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<p>boy</p><p>a we</p><p>[OR Ow 5</p><p>"OM hag</p><p>.</p><p>Ou</p><p>va i</p><p>4 ‘</p><p>‘ |</p><p>i</p><p>‘i</p><p>4</p><p>City of Dreams</p><p>and Whispers</p><p>Cover Illustration by Dragos Patrascu</p><p>Dragos Patrascu is one of the leading graphic artists in Romania.</p><p>Born in Floresti in the county of Vaslui on 11 September 1954,</p><p>he graduated from the Academy of Arts in Iasi in 1979. He lives</p><p>in Iasi and is a member of the Artists’ Union of Romania. His</p><p>work has received international acclaim and he has participated in</p><p>numerous prestigious exhibitions in Romania and abroad.</p><p>eee fardsh 7, iia gx bitube LC)</p><p>Ca vf aS OV)</p><p>aie ee Need aks oe) : a Adam oiore</p><p>sige</p><p>i=l July 19S</p><p>City of Dreams</p><p>and Whispers</p><p>An Anthology of Contemporary Poets of lasi</p><p>The Center for Romanian Studies</p><p>Iasi ¢ Oxford @ Portland</p><p>1998</p><p>Published in Romania by</p><p>THE CENTER FOR ROMANIAN STUDIES</p><p>The Foundation for Romanian Culture and Studies</p><p>Oficiul Postal I, Casuta Postala 108</p><p>Str. Poligon nr. lla</p><p>6600 Iasi, Romania</p><p>www.romanianstudies.ro</p><p>Published in Great Britain by</p><p>THE CENTER FOR ROMANIAN STUDIES</p><p>c/o Drake International Services</p><p>Market House</p><p>Market Place</p><p>Deddington</p><p>Oxford OX15 OSE</p><p>Great Britain</p><p>Published in the United States of America by</p><p>THE CENTER FOR ROMANIAN STUDIES</p><p>c/o International Specialized Book Services</p><p>5804 N.E. Hassalo St.</p><p>Portland, Oregon 97213, USA</p><p>www.isbs.com</p><p>National Library of Romania Cataloging-in-Publication Data</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers: An Anthology of Contemporary Poets of Iasi</p><p>/ edited and translated by Adam J. Sorkin. Iasi, Oxford, Portland: The Center for</p><p>Romanian Studies, 1998. 296 pp., 22 cm.</p><p>ISBN 973-98391-8-5</p><p>I. Sorkin, Adam J. (ed.;trad.)</p><p>859.0(498 Iasi).09</p><p>859.0-1=20(082)</p><p>ISBN 973-98391-8-5</p><p>Copyright © 1998 by The Center for Romanian Studies</p><p>Printed in Romania</p><p>Contents</p><p>RiMrOC Mich Origen ree. eat OE ot ONS hie le wer ye HE</p><p>PN OReOn Me RGEES vy. uid. aneh 2) Vi Renoeetaa aden Aer Ata 14</p><p>EOemniD yet rinamAncdonems Wei (tReet Aah USCS Ee pal</p><p>OCMspOy eK ACU yA METICSCUL ned. Bt, Mic. fret oo TAN. BomtaGoe al utkt oul</p><p>LEST TOSE OTC Mavs Wa Nala cyatacls Mapencley ea eunee ot 9 cer gmir eer ons Cony ove eee 47</p><p>POETS OVE Fei RDP UNTIL Ue see nt eon ae Meg tes 59</p><p>M@rcMIS TO VECIASEINANCAESECA nh coy cc i ee ety Ra cod es ZA.</p><p>Pees Dy WVictiana Codrupy am J eo ver a Vee Se PS Pa, 83</p><p>EOemisi ye Nichivalamloy eeessinsiu. ots sieak fetes cass LSE 96</p><p>Reems Ove CGellty DOrane eiiaee vs oiesrtianie le in cao Heeels Sh: 6</p><p>RO eHIGhL ye AUTOM UNE aSC Ge ie eo beg 8 a o).0 calor as T22</p><p>PROC Seve ANI Col O SUN Mae ar tT Mechanic tant ge ge ny eee 133</p><p>POeticm VEG aTINe HA IWCOMtC Mitt tr, ee ee esd ete arse 3 147</p><p>AS oretinse Vat CCC LIC NVC NAC ete ec gc ee Seis te ie 160</p><p>GUNS Oy NU Ae Ged tee eee a Ge eu 173</p><p>Recmo ba Ovidny Numigeantan... ecto his Sn OS 184</p><p>6 The City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Poems by DorintPopa J.:..08 oa ee oe eee ea ie 194</p><p>Poems by loantd RomanescusS®. Aches ae. ene ee 208</p><p>Poems by Cristian Simionescuzts ae, eee ea eo 219</p><p>Poems by Cassian Maria Spisidongyaevewr sl ee ee ae 231</p><p>Poemis by Militar Uirssehi eae a cam nee eee ye 242</p><p>Poems by Lician casi litt. eueuss ye ee ee een 260</p><p>Poems by ElOria ZAler ing ce es ee ee 272</p><p>Index of Poeinis'] 52 ak a. o) Seren ee a ee fee ec 286</p><p>(ntroduction</p><p>Poetry in Iasi at the end of the twentieth century, while in no sense</p><p>captive to the spell of the past, is nonetheless deeply influenced by the</p><p>long tradition of high achievement that the city’s poets could not escape</p><p>even if they wanted to. For well over a century, Iasi, historically the intel-</p><p>lectual, artistic, and commercial center of the entire region of Moldavia in</p><p>northeastern Romania, has been at the forefront of Romanian culture. In</p><p>the nineteenth century, the city was a major force in the political and cul-</p><p>tural consolidation of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia that,</p><p>joined later by ‘Transylvania after World War I, brought an end to Austro-</p><p>Hungarian rule in the region, together make up the Romanian nation of</p><p>today. Prominent in this late nineteenth-century period, commonly</p><p>described as a kind of classical era of Romanian writing, was the Junimea</p><p>(“Youth”) Society, founded in Iasi in 1863, a year after the University of</p><p>Iasi, a major educational institution now named for the first prince of the</p><p>Union of the Principalities, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, elected in 1859. The</p><p>Junimea Society, presided over by ‘itu Maiorescu, an influential critic,</p><p>intellectual, and politician, played an essential role in the development of</p><p>modern literature in Romanian as well as the parallel development of such</p><p>fields as journalism, education, aesthetics, and philosophy. The society</p><p>gathered for its weekly meetings and wide-ranging discussions in the</p><p>house of member Vasile Pogor, now the locus of the Romanian Literature</p><p>Museum in Iasi, of which poet Lucian Vasiliu is the director.</p><p>The Junimists nurtured the work of many, but particularly notewor-</p><p>thy are three preeminent figures associated in various ways with the city of</p><p>Iasi, classics in the Romanian canon who cannot pass unmentioned: Ion</p><p>Creanga, a beloved writer of stories and folk and folk-like tales, not infre-</p><p>quently satiric; the trenchant comic dramatist and social satirist, lon Luca</p><p>8 Introduction</p><p>Caragiale; and most importantly, the poet, Mihai Eminescu, who partici-</p><p>pated in the literary society’s activities and in whom Maiorescu took a spe-</p><p>cial interest. The journal founded by the Junimea group in 1867, Literary</p><p>Conversations, presented the large majority of Eminescu’s literary work</p><p>including all his poetry from 1870 on; it still remains a prestigious publica-</p><p>tion with which more than a few poets in this anthology have been, and</p><p>are, associated. Eminescu, born in Botosani in northern Moldavia, was</p><p>Romania’s greatest poet of the nineteenth-century, a late Romantic and</p><p>towering poetic genius whose patriotic and tragic themes (and sadly pre-</p><p>mature demise before he was forty) helped raise him to the status of leg-</p><p>endary figure, the national bard, “the integral expression of the Romanian</p><p>soul” in the phrase of the remarkable historian, writer, and political leader,</p><p>Nicolae Iorga, himself born in the same town as Eminescu. Visionary,</p><p>handsome, brilliantly gifted, steeped in German philosophy and poetry as</p><p>well as in a political conservatism that allied him not just to his Junimist</p><p>colleagues but to just about all later nationalistic movements in Romania</p><p>since his time, and a prolific journalist and writer of essays, Eminescu is</p><p>perhaps most significant for his invention of a cultivated poetic language</p><p>for modern Romanian writing, an accomplishment shared with talented</p><p>predecessors and contemporaries but which he encased in the jewel of an</p><p>ambitious, profoundly moving and subjective, beautifully achieved poetry</p><p>of nature, love, and yearning, of metaphysical depth, and of cosmic mys-</p><p>tery. ‘Lo later poets, Eminescu must seem both inspiration and obstacle,</p><p>inimitable like a natural fact yet, at the same time, a kind of monument to</p><p>the level of attainment to which poets can aspire, and also an example of</p><p>themes and concerns that are still alive and matters of dispute, even if Emi-</p><p>nescu’s style of writing today seems part of, indeed definitive of, his spe-</p><p>cific literary-historical period. For instance, while I am not suggesting any</p><p>direct influence, I cannot help but observe that Mihai Eminescu’s deep</p><p>interest in German poets and philosophers is echoed by this century’s most</p><p>celebrated Iasi poet, Mihai Ursachi, with his mystical poetry of being.</p><p>A litany of the names of illustrious writers of Iasi in the past might go</p><p>on to cite — among poets only — the late nineteenth-century, early twenti-</p><p>eth-century figures of Veronica Micle, the great love of Eminescu’s life who</p><p>committed suicide soon after his death in 1889, and Matilda Cugler-Poni,</p><p>but more important is</p><p>Emil Brumaru 63</p><p>SEVEN INNOCENT SONGS TO SWEETEN</p><p>YOUR MOUTH</p><p>SONG 1.