nuance
Of elegance
Balancing the burn
Excellently
Her words fell
Like the limbs of a
Dandelion
Departed;
Once a breath per
Echoed meme
And come another dream
With every
Feather’s frolic.

The lips within this
Captured moment
Flutter and fall,
Dismal and drunk,
Like the butterfly prior winter;
An excuse,
And she deserved better.

So to, I’ve learned to meander
One
Simple
Breath,
Be it the gasp, “final,”
Parallel and the very same
She’d blow and blow and
Scatter seed with.

And I’d love her
Just as much,
If only years ago,
But now carry forth,
Lash atop knowing “flee,”
Merely inched
And adjusted winds.

It’s a “later”
Sort of tale atop tongue,
And idea coined “alive,”
Albeit moments before born,
So much closer to
“Never-end,”
Resonant, if only –

Her dandelion’s dream
And soon to be later patches
Green;
Come the grass,
Come the amnesia,
Come the cold,
Oh girl!
Come the day we both knew
I’d leave.
It was so cold that very day I'd left Tokyo, frigid the day I'd left you.
Monet was painting up my vision
while the droves were driven out.
We stepped out to the derision
of a tenor waterspout.

The town outside is dancing
in the ruddy neon hues
and I’m ****** whilst Amsterdam-ing
by the slam-dunk cognac blues.

And a cap was shaking coppers
in an out cove by the way,
where instruments and owners
had begun to play.

The bar stools are all swaying
whilst the festival ensues,
and I’m ****** whilst Amsterdam-ing
by the slam-dunk cognac blues.

With the rhythm of the rimjhim
and the stamping our feet
we sing our drunken-whim hymn
whilst we stagger down the street.

And we had sunken five; still sinking
Im strung out, slammed, and stinking
Four sheets to the wind and freaking
about what I had to lose.
so that’s when I got to thinking
had an inkling to the linking
between my errant drinking
and the slam-dunk cognac blues…
.
I have seen couples,
So far from each—
Other, on a platform,
Waiting for the next train,
Never touching, yet how
They ****** their mobile
Devices, how softly, sweet,
Without guile nor agenda
They swipe the glass—
As it swoons back in return
With blue lights and alerts,
So dearly needed and answers,
In way words for the machines
Of flesh and the ghost within,
With such personal aplomb
In real notifications of text
And instant message.
I wish to go to Nova Scotia
And long to play in Breton fields,
Faraway and over the oceans,
For ever a bonnie soul shall lead.

I wish to row for Nova Scotia
And glide above the seas trembling,
Far beyond my earthly devotions,
Where ever a bonnie soul shall lead.

    I see long oars in every tree,
    In ocean swells, a boat for me,
    A lull of melodies in seabirds call,
    Beyond the wave is music and song.

I will follow a star to Nova Scotia
And suffer on seas of forgetfulness,
To play a fiddle with joyful Scotians,
For ever a bonnie soul has needs.

    I see long oars in every tree,
    In ocean swells, a boat for me,
    A lull of melodies in seabirds call,
    Beyond the wave is music and song.
 Aug 2015 Vamika Sinha
Jenna
english teachers detest me
because i never capitalize my i’s
but they never once bothered
to come and ask me why

uppercase is a privilege
at least, it is in my mind.
it’s reserved for war heroes
or a painter who is blind

i have done nothing remarkable
i have hardly even tried
everything good i’ve done
is eventually cast aside

why do i deserve an uppercase?
or for that matter, why do you?
we’ve done plenty of bad
when there’s plenty of good to do

english teachers detest me
because i never capitalize my i’s
but i will have reason to someday
and i hope that is not a lie
Maybe that's what I was—a wildfire.
You, so sweetly, abandoned the clouds and burst all over me,
but I, as what I should, encircled you with my flames.

You told me to stop burning things dearest to you,
but I bleed, oh, so gently! oh, so passionately!
and left them all to ashes.

Maybe that's what you were—a rainfall.
Always in-between of what I desire
and your battle cry for my last blow.

We didn't say we were a hurricane.
This is my trail, that is yours.
We go together, but we leave our separate ways.


I flickered, I rose, I got out of control.
What else were you there for
if not to watch me swallow the place so fervently
before you can downpour your proudest good bye?
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