AT THE CIRCUS
And now you’ll watch A mass hypnosis demonstration Tens of million will see and vote the same. As the trapeze jumpers slow down And the rabbits drawn from the hat Are put on the grill The TV, tamed itself Will juggle with the pixels of our brain Like a three-dimensional clown Until we see Beyond the smoky screens Eclipses omitted by Nostradamus himself Who, fixing tea for himself, Could drop in the cup a little of moon A little of sun Or even some smaller wars.
NEW YORK
Nowhere does one weep better than here. As you get out in the street The springs of oblivion burst forth. A Ganges of the oblivion that’s New York. Mad traffic on all the avenues Some walk, some swim Feathers that failed their wings Rain down from above Together with insurance polices And white pigeon shit. People cross on red lights as on green The streets lights are there For us just to look up Not to forget that the sky exists And our pedestrian crossing happen suddenly Through all the colors of the rainbow As through a zebra of light.
If all our former shadows Would go into the streets once a year It would turn into a more spectacular carnival than Rio The Demon of Labor wouldn’t recognize us And would lick our joints Like a wild dog.
You can see what you want Believe what you want. It’s a great visual democracy From the billboards in the parks To the parks in the billboards To the women who smoke only in the streets To the dogs that drag after them the most humanized humans. I watch all this with six eyes Two with tears caused by the wind Two with tears of joy Into the last two, which grew in much latter I put in rain drops To see the fish in the sky better. I look like a Picasso painting Spread over six canvases. If I were to look at myself in European museum I wouldn’t recognize myself.
In front of me the greedy subway jaw Swallows people seven days of the week Sunday the city wipes it’s mouth With a thin sleeve of history. Above the 20th floor Everything becomes rarefied The lawyers sharpen their pencils Directly in the helicopters’ propeller The pigeons aim harder at us The last souls are distilled like whiskey Through plastic tubes. Above the 50th floor The vapors of those tears steam up And we don’t know how to get rid of them.
We’re all a bunch of alchemists in a row We’ll reinvent everything: clouds, rain, death And we’ll give them more appropriate names.
In Queens and Brooklyn the emigrants Mate their accents With every newborn child They deliver the heart of a bird Which no longer knows Its way back over the ocean.
With so many skyscrapers piercing the sky We look like the beginning of a new phallic cult But softer and calmer Where “I love you” Is like sweet-and-low Diet Coke Where sex-and-love with substitutes Is taught in the same schools Where students get free condoms Along with detailed instructions for abstinence.
Our spirits sent to Sahara Remain more virgin than Fata Morgana For the big orgy of eternity. Nobody cries here We all carry our dreams like life belts. We are the happiest drowned of the earth.
ANDALUSIA
The stones that make up street stripes Are blunt on both sides. Underneath the ghosts of the estranged Moors With their manhood choked in the mosaics of Alhambra The Jews pushed by Isabella towards the altars Before the invention of the bullfights. The Inquisition taught olive trees to burn on stakes. Bulls sharpening their horns in vain On the edge of history For matadors and crusaders in parade costumes. Cathedrals, mosques where armies entered And never came out Synagogues with gates you hit your head against 6 euros admission You can pray for free to whomever you want David's stars with uncounted corners Baroque menorahs adorned with angels King Alfonso on a horse holding a sword Crushing a man of the wrong religion Graffiti crosses turned upside down on walls The battery of the electronic guide is running out Pieces of history in my right ear Former temples, basilicas, Roman, Visigoth ruins The same stones passed from one God to the other. In a corner one of Columbus's four tombs.
You light a candle of 10 Volts For our dead ones used to the smell of amber And the real smoke of extinguished candles.
Ole, ole we leave after the second butchered bull And eat “bocherones”, some small fish Without any rights.
It's late, we still have to make it through Cordoba, Granada, And this whole Europe full of U-turns Through which we speed dizzily Searching for our way home Naming it after all the places where we’ve lived Like real Americans With all the zip codes erased from our minds.
CITY ON WATER I feel swallowed.
I am a fish trapped in a fish
THE STRAIGHT LINE
I fear the straight line.
You grab a ruler A deceptive light beam The right counsel of the Fathers And here it is in front of you endlessly Ready to swallow you With its crocodile-like verticality. The long path stretched out by all ancestors By the angels you bumped into By the birds you flew with By the cross that shows up from time to time Like telegraph poles seen from a train.
Straight line leads nowhere The entrance into paradise always comes After a tight curve The wheels screech ready to blow up You can hardly hang onto the steering wheel An endless crazy race You can’t even tell if you ever crossed The finish line.
