Poetry by Elena Kotsil

galaxies and hurricanes



Meta-statement

I keep my
eyelids
open with
toothpicks
until I
see no more
I take the
toothpicks
away I
plant them
into the soft
dirt where
the seeds of the
unseen are
rooted in between
the grooves
I give water
I give light
I expect
nothing to
grow only
to crawl

I wait.




Family Album

This is an old photograph
blurry in the periphery
details and lines lost
Here it is the window
with the curtains in
the color of the moss
Here it is the field with
the potatoes and the lettuce
In the corner the small tractor
suitable for the small people
of this house
And further on there they stand
The reeds.

The reeds are moving
back and forth
I am trapped inside
The smell of the dead
cats and dogs is burning
my lungs and my brain
I cry because I can´t
spend there the night

I can see the house beyond
moving back and forth
back and forth

A cradle for unwanted children




While passing by a playground

My cells like fruitflies
dance around the light
they are dazzled
they are blinded
they are confused

The fruit is rotten and
the light is a burning bulb

There is a connective path
It fills in the carved chasm and
the few of them that survive
they jump into Lethe

I guess all my future children
are predisposed to poetic
suicide even at this early
stage of half development

I would like to name you
but I don’t know how many
of you are left and for
how long

I could freeze you down
Search for a suitable host
My fear is that you will
carry this parasitic attitude
later in your life and I
will still choose kittens
over you

(I am sorry
                    I don’t know any better)




Associations

(When) you say you
can’t (easily) forgive I
assume you weren’t hurt
enough

My mind is full of
holes where memories
flow through like
waterfalls

What are you planning to
do with that thing around
your neck
You call it pearls
I say it’s a rope

The acid finds its way to
my oesophagus and from there
to my lungs
I know it’s wrong
but it happens

My reflection on the
window is fat or I
am full of air

I try to have a good
look inside me but
I can’t
go as deep as the
subcellular level  
so I don’t know what
is going on in there

​

Bio: Elena Kotsil is a writer-in-progress based in Munich. Apart from scientific papers, she has managed to publish a few words back home, Greece. She tries to finish her PhD in cancer biology which is a tough business, and on Saturday nights she focuses on her typewriter to deal with her issues that happens to be plenty.

---