a Refuge

please, let me to lay
on this cold granitic stone
between grey and grey.

please, let me to say –
I’m exhausted and alone
I feel total splay.

please, let me to flay
I’m ready to give a feast,
I’ll wait birds of prey.

please, let me to stay!
I found my latest refuge
between grey and grey…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2014

41 thoughts on “a Refuge”

    • Thank you very much!
      It’s a special poem for me… I know, I broke grammar rules here. I didn’t realize this fact when I was writing. These lines were beating inside my head and I was deaf. When I became ‘sober’ and re-read this poem, I noticed where I fell. But my friends convinced me to leave all ‘as is’.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. “I’m absolutely mad about this”, Alice said! She was so taken with the Haiku set that she quickly looked around for the Hatter, only magic like this could come from one source. She desperately asked the Cheshire Cat for help, yet he only smiled at her. So Alice politely smiled back, and in smiling back, she forgot what she was looking for, and just enjoyed the words to “a Refuge” one more time!

    I just love, love, love this, trapped in the many shades of cold stone grey, somewhere between the definition of life and death. Is this life we live just a holding tank for the dead, while we wait to be reborn?

    Always,
    Your Little Alice ♥

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. Ah, I love it! I love graveyards. Once I caught on, I pictured someone laying in an above ground tomb, perhaps a vampire 😉 And you followed the syllable rules correctly, excellent work Unbolt!

    It reminded me of this old tanka I wrote and posted at http://21shadesofblue.com/2014/03/14/cloud-atlas-tanka/

    (remember, with tanka, the first 3 line stanzas are haiku, and the 4 and 5 lines are 7 syllables long! With tanka, it’s permissible to have the 4th an 5th lines connected or separate from the first 3) –

    “Cloud Atlas (Tanka)”
    by Ry Hakari

    All foreign phrases,
    said a thousand times ‘fore in
    our forged world’s phases

    Twenty-one shades of old news,
    Sun-faded, we’ve repainted:

    “Wombs viewed through skewed tombs:
    Heart’s art rued, drawn empty rooms
    lest LOVE, summoned, blooms

    Dawn’s breath draws upon dusk’s death,
    painting rose, tainting lily“

    (The song is by the band Blue Foundation, as is called “Silence (End of the Day)”. It’s what I originally paired with my poem!)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • Thank you, the Cheshire Cat!
      It means a lot, to deserve your appreciation about haiku :))))
      I have to admit… the line ‘please, let me to lay on this cold granitic stone’ was fidgeting in my head during last 2 days… I just couldn’t understand what I can do with it.
      I just let off it.
      When I checked syllables… I even wasn’t surprised. I just understood that its time came.
      I liked the process. It’s like to solve an equation… to gather a jigsaw puzzle…

      Thank you for beautiful music and your tanka.
      The parts of the jigsaw puzzle are gathering together…

      Liked by 2 people

    • Exactly, haiku and tanka are like jigsaw puzzles! I’m glad you like them!

      You could make the lines

      “please, let me rest, lay
      down on this cold granite stone”

      but I liked your word choice more, even though it wasn’t in exact English grammar. It had a beautiful flow to it, I enjoyed the melodic rhythm the words wove into my thoughts as I read it!

      Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you, thank you, Ryan… thank you for your tact :))
      ‘it wasn’t in exact English grammar’

      Damn! Damn!!
      let me TO (verb)
      Fuck! TO!!

      I feel like a full moron! :)))
      I was drunk… I was junked by this poetic flow… I was captured by this melody and I made this silly thing :)))
      I’d got a couple of slaps in the face from my Zombie already… It’s nice that vampires can’t blush!
      Because I’m absolutely red under my aristocratic pale leather mask 🙂
      OK… I’ll appellate to Licentia Poetica!
      I’ll ask clemency 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Ah, reading your comment, I think you are going to love Pepper’s and my poem collaboration that we will be posting soon! I wrote a short story to go with it, that tells the story behind the poem.

