Tag Archives: Memories

hedgehogs in the fog

blue sky, yellow grain
winter’s leaving ukraine again
a ploughman’s cycle without end
i say life for all & death to kings

god’s got his tombstones all in a row
dominoes waiting for the drop
it’s all i can do not to cry a river

here in the dark breath is adjourned
i’m checking notifications again
you were last seen five hours ago
does god really think no one’s looking

so i’m trying to remember instead
the shape of hope & all that’s to come
& the hedgehogs we saw in kyiv

the warm hearth of your mother’s kitchen
your father’s childhood in chechelovka
our river walks & your brother’s games
the shadow cat i left behind in dnipro

so i’m trying to remember instead
shared sun salutes in an upstairs room
it’s all i can do not to cry a river

do you remember the hedgehogs of kyiv
i wish them well in forever sleep
& stand with ukraine in the fog of war
i’m thinking of you & the shape of hope to come

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

rainwreck

the morning i came back home to you
there were clouds of thunder behind your eyes
and something told me that day
no raincoat nor lightning rod would help at all

i offered you my rose-coloured glasses
a divergent lens you could pardon me through
i hoped to see your rainbow smile
and a sundog dancing a jig on your nose

but adoration’s spine got broken with words
our kisses tainted by ire and woe on fire
and so the rose-coloured view was cracked
overwhelming the room with a fatal shatter

punctured by the shards of desperate memories
of us never at peace despite love’s prevailing
weak and vulnerable, ever weather-exposed
without imminent hope for a good forecast

and so i pulled at the pieces until they fell away
a trail of wreckage leading out the door
a wet season took its hold over the world
the morning i forsook a home with you

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

summer’s last day

his ears shone redly in the setting of the sun
his puff of hair an orange, a halo of light
and the earthworms drowsed in a rusty can
at his feet, toes splayed and warmly pink

if only there’d been another minute
one more hour to append the day
a breath stolen beneath the moon

grasshoppers made their ruckus in the tall grass
stroking limbs to their wings like tiny violins
water shimmered with the scales of spotted bass
the line’s arc and plish was his blithesome song

if only there’d been another minute
one more hour to append the day
a breath stolen beneath the moon

and so everything breathed, full of bliss and love
in this treasured moment, my memory of him
we stared into the carefree summer clouds above
before they trammeled the horizon into sepulchral night

if only there’d been another minute
one more hour to append the day
a breath stolen beneath the moon

for our shine to outlast a little while

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

eidolon (we)

and so do we all decant
all along our silent roads
incant in silent refrain:

‘when the book of breathing is closed
when the clocks are covered in the town of lazarus
when the faience of minds has declined to the last’

in that final silence that befalls us all
will the ghost of you remember me
and gather up the ghost in me
will you lovingly take the ashes and bone
and carry me home

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020