The Poetry of Elena Kras

P I G M A L I O N A N D G A L A T I A

The clay was alien. My hands just lay there, inept,
Not audacious enough to model you after myself.
Then I shook the dust of creation off, and I have wept,
For your image became my one and only self.

I've forgotten my workshop. Your soul is my enclave.
I have painted your lips in this startlingly painful red.
How would you dare to know something about love
While the birds of Eden are picking on their bread?

There wasn't much of an exile. Somehow I felt betrayed
By the way your breath interweaves with the night air.
The Almighty just once and the mere sculptor by trade,
I came bearing my gifts of the crown of thorns and myrrh...

~~~~~

dance macabre

Did they forget
to meet your fleeting glance,
When just the pieces
were left to glean?
It was the dance,
the dance macabre dance,
With its crying
Gypsy's violin.

Ah, this pre-war,
forever senior class,
That'd left behind
sadness and reproof...
I'm looking through
the colorful stained glass,
A city angel,
stranded on your roof.

It's gone forever,
our childish stance,
We're coming here
to never grow old.
It was the dance,
the dance macabre dance,

That was too short,
too lively,
and too bold...

~~~~~

T H E A T E R

Being alive -
would it last long?
Have I not read
from the last page.?
If that's a place
where I belong,
Are the searchlights
trained on the stage?

That's not my part!
Farewell time
Cries in my heart,
but never wins.
...A lone band,
playing ragtime,
Is it still there,
up in the wings?

Words in my throat,
painfully dry,
Will they persist,
being not brave?

I'll never hear
my deafening cry,
As it burst through
with the heat wave.

I have performed.
The dawn, arise!
Though far away,
the silence falls.
...Who if not you'd
closed my eyes
When there were left
no more walls...

~~~~~

the edges

The edges we'd seen -
eternally broken and fraying...
I was outnumbered.
The bravery isn't a task.
Forgetting about
the danger I was downplaying,
You're coming to dare,
to challenge,
to tame,
to ask.

I've heard your voice -
it'd painfully meant containment.
My race through the seasons
successfully reaches the fall.
The only tragedies
written for my entertainment
Are mostly those
that'd perfected my downfall.

Your lie is head-turning -
the cementing ground, the tandem.
To all who are there
I'm carelessly raising my toast.
The drummer of fortune,
who'd only playing at random,
Is crying in German.
I merely hear the "Öst"...

~~~~~

E C H E L O N

I have never claimed
that the love is the greatest thing,
For I don't believe
in your fairy tales, my friend.
Even this mechanical,
this soulless bird will sing,
Trying not to cry,
mocking our fashion trend.

May you finish your longest,
your achingly simple race,
It's amazing, dangerous -
to never be left alone.
I'm off-road,
the one,
who'd just fallen from every grace,
Having left this hardest,
this very last echelon.
Yes, I've gambled my life,
treading rivers of blood and lust.
Death, my last account,
is shamelessly overdrawn.
Did your love just happen
to really be my last,
Or I got blindsided
by the never-ending dawn..?
You didn't feel
Any shame or pity
for those five.
In your darkest hours,
a movie reel
Was just quietly
rendering you alive.
You were not a foreigner,
not a star-
But between your desperation
and your rage,
Did you left your homeland,
avatar
Just to change your vision
of a mirage..?

Were the horses galloping
through the dawn,
Were we feeling only
the surface,
Had this cautiously permanent
moving on
Left the smile
and tenderness on your face..?

~~~~~

F A R E W E L L T O T H E H O M E L A N D

This was like a wound
that'd never heal:
Were the harpsichords
crying at the archive?
Through your darkest hours,
a movie reel
Was what you'd needed
to stay alive.

You were not a universe --
just a star.
Life is still continues
as you age.
Did you left your homeland,
avatar,
Just to change your vision
of a mirage?