</p><p>October in the church</p><p>Calendars, the yellowing .. .</p><p>In what sublime wardrobe shall I find</p><p>The old atlases, so as to search</p><p>With fingers dipped in gold,</p><p>As if in quince, the pure border</p><p>Where you unclasp your stockings</p><p>From the blue buckle of your garter?</p><p>SONG 2.</p><p>Why don’t you let yourself go crazy</p><p>At five PM, when it’s so good,</p><p>And on the rug in the deep living room,</p><p>Sweetly turn in somersaults with me?</p><p>I'd plead with you to hang your soft dress</p><p>In the antique wardrobe and, remaining bare,</p><p>Together we'd struggle with bitter liqueurs,</p><p>Frozen peppermint and caraway on ice.</p><p>And at dusk, without remembering any longer</p><p>Who we are, turned to silk almost entirely,</p><p>Kneeling there on the sacred beds,</p><p>With our souls we'd light the house on fire!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>64 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE LAST TANGOS OF JULIAN</p><p>THE HOSPITALER: NO. I</p><p>Oh, when the afternoon candies the lilies</p><p>Throughout the house in a divine air!</p><p>Kneeling once more on heirloom table lace,</p><p>I luxuriate in secrets most tender.</p><p>Wilted wardrobes fall in my arms’ embrace,</p><p>Nostalgic, diaphanous thoughts, lacking guile,</p><p>Which hope to taste the ecstatic sweetness</p><p>Of my prayer, a whisper with a gentle smile.</p><p>And while the words conjugate in the wind</p><p>With butterflies, fluttering with love’s wiles,</p><p>My soul swoons, sifting in rich lassitude,</p><p>In rosy dew and dust of chamomile.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>Emil Brumaru</p><p>FAIRY TALE</p><p>Near a garden snake of silk</p><p>There grew a green flower</p><p>Happy to caress each hour</p><p>The dangerous silence of silk.</p><p>But stags, their fear taking wing,</p><p>Crushed the serpent to the bone</p><p>The flower remained alone</p><p>In the delicate grass by the spring.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>65</p><p>66 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ELEGY</p><p>O tumbled-down storehouses!</p><p>Old heaps of sugar beet!</p><p>Ive been postmarked by angels,</p><p>I can’t stand on my own feet.</p><p>In the old waiting rooms</p><p>Sweet with ripened melon</p><p>Once more I drink sugared sips</p><p>Of dusk and indulge in</p><p>Postage stamps issued by</p><p>The clerk near the office door.</p><p>I adore the weigh-station</p><p>And the horse manure,</p><p>I listen to warm cross-ties</p><p>Sighing “Oh woe!” beneath the tracks.</p><p>I write you artless letters</p><p>On yellowed telegrams? backs</p><p>With pen and ink in the dank station</p><p>Where they long ago were tossed.</p><p>The soul is just my ticket</p><p>‘To a freight train that I’ve lost.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>Emil Brumaru 67</p><p>GOOD-BYE, ROBINSON CRUSOE</p><p>Nobody knows it, but along with Robinson</p><p>Crusoe, we were there too: Ada, Cecina, me</p><p>and the others. We all lived, I swear it, in a country railroad station</p><p>surrounded by acacia trees on that island whose name</p><p>we couldn’t remember so terribly well. And as a matter of fact,</p><p>the station master was my father. He’d be attired in a uniform</p><p>with a peaked cap, and he’d signal the departure of the freight trains</p><p>(how proud and slim he was!) with a baton. You see,</p><p>only freight trains ran on our line. And Robinson</p><p>Crusoe had nothing against it.</p><p>Each morning Pd unfold all the telegraph machine</p><p>papers on the platform and draw dots and dashes on every inch</p><p>of them</p><p>with an indelible pencil. Then Pd fold them up</p><p>and proceed behind the granary</p><p>to hollow out the mortar between the bricks with</p><p>an old, blunt kitchen knife. It was there</p><p>I met Ada. From the first she told me</p><p>Robinson Crusoe had given her his permission, too. Immediately</p><p>we swiped the gold buttons from my father’s</p><p>uniform, those buttons that displayed on them a wheel</p><p>and the wings of an eagle, which he was so taken with</p><p>that he’d sewn on two rows of them: one for</p><p>buttoning, the other for his own sheer pleasure. But he</p><p>couldn’t get awfully cross with us. He knew, in exchange for</p><p>letting us stay on the island, we'd give them to Robinson Crusoe.</p><p>Then Cecina made her appearance, which took place</p><p>one afternoon. She was bigger than us, she might already have</p><p>graduated from high school, and we wondered that</p><p>she’d been admitted onto the island, especially since on her arrival</p><p>she hadn’t even mentioned Robinson Crusoe, and later,</p><p>whenever we happened to talk of him, she simply dodged</p><p>the question. She’d wear a cherry-colored calico dress,</p><p>bulging strangely at the chest, and at first,</p><p>68 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>I guess you realize that all on our own, we didn’t</p><p>believe her, but afterwards, however, after she’d let us</p><p>poke them with our fingers, really, we were convinced:</p><p>she had breasts! but probably at root it was still</p><p>some kind of trick. However, things continued on</p><p>just like before. In the evening, when the freight trains</p><p>had left quite some time ago, and were due back</p><p>only the next day (but that we never were sure of),</p><p>we'd gather on the stacks of lumber</p><p>in front of the station and together with the maid</p><p>we'd walk along the tracks in order to pick</p><p>bindweed for the rabbits. We'd usually lag behind;</p><p>we'd catch cockchafers and bury them in the soil,</p><p>covering them over with grass. The maid would stroll on</p><p>with an excess of deliberation but, just past the signal, she’d disappear</p><p>around the lineman’s hut. We didn’t have any doubt she was meeting</p><p>Robinson Crusoe’s servant.</p><p>I, of course, was the only one to speak to Robinson</p><p>Crusoe. Pd pay him visits in a broken-down passenger</p><p>car that was marooned on a dead-end spur, usually</p><p>in the afternoon, when the light was glaring white and all the</p><p>switchmen</p><p>were sleeping or had gone off. I was always sure</p><p>I could find him there. I'd enter the first compartment,</p><p>stretch myself out on my belly on the glossy yellow seat</p><p>and tell him the latest, whatever had gone on.</p><p>Through the broken windowpane you could see, in the garden below,</p><p>the huge tomatoes, so dazzling that we used to look at ourselves</p><p>mirrored</p><p>in them. You could smell the hot fuel oil and the parsley baking</p><p>in the sun.</p><p>Sometimes [Pd play my harmonica for him; but I never</p><p>told him about Cecina.</p><p>And then suddenly, one fine day, something unprecedented</p><p>occurred. First of all, while I was climbing</p><p>into the well to show her who I really was,</p><p>Emil Brumaru 69</p><p>Ada, unaware I was there, leaned over the rim of stones</p><p>and yelled that she could do things herself</p><p>without the help of any Robinson Crusoe. I nearly fell</p><p>all the way down! Next Cecina, more slender and beautiful</p><p>than ever, made us understand, laughing,</p><p>that she was living on the island with the permission</p><p>of no one, those were her exact words:</p><p>“of no one!” And even worse, this was the last straw, our maid</p><p>began to grumble that Friday, yes, Friday,</p><p>bored her to death. That seemed unfathomable</p><p>to me! I got it in my head that without fail I had to go and</p><p>see Robinson Crusoe.</p><p>This is how it came about. The railroad car on that dead-end spur</p><p>looked utterly deserted. I grabbed the rusty railing</p><p>and, as usual, I made the frightfully big leap.</p><p>In the corridor a hare with a green bag</p><p>over his shoulder stared at me in astonishment. I entered</p><p>the compartment. It was hot, you could hear the wasps</p><p>that had attached their combs to the ripped and sweet-scented nets</p><p>for luggage. From the entire island there came</p><p>not a sound. I settled myself on my belly and waited</p><p>and waited until evening. Then I got down,</p><p>rummaged through my pockets, took out some chalk</p><p>and wrote in huge block letters, from one end of the car</p><p>to the other, beneath the broken windowpanes,</p><p>so that it could clearly be seen:</p><p>GOOD-BYE, ROBINSON CRUSOE</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ion Bogdan Lefter</p><p>70 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>AUTUMN SONG</p><p>I’m passing through an autumn day</p><p>As through an enormous tear.</p><p>A fruit full ripe with perfume sweet</p><p>Sinks slowly slowly to my feet.</p><p>Im passing through the wind and light.</p><p>Ive never known the reason why</p><p>Seasons gone remain as branches</p><p>In those</p><p>unclaimed yet by the night.