Sleeping Beauty Poem by Galina Italyanskaya
Sleeping Beauty
When hope is gone,
No stars, no sun,
Despair is deep.
Your nights pass by,
You can't survive,
Nor fall asleep.
The clock is striking half past one,
Your heart is sore
For all the dreams you can't enliven
Anymore.
Afraid of time, you feel its hands
Around your throat:
The lack of air, the lack of sense,
The lack of thought.
Tormenting nights remind you of a fairy tale
About the girl who spent in sleep her every day
Until her promised Mr. Right scraped through the shrub
To kiss her lips, as meant to be, and wake her up.
You'd like to sleep enough at last
Not being dead.
You envy her the youth and life
She has ahead.
And you believe that dreams are easier than life:
Just lie in bed and watch a film - no deeds, no strife.
I know so much about that,
You'll be surprized,
So I could tell you what I felt
And memorized.
Her soul is wandering above her feeble flesh
The world so weird that she often feels abashed.
It throws her up, it brings her down, it seems insane.
She doesn't guess, it's all illusive: joy and pain.
And when she meets someone, she hopes, he is a friend.
And when the skies start falling down, she meets the end.
As many times as many dreams before her eyes
She lives her life like it is real,
And so she dies.
She flies up freely to avoid
The fire of guns,
She drives her spaceship through the void
To other suns.
An infidel, she talks to god
While playing chess,
And if she wins, he'll give a nod
And even bless.
God never tries to put on airs
As one could think:
No time for pride when you must care for everything.
Another dream
She was a child before the king
Reproaching him:
It's silly that he wants to kill.
But now she's staring at the dread atomic cloud
And feeling mute, unable to draw a breath to shout.
Tsunami waves
Like crashing walls
Against the coast
Have swept and swallowed it at once, forever lost…
While she could simply fly away from certain death,
She's watching it, as if her feet froze to the earth.
And let her reach the hearts and minds of young and old,
Who said that beauty really can defend the world?
A happy, lucky, pretty girl
From le beau monde…
Who will descry a silver curl
If she's a blonde?
And who could fancy
Her serenity is fake?
A hundred years
She sees nightmares
And can't awake.
________________________
(Ukhta, January 05 2016)
Thank you very much, Kim! I'm very glad that it doesn't seem boring!
Your poem haunted me in my dreams last night. I've been thinking about it ever since you posted it on Facebook. I found it well-written, flowing, and imaginative, but also very disturbing on multiple levels. One the one hand, you're exploring the inner fairly tale, Sleeping Beauty, but on the other, you're pulling in the reader, and specifically, women, by using the word 'you' and writing about an iconic female figure. I never thought about the practicalities of sleeping for 100 years. I always assumed it was a very deep sleep, similar to anesthesia, where there are recollections of nothing. But...what if she was dreaming that whole time, in a fitful sleep, maybe even intense feelings of sleep paralysis. And what of this prince business? And what of that King. And what about God...I love the line, An infidel, she talks to god /While playing chess, /And if she wins, he'll give a nod/And even bless.' What is the meaning of it all? Interestingly, you bring it back to the roots of the fairly tale when you return to the concept of beauty and its power. Is it really all that? Are we really talking about Sleeping Beauty here...or something else? The idea that surviving the dreaming is harder than life is intriguing. Well written. This is the first poem of yours I've read and commented on. You have a unique take on life and I like your writing style. Its beautiful.
I guess we are talking about many things relating to beauty. Well, first thank you for your feedback, Pamela! I'm really touched! Another thing is the mystery of sleeping. Dreaming is much wider concept than sleeping, because it includes also daydreaming: all our plans and inner talking and fantasies. But daydreaming (one of the most important tools of our creativity, creativity in all senses) is under our control, while dreaming at night is subconscious and here, in that realm, reason loses its power. Nobody knows for sure what happens to our soul in sleep. And even if her sleep was very deep... who knows? People in coma often surprize us with their paradoxal perception and even remembrance. Even those who survived clinical death had perception, impressions and thoughts. And at the same time people often can't recall usual dreams just after they wake up. I never believed that sleeping people can be like senseless logs. It's just not so obvious. I really think that she was not only sleeping but she was dreaming. Even EEG couldn't be a proof because we know not so much about it to be sure in our interpretations. Her prince business? I don't know))) It's too intimate to guess) The King? Well, there were many kings and many armies and ambitions, and once again who knows how many of them will be in the future. In our sleep we can manage time and space, we can reach any place and any moment! Talking to God... She was very young, almost a child. Children are infidels in their souls. They don't deny the idea of God because they don't deal with abstract ideas, and that's why they are not religious. But their perception of the universe, their sincerity, their ingenuousness let them be much closer to God, than taking him seriously (deeply religious) adults. And I guess that if there should be God, he is not arrogant) And the last thing: the power of true Beauty. I heard that Dostoyevsky is relatively well-known and popular in the west. And you could met his statement from The Idiot (Beauty will save the world) . The matter isthat beauty is harmony. And so it brings harmony. And not only Dostoyevsky thinks so. All fairy tales are full of it. Princesses are beautiful, not only their faces and bodies, but their inner world, their kindness, their honesty and sincerity. True Beauty is not to be stained, but to enlighten everything around. And still some people appear to be blind. Or maybe they never met princesses? I think, there are princesses nowadays too (maybe not all of them official ones) , but seems they are not almighty. At least I can't see the end of this opposition in my dreams.
This is such an intriguing poem, expressed with beautiful words, yet it speaks with a lot of pain and sadness. I wish this is one poem I can fully comprehend, but for now only in parts. The writer seems to have a mix of a very complex mind and a very sensitive heart.
Well conceived and nicely brought forth in persuasive expression with conviction. A work of an intricate mind. Thanks for sharing Galina and do remain enriched.
Your imaginations bring life's adventure seem real... many can relate to it somehow! Liked it!
I can't explain the beauty of this beautiful poem which leads to the eternity of life. Very soft, mild and soothing write. Thanks for sharing. Keep writing. +10.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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12/5/2025 12:22:12 AM # 1.0.0
Wow! This is a fascinating poem and one that demands plenty of attention from the readers. You took the fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty and placed it in a complex narrative, if I say so, that unravels many different states of CONSCIOUSNESS. I assume this poem is mostly about human consciousness, dreams, fantasies, and psychological phenomenas. It is really worthy question - maybe she was sleeping, but does it mean that her consciousness too was sleeping? ? What if she was in a state of physical limbo, but her mind wandered off in dreams and fantasies, maybe even connected to a higher level of consciousness? ? What we primarily assume to be a kind of fairy tale, might be more of a horror story! ! A brilliant one Galina, one that we can call, to take W. B. Yeats' words, a 'terrible beauty'.. BRAVO! !