Second Decade: Collected Poems (2011-2020)

By Ivan Kireevskii

Before you is a unique collection of poems written during the second decade of our new century... during a time of conflict and upheaval... a time of hope and of fear and uncertainty. Included in the body of this work are the words Ivan Kireevskii has carved, chiseled and sculptured in the first five volumes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luminare Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781643888613

Ivan Kireevskii

A wandering ascetic, born stoic, was taught by Hume...where he learned to question the absolute. He became Vienna's myth-maker. He is Michelangelo and will paint you sadness. He is Montaigne and has relished solitude.He is Descartes...was born a devout stranger, never a child.

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Preface

Before you is a unique collection of poems written during the second decade of our new century… during a time of conflict and upheaval… a time of hope and of fear and uncertainty.

Included in the body of this work are the words Ivan Kireevskii has carved, chiseled and sculptured in the first five volumes of his Sculptum Est Prosa series.

Ivan Kireevskii is a poet exploring views on the synthesis at the edge of inquiry into the world. His is the study of the simple and the complex.

To Kireevskii, poems stand like cathedrals in the wilderness; they offer an infrangible dignity, unconsoled clarity, unfenced existence… they are the outward sign of an inner grace; they are examples of self-conquest; they show that the reality of the world should not be underprized; they offer a sense of sufficiency, and a spurt of abundance from a source within.

These are poems, of flesh and blood and often mythical and elusive... philosophical and often very difficult to understand. They fit no literary genre or linguistic structure. They hide layers of meaning quite often are in need of deciphering.

It has been said that Kireevskii’s poems are shapes of a circle of thought. He is sometimes social, sometime political and often philosophical. At times blasphemous, but often spiritual.

He will make you angry… he will make you smile. He will make you sad… but mostly, he will make you think.

May you, dear reader, succeed at the hard task of understanding the metaphor and be able to catch the varying rhythm and design of each poem.

—Patricia Marshall,

Publisher, Luminare Press

Prologue

We find ourselves in a bewildering world… we want to make sense of what we see around us.

My writing expresses my search for meaning.

I am a hermit. I am a poet… every day I walk the streets…

I live on an island and every day I walk in silence. Out of this silence and solitude emerge the insights of my poems.

Of civilization, of churches, of men, of mankind, of man… and then music, the stars… the music of the stars.

Do I need other people to understand myself? If there weren’t any other people around, then the trees and the ants and the gazelles would help me. And if there weren’t any living creatures around then I will listen to the grains of sand, the rocks and stones… they will help me.

the path

boundaries so clear… so defined

nothing to question… until i did

and the lines of love and hate blurred into one

—Ivan Kireevskii

"When the first inspiration comes from the subject matter,

when the impulse to create is given by a classic legend, part of a poem, a scene from history or some actual person, such material is transformed more and more…into something concrete and anonymous: translated into the language of the hands, the demands

which then arise all have a new meaning, which depends solely on the conditions of plastic realization."

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Everything that has truly been seen

must become a poem.

the long toil of understanding (part 1)

seven cities disputing which had given you birth

the wolf has torn you apart… each can take its bite

life flows away and time brings us back

as we are today only once… tormented by the sea, tormented by the night

life is an open secret… in which the manifest truth is what is hidden

where what we call fate is merely chance

and the only order is anagnoristic

then we look back, and find that our present has quickly left us for the past

i fell asleep

alone in the woods, the water and the sky

in silence, i will tell you my loves and dreams and lies

i sit undisturbed, my legs are crossed

imagining the moods of nature, trees staring back… my mind is lost

i fell asleep while demons swarmed about my head

i dreamed of reason, i dreamed of monsters, of darkness and dread

i saw a man lying naked and stretched upon a rack

said he discovered that the earth is moving… and that deep in the sky, no one’s looking back

he cast his eyes upon the globe

bishops stood before him… beards were burning, all wearing darkened robes

pursuing history in volumes… asking for proof, for solace in his grief

for comfort and sustenance and healing from terrible defeats

i met a man widowed and silenced

withdrawn into the world of his art… no door, no gate, no entrance

where moments of terror and cruelty

met with frail restraints and were forgotten in dreams of ecstasy

i fell asleep where the children gazed in horror

houses are on fire, i have witnessed the slaughter

where men beside me were tied and bound

in the intoxication of their own blood, they collapsed and drowned

material decomposed into primary elements

a repose that lasted but a moment

body lines have been formed, they filled the entire space

they have touched the holy cassock, are now filled with holy grace

scattered elements

particles of denseness

the stars have been gathered

we are blind, our faith is shattered

discoverer of a passage, darkness now covers the sun

invading a shipwreck of reason

our thoughts, but a boundless ocean

of design, we have abandoned all notion

and prometheus speaks, looking down, he stares

smiles at our sacrifices and votive prayers

lifting our sorrows, drying the tears

into the circle of this dream, this dance has replaced our fears

exhausted… i drop out of your arms

i have read and searched… still unsettled, unable to accept these terms

the brevity of your beauty, cut short of our youth

the defeat of my soul, the elusiveness of this somber truth

i fell asleep while demons swarmed about my head

i dreamed of reason, i dreamed of monsters, of darkness and dread

i saw a man lying naked and stretched upon a rack

said he discovered that the earth is moving… and that deep in the sky, no one’s looking back

heights unimagined

when the thrones are disassembled

and my country limps into the endangered shadow

where blades of grass once pierced the night

and fiery cannonballs lit the sky in a mighty show

as we lay staring at jupiter’s galilean moons

sandleless you stood before jove in craving silence

ageless you became the motion of the seas

until destinations were moved and our kings inflicted damages in recompense

i shall wander in the woods

i shall adore the sun

i shall swim in crystal lakes and climb to heights unimagined

bow your head, close your eyes… it has begun

i have heard a thousand cries

of mouths opened wide and eyes closed in narrowness

and whispers from ten-thousand forms

having gained entrance to your thoughts, i sit stunned and motionless

the unintelligible things i behold

i wonder… are we really thinking these things

let the moon shine and watch my mind decompose

the mansion that you once occupied is missing its king

i shall wander in the woods

i shall adore the sun

i shall swim in crystal lakes and climb to heights unimagined

bow your head, close your eyes… it has begun

realms of thoughts

ragged lines

formed above the horizon

where chaos burned

through the egyptian darkness

an allegorical shadow-show

vanished the moment

the light was kindled

a picture captured us

thoughts and feelings

had fallen away

an unknown world

appeared before us naked

where myths and mysteries

were unveiled

in an unfolding narrative

beyond the realms of thoughts

the wordsworthian allusion

don’t miss the subtlety

of the wordsworthian allusion

the gods change their names with us

but not to themselves

i have heard it said…

albeit in tones so low

sometimes sneeringly

that all’s a delusion

but we stand

and laugh and forgive

all the while… darkly in ignorance

of nature’s tightly held secret

emmaus never happened….

emmaus always happens

a metaphoric condensation

into one parabolic afternoon

imperfect as it is

take the little black book to your heart

treasure its gift

treasure its myths

as trajectories of particles

by insignificant itinerant scribblers

weak and faulty mortals…

yet they put in motion an invisible cause

take nature as your tutor

merge your spirit into absolute silence

let every thought

lapse away into mere nothingness

let life throb through your veins

the same life

which runs deep

in the sap of the plants and trees

and should god not exist… worship the sun

should the sun not exist

worship nature

and if nature does not exist… worship the stars

ahh… don’t miss the subtlety

of the wordsworthian allusion

the gods change their names with us

but not to themselves

drones

a low humming sound

voices of the interminable generation

where the stones of the moldau

are stirring and shifting

here, the counterweight…

the promise fueling conflict

which no force can prevent

stand before this final peak

where blood mixed with sweat

erases the distance

between the angry shadows

of a raging torrent in a colorless void

where a nation in a quandary

refuses to play by the rules

in a world that is spinning

increasingly out of control

i will show you fear

grey lead and a handful of dust

where time stops

and hearts are pierced

maze of providence

under the complex and the obscure…

where the touch of ignorance and doubt

shatter foundations

in the intricate maze of providence

where the bewildering and perplex

of philosophic fiction

sit debased by adversity

as if by some sudden catalytic shock

as loud as the winds from the east

they uproot the rocks and hills

where the mysteries of the order and motion

are buried and hid

where meaning is uncovered beyond words

where our conceptual map drops away

disappear into the ocean of consciousness

where you are, in its vastness… but a wave

the rape of the imaginary

a milky

geoengineered ceiling

gazing down

into techno wizardry

lopping off mountaintops

scraping off boreal forests

nature…

a bottomless vending machine

the trampling, crushing

torched fields, winding roads

weaved into ash…

the rape of the imaginary

day 26

and now know this, o leaders

your words will be heard…

carrying forever in our ravaged hearts

the promises, the hype and the fraud

speeches filled with holes

words cut up by scissored scars

the sharpness of stones, cut beneath my feet

as you posture… behind reflections of the mirror bars

brazen acts are dizzying me

diffidence fallen behind these walls

in the haste of angered zeal

forsaken in this power game… unshielded as they fall

nourishing with prodigies and fables

you have deceived and stripped

gnawed away by waves

the remaining vestiges of this splintered ship

stifled in flames and blood

nothing is moving

the noose is tightening

words like worn-out shoes, are spoken shamelessly

shattered

the swans, the muskrats

and trees

coated in black

handfuls of nothing

a petroleum sheen

a fluttering horizon

footsteps

with no land

naked banks

where birds

once strut to watch

a sea as thick as blood

glances of life

irretrievable

killed and broken in pieces

how tracelessly

you have gone away