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>Poems by Cristina Cirstea</p><p>ORIENTAL POEM</p><p>1. AND SO IN THIS WAY NIGHT CAME ABOUT</p><p>No to his laws. But</p><p>soul, are you keeping watch for</p><p>the revelries of the deaf?</p><p>Do you pray to</p><p>the stone plummeting</p><p>within you?</p><p>You</p><p>who are so close to me</p><p>imagine me. (Iam</p><p>so strange to you,</p><p>you peer</p><p>inside me.) But</p><p>You scarcely recognize</p><p>your pity, or your own shadow. An island</p><p>in the Heavens . (There: the gazers at the fire,</p><p>their coppery eyes,</p><p>a frozen ruin.) Or</p><p>72 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>perhaps You care little or nothing for He who has been abandoned</p><p>on your island? He didn’t bow down to the water. He didn’t sacrifice</p><p>to the sterile sailing ship. The drowned man, if he happened to be</p><p>thirsty for Water, could no longer find a place on the vessel.</p><p>An island in the Heavens. A small drop</p><p>above</p><p>the dry Sea.</p><p>(And so in this way Night came about, and in this way, Morning.</p><p>It was the First Day.)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Cristina Cirstea</p><p>2. THE SHADOW OF SHADOWS</p><p>The flames that burn: out of</p><p>the ashes, the dust</p><p>is born</p><p>Alas, my wolfish</p><p>night, my</p><p>lawn. Banish the earth</p><p>from my chest, cover</p><p>it over, and</p><p>the Heavens as well, and the Shadow</p><p>of shadows. ‘The Shadow</p><p>of shadows</p><p>is raised high in the wind —</p><p>for a long, long time,</p><p>so very long. The Shadow</p><p>of shadows — a candle</p><p>above the Roof</p><p>over which the evening</p><p>descends</p><p>in its slow gait</p><p>or maybe even my heart</p><p>or maybe even...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>73</p><p>74 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>3. WHAT STILL REMAINS</p><p>But He said unto everyone:</p><p>the white vultures are returning</p><p>cursed be my name!</p><p>And His name</p><p>in His mind: merely the meaning</p><p>of the body never before encountered.</p><p>A firebird</p><p>in His waiting:</p><p>flames in the shadows of the stars. But</p><p>where is His soul? oh, among</p><p>the ice floes of the desert</p><p>the pale soul — the butterfly</p><p>beneath the eyelids. A wing</p><p>on which there</p><p>drops</p><p>and</p><p>drops</p><p>what</p><p>still</p><p>remains.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Cristina Cirstea</p><p>4. SHAMBALA</p><p>Oh, you birds like the Sun,</p><p>seagulls of seaglass!</p><p>Slivers —</p><p>delicate slivers</p><p>gauzy fire-veils,</p><p>yellow stones! For just</p><p>one single night</p><p>I gathered Heaven Below</p><p>from off my chest. Heaven</p><p>Above</p><p>upside-down among the dunes</p><p>revealed itself me to me</p><p>and my soul transformed itself</p><p>into Water:</p><p>my Ancient Soul.</p><p>Oh, you, animals of the desert.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>75</p><p>76 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>5. THE RED CRY</p><p>The Fortresses are falling down. The years pass.</p><p>And not I</p><p>nor even you here in my peace</p><p>until the cry is</p><p>broken off.</p><p>The Fortresses are falling down. The gleaming skull</p><p>in which a worm delves.</p><p>And somersaults in the wind.</p><p>(The holy mind.) The wrist</p><p>of the bleeding hands. The breast of the Nurse</p><p>giving suck.</p><p>The years pass.</p><p>And not I</p><p>nor even you here in my peace —</p><p>the red cry. The heart</p><p>borne everywhere, red, red.</p><p>(The holy mind.)</p><p>The breast of the Nurse</p><p>giving suck.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Cristina Cirstea</p><p>6. THE GUILTY INFANT</p><p>Late at night the boughs of the myrobalan plum</p><p>stoops low.</p><p>Sweet</p><p>mild</p><p>gentle flowers,</p><p>guilty petals. O, Lord.</p><p>I am the two-hearted babe.</p><p>I am your tree. And I’m sleepy. I’m lethargic.</p><p>I’m overwhelmed by drowsiness. And the Moon sinks low.</p><p>And sets. Powerless. And</p><p>the River flows on. And I'm asleep. The River</p><p>flows on. Sweet</p><p>mild</p><p>gentle flowers,</p><p>guilty petals. Iam the two-hearted babe. And</p><p>I am old, old. What a night. So long, so very dark,</p><p>the last night.</p><p>(The River flows on) And Pm asleep.</p><p>And, I am old, old,</p><p>o Lord.</p><p>I am the two-hearted babe.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Ti</p><p>78 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>7. ALBASTY (1)</p><p>Oh, apparition. O,</p><p>mother. I carry</p><p>the Blind Man on</p><p>my back. Where</p><p>am I headed? O,</p><p>mother. My</p><p>safe harbor. You</p><p>know-nothing old fool. And the Blind Man is like</p><p>ice. And at once</p><p>he’s like</p><p>fire. Sinuous. O,</p><p>mother. And the fire:</p><p>in the wind.</p><p>In the earth. You</p><p>know-nothing old fool. Where</p><p>am I headed?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Cristina Cirstea 79</p><p>9. ALBASTY (II)</p><p>Oh, how late. Oh,</p><p>oh,</p><p>in the dusty, shallow</p><p>clay. O,</p><p>mother. In the</p><p>holy</p><p>dust. And</p><p>I shout, I</p><p>sink low, I</p><p>fall</p><p>with the Blind Man in my</p><p>hands</p><p>and my hands,</p><p>oh, they hurt.</p><p>Oh. And</p><p>Tam</p><p>greatly sickened. And</p><p>the Blind Man like</p><p>ice like</p><p>fire</p><p>raises himself upright in my hands,</p><p>and my hands</p><p>hurt. O,</p><p>mother. In the</p><p>dusty, shallow</p><p>clay. 1am</p><p>the Pure One</p><p>the Sought-After</p><p>the Long-Awaited. Forgotten</p><p>i ill alr daw</p><p>ehotsetl</p><p>wo 4 ; j - e ”</p><p>- fi “vii Go</p><p>; lf</p><p>Cristina Cirstea 81</p><p>10. THE SONG FOR AVA</p><p>The Man on the Riverbank:</p><p>‘The Man in the Water:</p><p>The Man Lost</p><p>in Ignorance:</p><p>Ava</p><p>holy wave</p><p>holy wave</p><p>The Water bears you far into the valley</p><p>holy body.</p><p>Who cries for you</p><p>there on the Riverbank</p><p>who cries for you?</p><p>The wave runs</p><p>to the valley</p><p>holy riverbank.</p><p>Oh, you sparkling brooks, white-crested</p><p>with the perfect. The Riverbank is</p><p>breached. My hands hurt. (I am flowing</p><p>with tears.) The River in which I lived</p><p>runs by. In which I sang. In which I</p><p>rocked. The River in which I loved runs</p><p>by, in which I fulfilled my days, in which</p><p>I floated. The flowing waters of the</p><p>River, the sandy mornings, the small</p><p>day of the cradle.</p><p>Lazy waves. Between the deserted</p><p>riverbanks,</p><p>the shy banks,</p><p>Golden Water. The River in which</p><p>which I loved</p><p>runs by</p><p>in which I loved</p><p>I loved.</p><p>aneres 2 wi no ort</p><p>rae? Wh 2070 De</p><p>Poems by Mariana Codruf</p><p>UNTITLED [“A WHEAT FIELD ... ”]</p><p>a wheat field</p><p>love</p><p>even death</p><p>one cannot speak about</p><p>without enormous risks</p><p>and yet about freedom</p><p>freedom —</p><p>save our souls!</p><p>~ Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>84 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>UNTITLED [“UPON HOPE... ”]</p><p>upon hope</p><p>upon manly songs</p><p>upon the drunken orgy of words</p><p>a terrible prosaic cold has descended.</p><p>we gathered near the walls</p><p>our faces deadly pale</p><p>in the suddenly acrid darkness</p><p>then</p><p>we offered up our prayer of faith.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andniescu</p><p>Mariana Codrut 85</p><p>EULALIE IN THE SUMMER GARDEN</p><p>from the solitary nest of swirling waters Eulalie</p><p>the graceful and peerless progresses directly into the Garden.</p><p>she presides over</p><p>groups of youths unregistered at the Office</p><p>hence exceedingly free. she presides over groups</p><p>of youths exceedingly saddened by their</p><p>freedom. a splash of light falls upon them from Eulalie</p><p>whom (if first he hadn’t met</p><p>Ermelinda ‘Tuzzi) Musil would have called</p><p>Diotima: she discourses with such conviction</p><p>about poetry about love and about</p><p>other such ineffables in a world</p><p>used to physical touch and the exclamation, “that’s it!”</p><p>as it happens I too believe in ineffables,</p><p>I couldn’t not become close to Eulalie. but</p><p>(O Goddess, enhance my feeble powers!)</p><p>Eulalie had just been abandoned by her lover.</p><p>she would talk little. from time to time she ate</p><p>pieces of bread she tore from a basket</p><p>set right on the gravel of the Garden.