“Hear your soul” published in the Literary Yard

August 30, 2020November 30, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 4 Comments

Here is another poem, a bit heavier than the other I posted the other day, than has also been published in the Literary Yard. I hope you will enjoy it. You can read it in the Literary Yard here.

Photo : “Believe By Force”, by Kai Stachowiak

Hear your soul
by Andrada Costoiu

Bemused from the perusal,
Of walks through the world’s faiths,
You’re seating at the table of your life,
With present and the future you,
Still searching for enlightenment,
Still wishing that it is much more you knew.

Define the undefined, and feel it!
Your animated consciousness does that everyday,
Then why to find the answer,
To soul and its existence,
Is still uncharted way?

Behold the contradiction, the chatter of two sides,
As far apart as ever, both struggle to be guides.
One says that it’s your body the vessel for your soul,
The other that these two are indivisible and whole.

The inner music of your thoughts secretly shouts: ”I am immortal”!
Convincing, but certainly revised by your sense of the natural world.

Your heart pulsing beneath your chest breathes life,
You think, maybe your story didn’t last long enough to know the answer.
But then you lock eyes with yourself in the mirror,
You see,
Your soul, the silent actor,
Sealed tightly with the corks of your unfettered nature,
Assimilating, crystallizing, metabolizing,
The pain and the pleasure,
The gain and the loss,
The hideous and the lovely,
The demonic and the divine!
You feel yourself emerging countless times,
With purpose and determination,
Shoving away in scorn,
A vast blind history of explanations,
Of our origins and of the destiny of being born!

The chatter quiets and you listen,
The waters of your mind are clear and quiet,
And in their depths you see the wisdom of the untold aeons of time,
The energy and love,
Unquestioning, complete,
Beautiful and hopeful,
Becoming you.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

© Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2020- . Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Andrada Costoiu and a-passion4life.com, 2019 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

My poem “The Artist Prison” has been published by the Literary Yard

August 29, 2020August 30, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 21 Comments

Here is the link for the publication: Literary Yard.

The artist’s prison
by Andrada Costoiu

Your fingers are dancing molding the clay,
In shapes that your heart has requested,
Trembling,
Touching with the force and desire of your inmate thoughts,
That promise to become something.

You clothing, covered in the black ash of your past creations,
Is overheating your arms and legs,
Your red and blistered palms are as red and as raw as you feel inside.
You stare for a moment,
The mold that you shaped is delivering confidential information about your soul.

Afraid to share it, you put it in a dark corner of a room,
You grin, willing it safe of peering eyes.

Outside is dark and the gravel sounds under your feet,
You walk away, vulnerable,
Passing and nodding at people,
Hiding your red and blistered palms in your pockets.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Intermittent de-realization

August 27, 2020November 30, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 5 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

Photo: “Dreamcatcher”, by Kai Stachowiak

Beauty in small, everyday things
Helps you put everything into perspective.
Champs-Élysées has the almost unreal beauty of a dream,
Two cherry threes are in blossom in front of a bookstore,
The ghosts from inside books’ pages came out in their smart or funny clothes,
To stare at the pink metaphors of human existence…..

Immersed in an odd silence, I walk,
Looks like a pedestrians’ strike.
It feels viscerally wrong,
My thoughts of “solastalgia”
Bounce on stacked bistro chairs and abandoned happy-hour menus.
A statue wearing a mask reminds me that
The current despoliation is unrelated to the rain or any ecological crisis,
And I touch my pocked to feel the antiseptic immediacy.

Generally, I feel fine,
Until a drone stops above my head and a voice from inside yells at me
“We are at war!”
I am not sure if I should run or greet the voice inside the drone,
And with unexpected new awkwardness I blow it a kiss,
Only to remember that there is a ban on air-kissing too.

I walk faster,
Rethinking my trip to go get bread on a sea of extreme waves:
Happiness from seeing the cherry trees and the ghosts under,
Sadness over the streets devoid of much life,
And anxiety from the pandemic.

Note: I wrote this in March, when France was in quarantine. Much has changed in Paris(and the world!) since then…

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Life study

August 16, 2020November 30, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 18 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

Photo: “Path In The Woods”, by George Hodan

My steps leave marks on the dirt I walk upon,
Next to so many others,
Big and small marks,
I wonder whose stories were or are these….

Drums’ cadence, silent and loud,
Dictate the rhythm of the live orchestra.
Planning, grinding, gripping,
Life in an orderly fashion,
As the clock keeps ticking: time for this, time for that.

I dared to let myself stumble,
That’s when I’ve fallen “out of step” and crashed into the arms of unfelt emotions.

I feared that without the cadence of drums I had no idea of who I am,
But I couldn’t let their sound pierce my soul anymore,
And dance me into the oblivion.
It became a question if I would stay fearful or not.
Tear after tear, I cried my way out to freedom.

Unraveled, I threw myself into the sea of unplanned knowledge,
I might be arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic,
Or I might be sailing on a little ship under a beautiful blue sky.

Everyday I walk my own path…..
My steps leave marks next to others,
Big and small,
I smile and wonder whose stories were or are these….

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Novel Collaboration (“Identify”): Chapter 2. Who wants to write Chapter 3? — Lucy’s Works

August 9, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 2 Comments

I think a collective novel project is always wonderful, because being the product of so many writers you never know what’s going to become. It is like an adventure! Here is a chapter I wrote for the novel “Identify” that is Lucy’s idea. If you’d like to collaborate please follow Lucy’s guidelines(which you can find below).

Here are the guidelines and rules if you are interested in participating in this project: Leave a comment expressing direct interest in writing or claiming a chapter. First come, first serve. You must comment your interest in writing a chapter. If you, however, send in a chapter without expressing interest beforehand, the submission will not be accepted, […]
Novel Collaboration (“Identify”): Chapter 2. Who wants to write Chapter 3? — Lucy’s Works

Circumstances

August 2, 2020 / Andrada Costoiu / 16 Comments

by Andrada Costoiu

Peasant,
Walking next to a king,
One has nothing,
The other has everything.
Birthright.
Was it really fair,
When it gave one the right to rule
While the other one has to be its mule?

Syrian,
Walking next to an American,
One has been displaced and cannot go back,
The other has a home, a car, and no lack.
Birthplace,
Was it really fair,
When it gave one the opportunity for a good life and success,
While the other had to fight, lost everything and has been oppressed?

Actaeon, a Greek hero,
He was a hunter who accidentally saw Artemis, the goddess of wild animals and childbirth, bathing,
For him that sighting was unfortunate,
Artemis got upset and her attack on him was scathing.
She turned him from a hunter into a stag,
His own dogs chased him, then ate him,
And all this happened quickly, without a tiny lag.

Time and place,
When you’re assigned the seat in the great story of life,
Sometimes you are lucky and sometimes you have to brace.