THE BLUNTED BULLET OF MY HOMELAND
PSYCHANALISIS
I was wandering trough the world Carying an empty luggage Ready to fill it with rare buterflies, unseen colors Or winds from other directions Puzzled all costumer officers stopped and passed me Trough the taughtest check points Over and over again. They sent me to the Immigration to see Freud himself Who gave me a multiple choice test With all the answers wrong or with no answers And I passed it. Then he did a simple test from one of my dried tears. We were in an urinal Full with drawings since I was a child And my hands couldn’t reach the handles of the world. In one of the drawings I got out of the window Always only with one of my halves -Make your mind, Freud shouted It’s such a horrible draft.
Latter I dreamt my subconscious as a palpable thing A soft clay I’ve cast it on my most hidden thoughts Popped out at night like painful bumps. I’ve done this way lots of small statues They all resemble me at the pedestal. Freud retired. My mother watched them face and profile Shook her head and told to the prosecutor -No, no, it’s not him. I recognize only the clay He used to play with as a kid.
LENS OF SALT
Wherever I set foot I leave behind recognizable traces Fanatic detectives, intoxicated with truth Track me by the trail of life. My sole in the sand hidden From the crest of the accomplice wave The shadow on a wall In accord with the cold stone The tear thorough which I see things Like through a lens of salt.
I always escape them somehow My soul does not leave traces Its fingerprint is unknown even to me And disappears As soon as I begin to think.
BEYOND SIGHT
At 11 past 11 sharp The fig tree in the courtyard
THE CLOUDS
Without clouds this desert would be unbearable Sand and blind blue to be drawn into As in an ocean half filled.
I move on a camel of fog with my head turned up To watch them greedily. Clouds are my life. I can see my changing features (With beard, without beard) The way Nimbus and Cumulus Get along with each other. I see my mother, the loved ones I see you from back and front Inflated by wind or my shortness of breath.
One thunder, then another, it will rain for sure God blinks at me through a crack I whip the camel I feel the smell of an oasis far away The sand fills my nostrils I hold in my fist a still wet cloud.
WITHOUT YOU
CONFESSION
I am guilty, I confessed before being accused.
It was a doomsday atmosphere I never lived before The deeds and the thoughts Watched each other in the mirror And exchanged their masks.
The bones of a deeply buried thought Began to crack.
Then I couldn't bear any longer and I shouted: I am guilty to everything, your honor. Deadly silence followed. He glances at me over the clouds And, apathetic, sentenced me To another future.
THE VOID BETWEEN THE STARS Our events are copies in the fog Where it will stop.
BRONX ZOO
Between the neck of the giraffe, the tears of the gorilla And my own thoughts There is only a distance of a few chromosomes Which God measures by foot. We resemble one another enough Not to devour ourselves In the wrong order. The lion learned how to lick the neck of the antelope Indoctrinated with the idea of immortality. Penguins with voices of cuckolded men Hatch yolks of other’s eggs. Freedom has a large barbed wire eye Through which a hairy paw Snatches the only feather of my back. I’m scared to hold your hand Love here looks like incest In a plastic paradise A tender cannibalism of souls. Cages, wires, warning labels The animals are on a diet, don’t feed them Don’t talk, don’t smile at them In captivity the only music allowed Is Pavlov’s bell. Caretakers wearing snakeskin-shoes Collect the colored peacocks’ taxes The only ones left at liberty. It’s lunchtime at the aquarium Where natural selection remains banned Fresh baits are fed the fish. Death blunted its teeth in Africa Long time ago. Finally the Galapagos turtle Gives autographs on steamy windows With Darwin’s look in its eye. Next is the reincarnation section Butterflies, insects, ants Anthills nicely numbered Temporary cemeteries of the new wars Soldiers’ souls wait in line to carry leaves. It’s six o’clock, closing time Wednesday admission is free And I’ll put on my new scales.
BLACKOUT
It was one of those moments When the time stands still to catch his breath. The clock in the tower swallowed its hands Like a defense mechanism And a ball thrown to the basket Escaped gravity.
Still lit the sky scrapers Rose to the sky one by one Like some balloons filled with dreams Freed by a frightened child. Everyone left for the day Only a secretary forgotten on the 99 the floor Was pulled out through window By the angels on duty Who then switched the light off As if following an accomplished historical Experiment.
Where St. Patrick Cathedral stood An Indian tribe was smoking the peace pipe By the altar. I could only hear the drums And the mumbling of the Big Chief Who was checking with his fingers A 20 dollars bill.
Excerpts from “Tattoos on marble”, Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, 2006
Translations into English edited by Maurice Edwards
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