</p><p>the Garden once had been a sea; when the sea withdrew</p><p>into the inner ear of the earth</p><p>four or five iron tables with chairs which</p><p>some contemporary writers were seated in</p><p>as well as a few readers</p><p>emerged into the light. not far away</p><p>a residue of water still remained where</p><p>the wind irresolutely herded</p><p>the remnants of a civilization of calico motley. the wind</p><p>wasn’t golden but could take a joke:</p><p>it would toss its heads — some private cosmos —</p><p>from left to right and from right to left</p><p>keeping the rhythm of the depths of the sea.</p><p>86 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Eulalie would tear the bread and</p><p>give each of us a piece or two. her gesture</p><p>had the force of a conjunction — it</p><p>bound us together.</p><p>so we were all eating plain bread</p><p>washed down with small sips of vodka.</p><p>crumbs would gather</p><p>in the strands of her white hair shining defiantly</p><p>on her robe out of a Greek tragedy</p><p>but the gesture of shaking them off seemed as</p><p>impossible as making one’s way back home</p><p>(while the latter seemed more impossible than a journey to Siberia).</p><p>at the next table Sofian was reciting from Sofian.</p><p>when he stopped</p><p>a reader pulled out some notes and read:</p><p>“In love, the devil’s own part</p><p>is purely and simply everything that is</p><p>not love. You will also sense his presence,</p><p>his immovable power,</p><p>behind the eyes</p><p>of the being devoid of love.”</p><p>the question is (said a reader bluntly)</p><p>what right has the unloved</p><p>to tell others about love?</p><p>the wind italicized the woman’s words</p><p>with a temperamental blast: our plastic</p><p>glasses were blown over. we</p><p>shut our eyes. when the gust of wind</p><p>had passed we stared at one another:</p><p>we had faces of</p><p>satin</p><p>velvet</p><p>kid leather</p><p>smooth mother-of-pearl</p><p>verdure</p><p>arcimboldian faces</p><p>and in the landscape, a pair of holes —</p><p>out of them a special light lifted high</p><p>Mariana Codrut 87</p><p>its Oversensitive apparatus, pitched its tents.</p><p>in the afterglow remained a world of fragments</p><p>like after the mysterious disappearance of the gypsy camp</p><p>from the back alleys of my childhood, leaving behind</p><p>colored potsherds and broken glass rags and shells half-burnt</p><p>brushwood. — we all seemed circumscribed</p><p>between a point on the left and a point on the right.</p><p>we seemed fragments</p><p>of a stammering elliptical discourse.</p><p>Eulalie — oh! Eulalie was so deeply sad</p><p>that her lover had abandoned her! we didn’t say anything.</p><p>we'd just bite our bread.</p><p>one of the boys at our table</p><p>— like her lover the trumpeter —</p><p>had short-cropped hair: several times Eulalie reached her hand</p><p>across the table and stroked</p><p>his bristly hair with such tenderness</p><p>that tears came to her eyes. we all</p><p>suddenly looked away as if</p><p>we'd surprised her in the act of love.</p><p>out of the blue the boy became furious</p><p>and turned to the readers’ table: And you?</p><p>hypocrite lecteur —</p><p>you who prefer the description of a landscape to the landscape</p><p>and the narration of a drama to the drama —</p><p>who measure space in typographical signs</p><p>and time by the birth and death of the Character —</p><p>who live with Karenina’s heart</p><p>until you find Susan’s more enthralling</p><p>but eventually betray it for the throbbing muscle of a valiant</p><p>policeman —</p><p>whose side are you on? ART THOU AMONG THE LIVING?</p><p>we went on eating bread washed down with small sips of vodka.</p><p>after a while Eulalie read us a poem</p><p>and we all felt the need to touch her with our hands.</p><p>88 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>only the readers</p><p>fretting nervously on their chairs</p><p>scoffed at the expression “my red rage.”</p><p>Eulalie wouldn’t give them the time of day.</p><p>afterwards with her red rage yet intact</p><p>she dragged me along with her through several bars</p><p>hugging the bread in her arms:</p><p>but nowhere was the trumpet to be heard. it wouldn’t tattoo</p><p>the sensuous flesh of the May night with its melancholy shrills.</p><p>later</p><p>Eulalie left me at a taxi stand.</p><p>with a hazy glance</p><p>of stupefaction</p><p>I followed her wavering silhouette</p><p>(as if she’d forgotten her center elsewhere)</p><p>splitting the light showers of the street.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Mariana Codrut</p><p>UNTITLED [“LOVE IS PERMITTED ...</p><p>love is permitted</p><p>provided that it bears fruit</p><p>and doesn’t grow all-consuming</p><p>(it readily sinks into mysticism).</p><p>and withdrawal into oneself</p><p>is also tolerated</p><p>as long as it’s performed</p><p>in an appropriate place</p><p>according to the proper schedule.</p><p>even death is permitted</p><p>but only if it comes without a fuss</p><p>and doesn’t pass by</p><p>the city hall.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>89</p><p>90 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>UNTITLED [“FROM MY CORNER... ”]</p><p>from my corner</p><p>like a uterus that refuses me</p><p>only death appears</p><p>worth the debate.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>Mariana Codrut 9]</p><p>I CANNOT LAUGH</p><p>but where are we headed, the nightingale goes on singing</p><p>in the huge belly of black felt.</p><p>fingers snap softly</p><p>ransacking the molasses light.</p><p>here are the tragic slums and the fields of fear.</p><p>the blood-red gleam</p><p>on distorted mouths. we stare</p><p>hypnotized by the gun aimed dispassionately</p><p>at the Latvias of the pink and white world —</p><p>those which exist and those which don’t exist;</p><p>those whose moan of terror is cloaked</p><p>with tender slaps on the buttocks</p><p>and songs of praise;</p><p>those living under the sign of rape</p><p>blazing brightly in the white stars</p><p>(down with the pandering of the cosmos! )</p><p>I cannot laugh. guilty. I the dreamer</p><p>the helpless visionary. the gasoline can</p><p>with a beer-foam head. I the avenger</p><p>free as a horse</p><p>galloping in a text suffocated by parentheses.</p><p>guilty. pink and white</p><p>the utopia of a slit</p><p>in the huge belly of black felt.</p><p>[PogT’s NOTE: January 1991 — the bloody incidents provoked by</p><p>Soviet troops in the Baltic states. ]</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andnescu</p><p>92 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>UNTITLED [“A WIND OF LIBERTY IS BLOWING ..</p><p>a wind of liberty is blowing</p><p>stripping our flesh to the bone —</p><p>once again nontransparent</p><p>we populate the black air of the public squares.</p><p>above us a June sky</p><p>enamored of metaphor</p><p>(the snails in the garden riding</p><p>tomatoes strawberries —</p><p>an ox-heart tomato freshly picked).</p><p>grant us the sky</p><p>and faith in you —</p><p>may the bountiful breast of hope</p><p>prove ample for us all.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>”</p><p>°</p><p>Mariana Codrut 93</p><p>UNTITLED [“ALIVE AND WARM... ”]</p><p>alive and warm in my heart is death, only death. it fills my cells with</p><p>blood; it lends color to my cheeks flushed with hope; generously, it offers</p><p>me ecstasy; it impels me into the day as into a warm sea: a hysteria of</p><p>golden mud.</p><p>only it illuminates me. only its enchanted eye, always trained upon</p><p>me, can husk me from my reason: I am a prey to sarcastic mornings and</p><p>soft nights. oh, the dreams of flesh and blood, of nightmare and of snow,</p><p>emptying me of my feelings, my exhausting, stupid, natural feelings.”</p><p>the ineffable and the stifling.</p><p>made pregnant by dreams, by the measureless sight, my spirit</p><p>becomes eternal.</p><p>ave, death!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>94 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>UNTITLED [“WORDS ARE A BOUNDLESS SKY...</p><p>words are a boundless sky.</p><p>I could say that all’s well in heaven</p><p>— but here She comes</p><p>a propagandist for love:</p><p>hey, look, don’t let yourselves be taken in</p><p>by the folkloric props.</p><p>words are a land</p><p>full of too many pledges.</p><p>I bathe in it</p><p>I send forth roots like a tuber</p><p>in the ground. I embrace the sun.</p><p>— but She is the sun</p><p>She a negotiated word</p><p>a rattletrap a uterus with auricles</p><p>and ventricles</p><p>impregnated solely by syntax.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>]</p><p>Mariana Codrut hs</p><p>UNTITLED [“A POET OF THE NORTH... ”]</p><p>a poet of the north</p><p>has two enormous</p><p>front teeth</p><p>and a camel’s hump.</p><p>“no, he can’t be a poet!”</p><p>some say</p><p>looking at his teeth and his hump.</p><p>“beyond any doubt, he’s got to be a poet!”</p><p>others say</p><p>looking at his teeth and his hump.</p><p>“but he doesn’t have tuberculosis</p><p>he doesn’t walk across roofs</p><p>he’s really quite plump</p><p>he greets you with ‘good morning’ in the morning</p><p>and ‘good evening’ in the evening —</p><p>so he can’t be that great!”