Speak Lithuanian with a Few Words 

Night (nakvoti)—

A child spends the night
skimming milk she did not have
in Germany during the war.
Weighted lashes speak years
caged in Chicago’s displaced
hind quarters—
smell the stockyard stench
of  slaughtered cattle. Kerchief
your nose with a wooden
clothespin,
disinfect Halsted street
cars and bus fumes
that choke a woman
displaced once more to an

unfinished (nebaigtas) Ohio
home (namas).

—Clarissa Jakobsons’ Lithuanian parents fled Russian Communism during the 1940’s. She was born during World War 2 in Germany, lived in Austria, Illinois, and Missouri, but settled in Ohio. Her father was captured and placed in Hitler’s concentration camps and Stalin’s gulag. Artist, poet, and associate editor of the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Magazine, Clarissa instructs art and writing classes at Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland. A popular reader of her poems in the states as well as in Europe, she is widely published.

In Concert with Apollo’s Fire

March 13, 2010, Severance Hall Concert*

Cellophane candy wrappers cease
fidgeting as the audience takes a final breath.
Elbows settle in the upper balcony

scrunched tight between seats. Quiet. Calm.
Binoculars pass hand-to-hand. Men spread
eagle knees to the back of our seats.

Sergei Babayan touches keys of old.
Coughs checkmate each movement
as he lifts his head side-to-side,

his fingers weave golden strands, directing
violins. The patrons loved Mozart as Severance
Hall dreams of a past when life was simple

like home baked bread with churned butter.
But, you too, Mozart, ran out of funds. Striking
notes ring enchant the butterflies aflutter.

I can almost touch the ceiling’s gold leaf.
Allegretto, my fingers relax their grip
as Sergei digs deep into circling arms 

that pause before speaking. Crescendo.
He leads us like sheep.
Orchid petals fall into our hands.
—Clarissa Jakobsens

Concert Note:
The antique German Bluthner piano chosen for this concert developed technical problems due to Ohio’s dry winter. The instrument is made of European wood and was accustomed to a mild, humid climate. Therefore, Babayan performed on a light, transparent Steinway concert grand.