In the new-moon sky

by Marina Kazakova

In the new-moon sky

Mars outshines all stars

except the one – 

the Goddess, 

the second from the Sun, 

born from the sea foam,

the brightest.

In fifteen eighty-one

(before Christ) 

the Babylonians called it

‘Queen of the sky,’

much later

the Romans worshiped Venus

as Goddess of Good Fortune. 

The ropewalker is lying

on the August grass,

taking a star bath,

under the meteor shower.

They say one day on Venus 

is longer than 12 months,

the ropewalker is trying 

to envisage it: 

to live a day and night

that last eternity -

an annum.

What an adagio!

The falling space-flowers

form the garden of roses

where the ropewalker,

in levitation,

is being transformed 

into the sea foam,

into the Babylon,

into the Romans,

into the silent,

loving,

hate-free

universe.

* * * * *

Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, 1983) is a writer, poet and audio-visual artist in Belgium. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press' Maintenant, AntiNarrative Journal, Crannog), Marina is a frequent performer. She has been shortlisted at different poetry/film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes. She is author of verse novel Tishe...Piano, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ‘The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015. Her literature works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the challenges posed both by memory and grief. In addition to poetry, Marina has written essays and articles for such publications as The Word Magazine (Brussels), Culturetrip. com, Seanema.eu. Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is Communications Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’(Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Film-Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in film” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).