</p><p>they unanimously decide.</p><p>yet everyone buys him a drink</p><p>and pats his hump indulgently</p><p>while telling themselves:</p><p>“what if he turns out</p><p>to be great, after all?”</p><p>he drinks whatever they offer him</p><p>he smokes 60 cigarettes a day</p><p>his head propped in his hands.</p><p>sometimes he tips over onto his hump</p><p>but being a bit lucky</p><p>after a little delay his relatives</p><p>or friends turn him right-side up again</p><p>by tugging at his legs.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>Poems by Nichita Danilov</p><p>EMPTY FIELD</p><p>I seemed to be lying on a white bed</p><p>filled with black flowers, in the middle of an empty field</p><p>above which night slowly, slowly, was falling. When I awakened</p><p>from my long and oppressive sleep, someone leaned</p><p>over my bed with a candlestick and</p><p>inspected at my face. He said:</p><p>“Dig under this very place and two meters down</p><p>you'll come across a stone. Under the stone you'll discover a cross.</p><p>Three meters down youll see a</p><p>window. Hive meters down, a door.</p><p>A voice will ask you, “Who’s there?”</p><p>You must answer, “No one!”</p><p>... Now, start digging. Pll light your way...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 97</p><p>THE WORLD’S GOLD</p><p>He who sells his country for gold,</p><p>with gold let him be rewarded!</p><p>Let him be seated with honor at the head of the table</p><p>and there left to rejoice.</p><p>Let him be served the choicest morsels,</p><p>the finest wines. Let them send for</p><p>musicians and women, that he may eat,</p><p>drink and make merry.</p><p>And let the people see that he is happy.</p><p>Then let them set morsels of gold before him.</p><p>Small gold coins let them press in his eyes.</p><p>And let him swallow gold spoonful by spoonful</p><p>until he swells like a bloated bladder!</p><p>... Then upon a small mound of gold,</p><p>let him be left to rot.</p><p>And above him in gold letters let there be inscribed:</p><p>“For gold he sold his country,</p><p>with gold he was given his just reward!”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>98 Nichita Danilov</p><p>FROM A DANDY’S DIARY</p><p>It was in December,</p><p>with a cane, a goatee, a bow tie and with a pipe,</p><p>I was strolling one evening, at my leisure, through the park</p><p>named Copou.</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>Birds were no longer singing, they were no longer chirping</p><p>in the trees,</p><p>red leaves</p><p>were dripping-dropping from the trees,</p><p>it was in December.</p><p>With a cane, a goatee and a pipe,</p><p>I went for a walk one evening, through the park named Copou.</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>Flocks of birds</p><p>were crying-cawing above my head,</p><p>red leaves</p><p>were rustling-bleeding beneath my feet.</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>With a cane, a goatee, patent-leather shoes and with a pipe,</p><p>I was strolling one evening, at my leisure, through the park</p><p>named Copou,</p><p>when on a pedestal of stone there perched</p><p>the raven of Edgar Allan Poe.</p><p>“Whom are you imitating, Nichita Danilov,</p><p>whom do you wish to imitate, Nichita Danilov,”</p><p>croaked Poe’s stately raven,</p><p>rasped Poe’s ghastly raven,</p><p>“while you go walking with a cane, a goatee and with a pipe,</p><p>at such leisure, through the park named Copou...</p><p>It was in December,</p><p>with a pipe, a goatee and with a pipe,</p><p>I was strolling one evening, at my leisure, through the park</p><p>named Copou.</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>“O, I wish to imitate</p><p>the great Edgar Allan Poe,</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 99</p><p>that’s why I glued on this goatee,</p><p>I took my cane and bow tie, my top hat and my pipe,</p><p>and I went forth for an evening walk</p><p>through the park named Copou.”</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>With a cane, a goatee, a bow tie and a top hat,</p><p>with patent-leather shoes and with a pipe,</p><p>I was strolling one evening, at my leisure, through the park</p><p>named Copou.</p><p>It was in December.</p><p>The fog sifted softly through the wrought-iron fences,</p><p>the red leaves</p><p>were dripping-dropping above the wrought-iron fences,</p><p>people were strolling, people were prowling,</p><p>people were roaming past the paling of the wrought-iron fences,</p><p>it was in December.</p><p>With a pipe, a bow tie, with a monocle and a pipe,</p><p>I was strolling one evening, at my leisure, through the park</p><p>named Copou.</p><p>Tt was in December .. .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursacht</p><p>100 Nichita Danilov</p><p>THE FACE</p><p>You beat the water with your fists,</p><p>but you cannot touch your face.</p><p>You slip your hands into the water,</p><p>but you cannot touch your face.</p><p>... Like a brass coin</p><p>it slips away slowly, deeper, deeper.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 101</p><p>THE BATHS</p><p>At a low table I sit quietly and drink my tea.</p><p>Over there, the others are taking their steam baths. I look on</p><p>their naked bodies as they cross in front of me</p><p>and slowly disappear.</p><p>I can no longer see them. Just</p><p>an arm, a shoulder, as if detached from</p><p>the whole of the body. A hazy profile,</p><p>a torso, a breast, a leg</p><p>as graceful as a woman’s.</p><p>But what am I doing here, among them,</p><p>dressed in a black evening suit, at this</p><p>low table, where I sit quietly</p><p>and drink my tea?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>102 Nichita Danilov</p><p>NIGHT IN DENMARK</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>Shields, helmets, crossbows,</p><p>halberds and spears</p><p>crowded near the fire on the battlements.</p><p>It was a quiet, quiet night</p><p>and the fog covered Denmark . . .</p><p>“Horatio, Horatio,</p><p>is that you, Horatio?” a voice resounded</p><p>fading away somewhere behind me...</p><p>“Horatio, Horatio,</p><p>is that you, Horatio?” I responded</p><p>fading away slowly on the quay enshrouded in fog,</p><p>while the sea rolled mightily against the shore.</p><p>“Horatio, Horatio,</p><p>whom do you look for, Horatio?”</p><p>another voice resounded</p><p>fading away slowly somewhere behind me.</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>“Horatio, Horatio,</p><p>Im not Horatio,</p><p>I’m not yet Horatio,”</p><p>I responded continuing on my night walk,</p><p>while the sea broke quietly against the shore.</p><p>“Horatio, Floratio,</p><p>if you aren’t Horatio,</p><p>then you must be Hamlet,”</p><p>the first voice responded, fading away behind me.</p><p>“Horatio, Horatio,</p><p>if you aren’t Horatio,</p><p>then you must be Hamlet,”</p><p>I responded, vanishing in the fog on the quay,</p><p>while the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and the fog covered the entire fjord.</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 103</p><p>I knew I wasn’t yet Hamlet,</p><p>I supposed I couldn’t yet be him,</p><p>I was forbidden to be Hamlet,</p><p>and I was sorry that I wasn’t,</p><p>that I couldn’t be Hamlet.</p><p>“Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>no, Pm not yet Hamlet,</p><p>I suppose I can’t yet be Hamlet,</p><p>and I’m sorry that Pm not.</p><p>Ive been forbidden to be Hamlet,</p><p>I can’t yet be him,”</p><p>I added continuing on my night walk,</p><p>going by the sleeping soldiers.</p><p>“Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>if you aren’t Hamlet,</p><p>then you look like him,</p><p>I could swear that you’re Hamlet.</p><p>As tall and slender,</p><p>as blond and pale as Hamlet,</p><p>your brow as wide as his,</p><p>I could swear that you’re Hamlet,”</p><p>another voice resounded and faded away in the fog,</p><p>while the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>I knew all too well I looked like Hamlet,</p><p>I was as tall and slender,</p><p>as blond and pale as Hamlet,</p><p>my brow as wide as his,</p><p>I could swear I was Hamlet,</p><p>though I wasn’t yet Hamlet,</p><p>I couldn’t yet be him.</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>“Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>I know you look like Hamlet,</p><p>youre as tall and slender,</p><p>as blond and pale as he,</p><p>your brow as wide as his,”</p><p>I responded, fading away slowly</p><p>104 Nichita Danilov</p><p>on the quay enshrouded in sleep,</p><p>while the sea was foaming on the shore.</p><p>“Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>if you aren’t Hamlet,</p><p>then you must be the ghost of your father, Hamlet,”</p><p>the second voice resounded,</p><p>fading away somewhere behind me.