Inspired by: Facade by Elle Schorr

phantoms by Dmitry Blizniuk

A girl in a white dress, on the deck of the ship,

puts peanuts in her mouth,  staring into the distance,

where the wide river and the sky touch

like past and future,

like revolver and holster.

“I’m a nymph. I live here,” the silence says

in the language of snake-like hair, writhing

while the mongoose of the breeze plays with it.

We are on the ship,

She’s eating peanuts; I’m smoking.

Thin orange dragons with pelican’s beaks

glide up from the east.

We both see them,

and the world

gradually recovers from mankind,

from the sentient AIDS…

No, I’m just imaging things,

imagining phantoms

at the edge of the sky and the river.

Judge Stephen Gibson’s comments: “Evocative of the unknown as being alluring and dangerous—fine surrealistic imagery, as opposed to naturalistic imagery (you’ll never see the sky and sea fitting together like a “revolver and holster” as they do here in this poem, but the image works). Very fine piece.”

Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared “The Courtship of Winds”, “River Poets Journal”, “Dream catcher”, “Magma”, “The Gutter Magazine”, “Press53″. He is a finalist for 2016 Award “Open Eurasia”, “The Best of Kindness 2017″(USA), He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine.