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Nina Kuzmicki: Two Poems
| Nina Kuzmicki: Two Poems |
Saturday, September 10, 2022 |
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I never met Nina except by way of a few stories and a large sheaf of poems. Her partner Conreux was a larger-than-life character who was a classical pianist, a composer, and an opera singer of a rare variety: the Wagnerian tenor. But he'd left the musical world along with the normal world for reasons that are a long story in themselves. For several years Conreux, his two children, and Nina lived in various remote locations along California's north coast where they lived off hunted game and small garden produce. It was a hard, stressful life and eventually Conreux and Nina seperated.
Without Nina the little family was in sad disarray when they came to stay with us for a short time in Bellingham in 1978. Conreux had business in California and we agreed to look after the kids while he was gone. These were most unusual and delightful children. They'd lived for years away from schools, and their family library was small, but included the complete dialogs of Plato, all of Shakepeare's plays, and other things I no longer remember. At 12 and 13 the kids seemed to know much of this library by heart and when they arrived at our house were working together on the libretto and score for an opera of their own devising.
Unfortunately, any hopes of reuniting with Nina ended when Conreux received word that she had been killed in a car accident. She was 29 years old at the time.
I don't know a lot of Nina's story beyond this. Her father was a Russian refugee who escaped from a Soviet Gulag after World War II and finally settled in England. Nina was born in England and raised both in England and later in the United States. For the last 10 years of her life she lived with Conreux and his family. Nina was an autodidact and a self-taught poet. Her poems were mostly an emotional diary of her unconventional life and were not intended for publication. But as I've read them over the years it began to seem a shame that at least a few of them were not available to a wider audience. So I'm posting two of them here.
Photo of Nina Kuzmicki courtesy of Judy Prisoc
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| Lost Love |
When you took your love from me
you were my God,
and I, a fallen angel.
And I could wail
and lament the wrongs I'd done,
the person I had been,
the pains I wouldn't thrust
upon my utmost foe yet saved
for you with utmost relish,
as though you were my wretched past
come forward for just deserts.
And I could beg forgiveness
and promise change,
to slam all doors upon the former self,
to turn my hate to love
and trade cruelty for compassion.
But you would have to see me
for what I am and not
for what I thought I'd be.
And I would have to realise
that for some things,
it is too late, too late.
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| Rejected |
There are many paths to travel on
to go away from those we love.
Your unassuming, passive way
is no less painful for those who care
than doors slammed shut on open hearts.
Love's burning for omnipotence
is powerless 'gainst depthless eyes
that see not me, nor anyone,
'cept isolated self by self sotted
with nectar of depression.
And in your deep, dark, deathlike hole
you are a tribute to self-sufficiency.
And I'm alone, exposed, betrayed,
afraid you won't come back to me.
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| All site contents copyright 2022 Edward W. Farrell |
This page last updated on 2022-09-10 |
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