</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and the fog covered the entire fjord.</p><p>“You look so much like him,</p><p>the same royal bearing,</p><p>the same majestic gait,</p><p>the same two-edged sword,</p><p>the same bronze armor,</p><p>the same steel helmet,”</p><p>the first voice resounded, fading away somewhere behind me.</p><p>“Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>if you aren’t Hamlet,</p><p>then you must be the spirit of your father, Hamlet.</p><p>You look so much like him,</p><p>the same royal bearing,</p><p>the same majestic gait,</p><p>the same bronze armor,</p><p>the same steel helmet.</p><p>Hamlet, Hamlet,</p><p>if you aren’t Hamlet,</p><p>then you must be the spirit of your father, Hamlet,”</p><p>I responded, vanishing in the fog on the quay,</p><p>while the violet moon was haunting the shores.</p><p>It was already night in Denmark</p><p>and</p><p>the violet moon was haunting the shores . . .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 105</p><p>MEDALLION</p><p>Tired of the vainglory of the world</p><p>you don’t know on whose shoulder you can lay your head</p><p>you rest it on your lover’s melancholy shoulder</p><p>but she refuses to nestle her head nearer</p><p>to yours: no, no gesture can</p><p>confuse her anymore. Her love</p><p>you have totally extinguished. Who knows when.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>106 Nichita Danilov</p><p>IN THE DESERT AND UPON THE WATERS</p><p>They came and made a cross</p><p>of sand on the soles of his feet.</p><p>Then they told him:</p><p>Now betake yourself into the desert</p><p>and walk upon the waters. . .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>REALM</p><p>A rainbow of bells: the evening</p><p>washes its wounds in the River,</p><p>the water flows red,</p><p>the water flows red</p><p>from I was to I shall be.</p><p>A rainbow of bells: the evening</p><p>drips cool chimes slowly down your cheek,</p><p>the water flows limpid,</p><p>the water flows limpid</p><p>from Yesterday to Today.</p><p>Ready yourself, soul,</p><p>it’s late, oh, it’s late!</p><p>The rainbow of bells,</p><p>the rainbow of bells</p><p>drinks up our blood’s last pulse,</p><p>all our peace from the River.</p><p>A rainbow of bells: the evening</p><p>presses white soles to the window,</p><p>the water flows clouded,</p><p>the water flows clouded,</p><p>from I am to I shall have been.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>107</p><p>108 Nichita Danilov</p><p>THE RAY OF LUCIDITY</p><p>“Tike a black leukemia of stars”</p><p>my soul turns in on itself</p><p>far more lonely, far more sickly in spirit.</p><p>Above, the same desolate landscape</p><p>of your dark isolation,</p><p>and below — blacker landscapes of black!</p><p>Neither the far-off cry of love</p><p>nor the nostalgic come-hither of death</p><p>disturbs anything within me any longer.</p><p>... And only the relentless light ray of lucidity</p><p>stabs through, colder, ever colder, without mercy</p><p>without doubt, without hope, without even a shiver!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ANOTHER CENTURY</p><p>My healing angel</p><p>has no halo, no wings.</p><p>He touches a finger upon my wound and asks me,</p><p>“Do you exist, Danilov, do you really exist?”</p><p>“Yes, I exist, I really exist,” I answer him.</p><p>“For over a quarter of a century</p><p>Ive been doing nothing except existing.”</p><p>“Then become more confident of yourself,</p><p>and more truly exist!”</p><p>“Yes, I exist, I really exist,” I answer him.</p><p>“At your age, I was different,” he explains to me.</p><p>“You seem to have no blood in your veins,</p><p>you've no breath, no demon.”</p><p>“Yes, I exist, I really exist,” I answer him.</p><p>“For more than a quarter of a century</p><p>Pve been doing my best to exist.”</p><p>“Then seek out your other half</p><p>and more truly exist!”</p><p>“My other half</p><p>doesn’t belong here. Not here,” I answer him.</p><p>“Take me to another time, a different age. . .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>109</p><p>110 Nichita Danilov</p><p>THE TWENTIETH CENTURY</p><p>I was born when God had not yet been born</p><p>and I died when God</p><p>was already dead!</p><p>The twentieth century was nearing its end.</p><p>Marquez had written One Hundred Years of Solitude,</p><p>Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.</p><p>Man had left footprints on the moon,</p><p>dead angels were plummeting down from heaven.</p><p>On the horizon a Third World War</p><p>intruded upon my sight. Einstein had died</p><p>and God was already dead!</p><p>The end of one world was approaching its end</p><p>and there began the beginning of the one man</p><p>no one believed in any longer.</p><p>An ever bleaker wind blew through the streets,</p><p>vultures wheeled in alarming circles in the sky.</p><p>A deeper and deeper funeral knell</p><p>heralded a new beginning.</p><p>Hallelujah!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>Poems by Gellu Dorian</p><p>THIS POEM IS THE NIGHT</p><p>This quiet is the night itself: my eyes delving into the dark for</p><p>the drums</p><p>stars beat with their pale rays. I open the door to the library</p><p>and in the scent of glue, paper and ink</p><p>the quiet explores untried paths, like mildew among marquises</p><p>and dukes;</p><p>a rustle of old continents</p><p>along the shores; a little grain of hope</p><p>in my hands, the twitch of a poem —</p><p>this poem is the night.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina lordachescu</p><p>AA City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE PRINCIPLE OF DOMINOES</p><p>He’s saying: in the name of nothingness, I’ve given up nothing;</p><p>upon my table all the errors of the world are spread out — I</p><p>myself, morose and mistaken. ve no illusions</p><p>that, by living in poetry, I'll be able to improve the world or</p><p>teach the others to improve it; if Homer himself</p><p>hasn’t managed to banish evil by now, I can’t, either —</p><p>but a grain of illusion always lingers</p><p>and, as in a principle of dominoes,</p><p>I still arrange all these errors, I myself,</p><p>morose and mistaken.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordéchescu</p><p>Gellu Dorian 113</p><p>LADY, I’M NOT AFRAID AND I LOVE YOU</p><p>Lady, I’m not afraid and I love you, I declare to the woman who</p><p>stands in front of me</p><p>like a piece of marble, ’'m jawing on about Eminescu, she flutters</p><p>her eyelashes and sand</p><p>sprinkles down from them; I’m reciting poems to her, she flutters</p><p>her lashes, sand</p><p>sprinkles down from them — much more than sadness I cannot offer</p><p>her;</p><p>we set out into the world and the sand remains behind — I’m a man</p><p>alone with only one woman in my thoughts; I grew up a worried</p><p>child</p><p>with an ear cocked for the songs which brought</p><p>the world into my understanding, and now I write poems, shadow</p><p>to an enamel table, in a kitchen like a cell designed for my</p><p>punishment,</p><p>from which almost all the cookware is missing; only a knife appears</p><p>at hand,</p><p>like a line from the end of a poem...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>114 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>MY FRIEND FROM BORCA</p><p>From here, among all these books screened by the censors,</p><p>I see the mountain,</p><p>my friend holding it in his gaze</p><p>like a mother-of-pearl bead between the fingers of a Greek emigrant</p><p>as he dreams of the woods of Thessaloniki;</p><p>my friend’s wish seems simple and clear,</p><p>to live his life among books,</p><p>among his letters, from his sweet lovers who betrayed him in turn,</p><p>‘Tudorita, Irina, Marta, Ioana,</p><p>the snowfall beneath his window spreads out like a lily blossom</p><p>in full bloom,</p><p>megaphone of so many songs abandoned to amble among the</p><p>fir trees —</p><p>from here, on this tableland in the north, I imagine</p><p>the mountain,</p><p>my friend raising it higher day after day, naming it after himself,</p><p>like the Pharaoh Cheops, his pyramid.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>Gellu Dorian 115</p><p>I STAY WATCHING</p><p>Before me, nothing is what</p><p>it used to be; all seems getting ready to be;</p><p>a child with a hoop runs by, as in De Chirico’s paintings</p><p>— in the distance the sky’s still red, but in the poem it’s gray.</p><p>I feel the words growing inside my fingers</p><p>and for the first time not for my benefit.</p><p>In the quiet of evening</p><p>the town seems a game with toy bricks</p><p>in which matches are struck and flare brightly — music cavorts at</p><p>the windows —</p><p>in the distance the sky’s gray, but in the poem it’s red.