Poetry Louis Kasatkin

By Louis Kasatkin

Louis is editorial administrator at www.DestinyPoets.co.uk and founder of Destiny Poets and in his spare time is a civic, community, political activist, blogger and general nuisance to the status quo!

 Louis Kasatkin

INTERMEZZO

Voices on a phonograph
flutter across a deserted apartment,
their cadences lose themselves
among the zig - zag alleyways
on whose rooves silhouettes are painted
by passing airships on
bright timeless summer days;
In a nearby park
the oompah band plays
snatches of some Strauss melody
enthralling lunchtime crowds
attired in their finest holiday fashions;
And in the apartment
where someone used to be,
only a discarded telegram remains,
and with that emptiness inside me
I get up and leave;
leaving just the mirror
and the silence.

Manuscript Found in an Antique Dresser

Words etched in time,
fade even as I gaze at them,
wondering who wrote them?
when were they written?
who were they written for?
and that final question that
even History cannot answer;
were the words ever read
by anyone before me?
or am I the first reader
and maybe the last?
shall I keep this manuscript's secrets safe?
or should I betray them

THE END OF EMPIRE

Magnolia-scented archipelago morning,
camouflaged gun-carriages
slinking along
taut cobblestoned arteries
to the grand Palace de Ville;
half-awake kepi'ed corporals
tune battered transistor radios
catching the tresses of
fleeting Francoise Hardy chansons,
their spiritual melange of
love, hope and understanding
struck down by the
bayonet- sharp rays of the sun
glinting on pristine marble statues,
quiescent cherubs of moments
dawning and dying,
holding thoughts in thrall
evoking a lassitude that will never
see its own likeness again
in all the mirrors
that blank and fade,
as the first of the artillery
heralds the crucifixion
of Coup d'etat.

Setu, September 2018