The Second Bilingual Poetry Reading hosted by Nina Kossman Live from New York

                                                

                                                                           

The Voices in my Ear[1]

For Nina Kossman

 

The rhythm of the words rises upon

The air like waves upon the sea,

Your breath mixing with the air

Could be a useful analogy.

 

 They are totally unfamiliar

For they are clothed in another language,

Atomised upon the viral air.

Their contagion affects, suffice it to say.

 

Despite the meaningless nature of the sounds

To my sense of reason, the sound of the phonemes

Resonate in a place far beyond meaning.

Where they rest in me is where they sound,

 

And it is a place which I trust instinctively.

What do the words say?

From them I detect emotions, mood and feelings,

As well as curses blasphemies and possible

 

Invocations. Hopes too, and so many of them

Cruelly trashed. In truth, the more I listen

To them the more I understand the clothing.

I recognise this language; it is called being human.

---

[1] This poem was written to commemorate the Second Bilingual Reading hosted online by Nina from New York during the Covid 19 pandemic, May 16^th, 2020. The readers were predominantly reading poems in Russian which they then had translated into English. 

                                                                               

( If you wish to see the reading in its entirety, click on the link below. ) 

https://www.facebook.com/423388547808506/videos/2365909737041423/UzpfSTEwMDAzNTc4NDc0NDEyMjpWSzo1NTQ3OTMyNTg1MTU4MzI/