Photo by Diana Popescu
nearfar
you love to sneak into the room when I’m not aware,
like I’m not aware of my past anymore
when I pass through a paper wall
upon which a maestro has retouched a familiar hatred.
notebooks fill up the stove.
newspapers will no longer talk about laws suspension,
as the night when we spread flowers on the seawall
and test the sand
does not repeat itself. that says a lot about love’s arrhythmia
you can’t deny, even though you are the target
of a tidy invasion, whose meaning changes
by choice with every abandoned house.
and I want you nearfar,
I shake my weaknesses off of you and let myself show.
but that unique night does not leave the corridor
you run through in broad daylight, away from the crowd,
to a place where you can start to make them out.
3:30 am
it´s cold and almost dawn. I am not battling evil, I am too beat up already
by the sadness of the cut-down apricot-trees. the serenity with which
I follow the floating sticks
leaves in me the fear of your unexpected arrival. I am ready to fight
before falling asleep, yet no challenge reaches up to me. I fight for you,
for the smoke black skimpily spent.
I withdraw when victory baffles me. that´s when I see
how much I´ve lost with one breath and that things cause my thought to surface. water remembers the constant circling
and the void left behind on your sudden departure.
I drink it in with the same thirst
I bump into words, when the support withdraws
and I bury your image in the garden for later,
when abandonment no longer threatens it. I get dressed slowly,
preserving the warmth of your lips. you can´t hear me, but you behave
as though you obeyed a calling from nearby. and we are now
miles and miles away, still it´s good to have some space
when you love. the number calculates nothing but the impact against the bulwarks, when the body is already half-buried in the ground
and only the song that emerges keeps you alive.
round years
a feet game tears up the round years and the nettle bushes,
gathers us around inside the resonance box of an image.
pretty soon we´ll all be the same age.
suddenly our houses will turn small to fit into the non-empty intersection
of the interiors reshaped after a form of freedom
that grind up the words until they sparkle
with the raw love wandering among us.
nothing compares to the trust you have in a face
that washes your blood in several waters – an evening and a morning.
you watch your food come out of inertia and shine
inside your hungry mouth, while you throw yourself on the ground
to erase the fingerprints with your borrowed breast.
we only have time to glance at each other,
when the sun rolls upon the sound attached at the ends by uvulae,
fearless of the epidemic of unreachable happiness.
while your sleep keeps the dolphins hanging in the air, you can wear your soul
on the side kissed by pain; the need to breathe
teaches me not to lose you in the crowd.
your name is an eye hidden inside me, each time I find myself
thrown to the beasts by a gentle light.
sentic*
with your hand on your heart, with both hands on your heart
in the short recess from pain, you mumble
a song. you look around and quiver. you see nothing.
the things that used to support the utterance lose their fixity,
the words eager to explore the possible
are hindered by signs. not that they stopped radiating
a dim light, but a man who cleaned up the spot ruined by addictions
turns his attention towards something you can´t see,
though you know it is happening. I can tell you now
that I didn´t love you. no, I did love you! yet not to the point where
the angel cuts the red scarf with which I tied up my senses.
they weren't free, they couldn't drag out of my mouth
the knife with which you smear the colors on your canvas.
they didn´t know that sins are hit by a sublime hatred,
generated by the loving care of a Being you don´t know,
although your moves draw a breath from around it
to the spot touched by illness. you´ve got to protect me
from far away, ask those who can to raise one hand,
then lower it slowly towards the heart.
_____________________
* Word created by Dr. Manfred Clynes, who showed that emotion – as a full human experience – can be an experience that does not subdue. In the Christian sense, we speak of an 'understanding emotion'. (A/N)
transfusions
however absurd it may seem,
many people expect from you
some sort of redemption.
your face reveals the way in which pain
keeps you glued to their bodies –
signaling you as a universal donor.
in vain you may try to demonstrate the opposite,
for your own hell itself
dreams of that
and takes the shape of the cross
which made room for you
to disrobe yourself of your mother.
more and more people
wish to test your soul
and thrust your words into their veins
like transfusion needles.
(poems published in the volume "Sentic", Vinea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009, pp. 8-12. English translation: Simona Ionescu.)