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina lordachescu</p><p>116 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>I’M WRITING THE POEM AND WAITING</p><p>The street with all its details comes to me the minute I believe</p><p>I'm finally at peace:</p><p>I’m writing the poem and waiting. ‘Tea arrives with the woman</p><p>who dispels everything Pve gained by hand and eye</p><p>up to now. Life precedes me; there’s always</p><p>someone full of self who sentences me</p><p>to keep waiting longer. I believe that nonetheless</p><p>there is nothing else — just waiting.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>Gellu Dorian LiZ</p><p>LOVE IS A CONTINUOUS ADVENTURE</p><p>In this moment of panic my heart reassures itself</p><p>while I skim books whose existence</p><p>I was afraid I wouldn’t ever have the fortune to know.</p><p>Come with me, now, and understand me,</p><p>I sacrificed our happiness for my joy in writing,</p><p>slowly we'll</p><p>learn to drift into sleep without headaches,</p><p>tomorrow we'll wake up in peace as another day castles with us,</p><p>defended by instincts.</p><p>Don’t be sad. Come to me, I want to kiss you with my mouth full</p><p>of words,</p><p>ready to write — love is a continuous adventure</p><p>against death!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>118 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE WRITING OF THE POEM</p><p>What peace among the poplars — suddenly the sparrows</p><p>tear away the crown</p><p>and stretch it across the sky.</p><p>On the snow the poem writes itself</p><p>going forth into the world</p><p>like the stone hurtling at the poplars</p><p>from a child’s slingshot.</p><p>The poet then returns to his room</p><p>arranging after his own system</p><p>the grammar which in its imprisonment will embody</p><p>the written word:</p><p>“What more has history ever done</p><p>in the face of grammar?” he says —</p><p>what silence on the sheet of paper,</p><p>and suddenly the poem</p><p>disperses his words —</p><p>nothing more restless,</p><p>more beautiful,</p><p>the immateriality of a thought.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>Gellu Dorian 119</p><p>BEAUTIFUL DAYS ARE COMING</p><p>Beautiful days are coming when even you in your melancholy will</p><p>see the world happy;</p><p>you fling words at random and the words stick to the tympanums</p><p>of those all around</p><p>and years later they hear them beautiful and still alive;</p><p>you don’t take anyone by the hand, but it seems you’re going hand</p><p>in hand with</p><p>the most beautiful woman in the most beautiful park, you’re</p><p>talking to her,</p><p>you're buying her flowers — entire nights you’ll spend obsessed by</p><p>the thought of her.</p><p>And beautiful days are coming:</p><p>until then you think about how to divide the sheet of paper, and how,</p><p>there upon it, you can imagine reality from now on.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>120 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>PAGE FROM A DIARY</p><p>Saturday, day of spleen.</p><p>Dry December, oh, the pettiness which sets the teeth gnashing;</p><p>in an old house a woman can be heard singing,</p><p>the neighbor’s courtyard is full of laughter —</p><p>the night, not speaking words, but taking direct action;</p><p>sleep will carry them toward morning</p><p>like a river its alluvia; soon it’s going to snow</p><p>and everything will become paper for writing the lost poem.</p><p>Saturday, day of spleen.</p><p>Dry December - ..</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>Gellu Dorian 12)</p><p>FABLE</p><p>At the zoo the animals are locked in cages</p><p>like people in their countries. A passing child tosses</p><p>a candy to them, and they stand motionless until the exact moment</p><p>the child</p><p>no longer pays heed to them. Then they start to dream</p><p>about the waters of the Nile, the Amazon jungle, and they swing</p><p>on ropes like lianas, they dive into foul pools like in oases. Sometimes</p><p>they die without ever knowing freedom, behind the bars</p><p>of the same cages, obeying the keepers, growling fiercely whenever</p><p>the guard goes by and throws them a joint of rotten meat.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dotna Iordachescu</p><p>Poems by Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>JOYS THAT FRIGHTEN ME</p><p>I could have stopped her so she’d stay here with me. And now Pm</p><p>speaking words that will never build up a home will never</p><p>matter. Always absurd games a breath of air out of which</p><p>is born a world — that I lose in another dream</p><p>as wounded soldiers with each drop of their own spilled blood</p><p>lose another ancestor who’s nearly been forgotten.</p><p>And in the end who am I to ask myself questions in the voice</p><p>of others? It could have happened to a reed</p><p>or to this crystal ball. But she didn’t have a girls name and</p><p>no longer can anyone bid her come back again. Past the windows</p><p>now</p><p>the very same beggar’s tin coin box rattles heavily by.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 123</p><p>APHOBERUS THANATON</p><p>The mistral blows through the belly of ripe apples</p><p>lonely and voiceless the kingdom of compulsion</p><p>transforms into repulsion</p><p>a night has taken refuge in a play on words</p><p>this poem becomes a wild phantasm</p><p>an hour of love or a roiling river</p><p>Id really like to ask why the starlings keep chattering</p><p>aphoberos thanaton</p><p>what byzantium crumbles in satiety</p><p>why do I awaken without you</p><p>high on the mountain</p><p>vultures vultures vultures</p><p>somewhat less than a torrent</p><p>the poem’s face comes between us.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>124 Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>HUNTING SHADOWS</p><p>A tableland bled in horses’ hooves</p><p>night was falling like the body of a savage</p><p>gathered in a close circle we were making up our minds...</p><p>a poet with a crusade a poet without a crusade a poet</p><p>with a crusade a poet without .. .</p><p>darkness snorted my eyes into its nostrils</p><p>fingers gleamed like knives thrust into clay</p><p>the plans had been a mere dream</p><p>we set out one by one: “take heart!”</p><p>but each of us would return to ask where he was going</p><p>after a few steps we'd forgot what we hardened our minds to hunt —</p><p>like a curse! we recomposed our blood</p><p>our eyes our whispers each of us rearranged our packs</p><p>our bayonets honed razor-sharp by our thoughts</p><p>we went forth we resolved to defeat the legion of shadows</p><p>all the world over</p><p>it was drizzling in drops so minuscule</p><p>that they fell onto the meninx</p><p>the crossroads. we halted. we looked at the trees</p><p>the moon was bright — but of shadows, not a one</p><p>“friends,” I said, “somebody has betrayed us</p><p>for another thousand years it will all remain illusory.”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 125</p><p>HANS CHOOSES THE AFTERNOON</p><p>Everybody wants to come see the salamander. not long</p><p>after that in the main squares revolutions break out</p><p>sacks stuffed with drums. the story of hans starts in sorrow</p><p>just like in the neighborhood movie theaters</p><p>the serving girls hear wagtails in the swamps once again</p><p>and they no longer love anybody poor hans will go</p><p>hang himself in the shed for sawdust and wood chips he will finally</p><p>return from</p><p>his wanderings he wants to write a couple of lines to his mother</p><p>(his mother</p><p>who died long ago) and hans wants to write a couple of lines</p><p>to the world he’ll write them there in front of the shed the workers</p><p>will never reflect on the manifold threads woven into this tragedy</p><p>quietly they eat bread and cheese they chat about</p><p>construction cranes and swimsuit calendars only hans knows what’s</p><p>up</p><p>it’s afternoon he’ll hang himself that’s what’s up poor hans knows</p><p>the serving girls won’t believe it. the next day one of them</p><p>who dotes on the tabloids will tell everyone</p><p>and who will be witness? sweating all alone “oh, he should have used</p><p>more rope!” he doesn’t know why he feels his frightened</p><p>legs his head no or his hands and his freckles</p><p>a pretty story someone told him in the harbor that autumn</p><p>and he remembers it perfectly at that very moment all alone</p><p>he tells it once more in the shed for sawdust and wood chips:</p><p>there was a mother superior who didn’t like</p><p>the apple trees in the convent’s yard so when she went to buy meat</p><p>she stole an ax the butchers were asleep she chopped down every</p><p>last tree</p><p>then opening the door not long afterwards. november. the nuns</p><p>found her cell filled to the ceiling with apples the mother superior</p><p>lay dead somewhere underneath them...