      You and I will have to do a collaborative poem sometime! Hey, maybe all three of us can collaborate sometime! That would be cool. You and Pepper are my favorite bloggers, you both make blogging so much more enjoyable! Instead of two peas in a pod, we’re three oddballs in a pond! lol

      It wasn’t just tact, as that song “Schism” by Tool that I have quoted to you a couple times now, I found beauty in the dissonance of your poetry. On tv and movies, sometimes when there is someone who speaks Russian as their first language, speaks English, they deliberately have them speak broken English in a Russian accent to give their character depth, and a foreign feel. Yeah, you don’t want to have improper grammar in all your poems, but for this one, I read it in a woman’s thick Russian accent in broken English, as a Russian vampire who is speaking to an American traveler who has stumbled upon her crypt, and doesn’t know she is a vampire, and is a little frustrated with the traveler, who is trying to convince her to come out of the crypt. The in-exact grammar gave the vampire character depth, and created a story in my mind that was beautiful, because even though it didn’t have perfect grammar, it had perfect rhythm, so it worked!

      I was being honest, I wouldn’t change it if I were you, I really like it as it is, and I’m happy you wrote a haiku set! Pepper wrote one sometime the past several weeks too, and I liked it as well! She recently referred to me as “The Haiku and Tanka King”, which was very nice – I love the poetry forms, and it makes me happy to see friends experimenting with them, as I know they are a challenge.

      I truly loved your haiku and in-exact grammar, it gave your poem a deeper depth as I read it! It reminded me of the girl from a true short story from my past that I posted at http://21shadesofblue.com/2014/08/01/schemes-of-blue-tailed-skinks-skeins-of-forest-faeries-short-story/ as well as this silly but cool song:

      Liked by 3 people

    • Oh, Ry, your comment should be posted like an individual post!
      An amazing Gothic story!!
      I watched it mentally, like a video…
      I’m looking forward to your collaborations!!

      And thank you very much…
      I feel much better now and stopped self-reproaching 🙂
      P.S. Our collaborations is a great idea! I’m ready for any madness 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

    • Thank you, that is quite the compliment, to say my comment was so refined 🙂

      You’re welcome, only the truth!

      Remember, I am your editor and friend, and the responsibilities of such enlist responsive honesty and constructive criticism and encouragement. Honesty is something very important to me, and I detest deception. I would tell you privately with tact if I thought your haiku was jarring, especially as the haiku form is one of my adopted children!

      Remember, I let you know in advance you might have difficulty with the form, but as it turned out you surprised me, and the difficulty this time turned out to work in your favor in creating a unique reading experience with many subtleties that stimulated my imagination – that’s quite a feat to do with haiku, a form where it can be a great challenge to say much with few words, but you accomplished like a natural! I’m proud of you, you have such depth to your words, Unbolt, M.D., Word-Surgeon of the Surreal! 😀

      Liked by 2 people

    • Golly!
      Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
      I feel like a knight in Accolade ceremony… oh, my King of the Haiku and Tanka! I’ll serve hand and foot!
      I’ll die for the sake of Poetry!

      Liked by 3 people

    • You reminded me of my http://21shadesofblue.com/2014/06/24/mighty-pens-ink-flows-from-hearts-haiku/ whose contents I’ve copy/pasted below!

      “Mighty Pen’s Ink Flows From Hearts (Haiku)”
      by Ry Hakari

      Small sparks start wildfires
      Speeches fan a leader’s fame—
      Words write history!

      “True, This! —
      Beneath the rule of men entirely great
      The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
      The arch-enchanters wand! — itself is nothing! —
      But taking sorcery from the master-hand
      To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
      The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
      States can be saved without it!”
      — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, 1839

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Joke or not, I have to say that your wordplay here is spot on. I love when writers do this sort of thing. This poem comes across as slightly melodramatic, but in an honest kind of way. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I really like that dynamic here. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thank you, Tony!
      I hope, your unicorns and you aren’t afraid of graveyards… My literary way often goes through the dark places. Not always, but often 🙂

      Yes! I have to say that I adore your characters!
      I even envy a bit… I can’t draw so cool 🙂
      I’m looking forward for your new posts (and will be scanning your old posts as far as possible).

      Take care… and give my greetings for the unicorns!

      Liked by 1 person

    • My unicorns are telling me that they like you, and to keep visiting your blog if I know what’s good for me! One thing I’ve learned is never argue with unicorns. They make their points rather persuasively… 😉

      Liked by 2 people

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