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajttoru</p><p>126 Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>EMPTY THEATER</p><p>More and more like an empty theater</p><p>nothing gets performed here anymore everyone has</p><p>exited lickety-split (in stolen wagons?)</p><p>who the hell invented solitude</p><p>maybe the seeds in fruit are to blame</p><p>the scaffold isn’t always made of rotting cardboard</p><p>the honey of course mr. shakespeare the latest recruit</p><p>the strolling players with no semblance of a bank account</p><p>They stay nights like a drop of resin</p><p>in a filthy bird cage</p><p>che neck of the bride like a debt paid to nothingness</p><p>others are probably lying to her now!</p><p>What would I do with a temple? the tree confides</p><p>that the temple is the pride of solely one man</p><p>Endless libraries yearned for me ia be their</p><p>one and only husband.</p><p>WOLVES ARE ‘YOUNG</p><p>As in an aquarium</p><p>emotions are born</p><p>belly up.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrijitoru</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 127</p><p>EMERGENCE</p><p>or</p><p>POEM AGAINST MY GENERATION OF POETS</p><p>(Act I): I was walking with great care</p><p>yet a strange racket could be heard</p><p>in my hands I held nothing but dictionaries</p><p>they’d been found in the rooms</p><p>hidden in the “appalling” dust of dreaminess</p><p>we still hire drummers</p><p>we still freckle</p><p>a genius! we still... nary a</p><p>green leaf at the border of the nightingale</p><p>we've learned that there exists no peace</p><p>now there’s the truest prey! — speech is</p><p>a song bursting with systems</p><p>it’s not enough that we know the purpose of the library</p><p>its not enough that we are what we were told to be</p><p>it’s not enough that we deny the roads crossed by monsters</p><p>every citizen is left with the gaps</p><p>Id like to make a suggestion: too many architects revise the jungle</p><p>— the city will have to be rebuilt —</p><p>haven’t you ever seen a scarab turned upside-down on its back</p><p>on a phonograph record? — and much later all of you</p><p>silently grooving to the jammed static of the music?</p><p>feathers are meant for a hat</p><p>never for the brain</p><p>agreed, we'll go crusading all together</p><p>agreed, we'll bring consternation to paradise . . .</p><p>but we'll advance only if we know where we’re coming from!</p><p>discourses memorized by rote</p><p>have the common tone of the neighborhoods</p><p>packed with kleptomaniacs</p><p>(The last act): in april shyly I put my clothes on</p><p>128 Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>the disease of beauty has fled with a mask of god</p><p>distrustful of the arrogance of stylishly coiffured poems</p><p>I bought tickets for the incomparable performance</p><p>and seeing so many corrupted words there</p><p>I yelled out: “close this theater at once!”</p><p>half-perplexed you leapt out of your seats</p><p>you speechified</p><p>you scrawled my name in notebooks</p><p>you searched for me</p><p>during the rainy seasons</p><p>on the telephone</p><p>with candles</p><p>in the mountains</p><p>— for a thousand years —</p><p>then, as upon any highly refined fully foretold finale to the</p><p>millennium</p><p>enthralled you read</p><p>the last books</p><p>that I had it in mind to write.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 129</p><p>TRACTATE ON THE HERETICAL</p><p>For one lone night in one lone life</p><p>pursued and starving you can overhear the continuous sobs of</p><p>the small</p><p>wrinkle of the hunters when a hunter hasn’t returned back home.</p><p>like a curse! she says and lights a candle</p><p>without interruption she watches you and waits in ambush: when the</p><p>candle burns out I'll be thinner than the gods</p><p>perhaps better</p><p>but cold like the stones and like the meat hanging in the larder</p><p>that shivers butchered in the moonlight. Where everything is</p><p>to end the little poem begins. The last.</p><p>Behave yourself don’t believe your eyes don’t gloat don’t be</p><p>cock-sure don’t whisper “hallelujah! hallelujah!” there will no longer</p><p>be</p><p>daylight then the condors won’t soar high above there won’t be</p><p>the sound of flesh wandering through different ages and</p><p>the piece of apple will no longer grow in the owl’s womb</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>just night. And my brain</p><p>wishing your brain well. Your hand taking fright</p><p>in my hand. And the open door swallowing us both.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrayitoru</p><p>130 Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>TRACTATE ON THE HERETICAL</p><p>(DAY SEVEN)</p><p>Everybody knows the sweet song of freedom</p><p>and I know it too. one day you'll be told: “oh, glorious</p><p>are his bones, he who is rotting now!”</p><p>noble thoughts dozing in the brain cringing</p><p>in confusion. the tenderness all around.</p><p>the pandemonium in which the gods no longer can be patient</p><p>mozart buried in a common grave</p><p>and despite it all a tear rusts in the true light which</p><p>I approach closer ever closer which ’'m awfully scared of</p><p>and which I must endure</p><p>all the way to the great warehouse of water lilies</p><p>alone in the mad forest of grief</p><p>everybody knows the sweet song of freedom</p><p>and I know it too. a time will come when the death</p><p>of a bum on the street will move an empire</p><p>when the night leaf will murder the day leaf</p><p>when your intention will be to sing</p><p>but ashes will permeate the spaces in your name</p><p>everybody knows the sweet song of freedom</p><p>and I know it too</p><p>accustoming myself to it day and night</p><p>forever.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 131</p><p>TRACTATE ON THE HERETICAL</p><p>(DAY ELEVEN)</p><p>Perhaps some other week I'll return with the pubescent wind</p><p>cowering like an angel</p><p>(sold for a grain of cyanide). Pretty fairy-tales.</p><p>the blade of the hatchet through the mouth of another word —</p><p>a peace-loving fellow.</p><p>gray goddesses will bury the first book in a</p><p>proscribed tableland nobody at all will have heard of nobody</p><p>will have reached that far.</p><p>In the fall flamingos flail about the slaughterhouse with their</p><p>gizzards slit</p><p>two women with their eyes stuck to the hatchet still can examine</p><p>their ankles</p><p>(Those women in the butcher shop know next to nothing!)</p><p>a bribe between stars for a minute’s peace</p><p>in the afternoon when the raw pinch of the cold bleeds drops of</p><p>blood and</p><p>squeezes them into the house</p><p>when you have a bird cage tattooed on your shoulder.</p><p>My inclination isn’t to end the game with the balls</p><p>nor the game with shoe polish</p><p>if possible not even the game with the sphinxes. So few</p><p>of the blasphemies in the calendars are kept. Then: “the first</p><p>teachings</p><p>are shameful.”</p><p>With a single document with just this accessory</p><p>with no matter how many accessory documents</p><p>now</p><p>what would a fictive memory decide?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>132 Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>TRACTATE ON THE HERETICAL</p><p>(DAY THIRTY-ONE)</p><p>Birds that suddenly flock out of the ground</p><p>and become blinded in my blood. They resemble</p><p>a unique night of love with the stars</p><p>otherwise I wouldn’t say a thing about my own death.</p><p>Alone for a long long time my back up against the black wall (still</p><p>stuck)</p><p>before the last concert. So very late</p><p>the memory of the last day, the blasphemy which</p><p>not even a leaf witnessed</p><p>and of which nevertheless I know.</p><p>On an afternoon when peter became a cold word</p><p>in the mouth of his sons</p><p>truly a word I remember with pain. Oh,</p><p>god of these birds</p><p>that repeat their flocking out of the ground.</p><p>But in the reddish haze no voice can be heard</p><p>no coming to terms with the smile; who’s afraid</p><p>of the womb or of the mouth’s blasphemies?</p><p>TE. will lay a sawdust leaf on my eye</p><p>my clear blue eye: this may be sufficient.</p><p>It will be the last day.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>Poems by Dan Giosu</p><p>TWILIGHT</p><p>Paths are the graves of the dead</p><p>dug into a green clay;</p><p>green and mauve, green...</p><p>in the moonlight.</p><p>Oh, life’s headstrong beasts!</p><p>Beneath such burdens, where do you struggle?</p><p>Iam my heart’s refuge.</p><p>Sadness and fear — my own refuge.</p><p>But toward evening pillars of smoke</p><p>take the sky’s measure:</p><p>a defect in your thought . . .</p><p>a sign that you exist,</p><p>yes, yOu exist. ..</p><p>Resign yourself to the grass blades,</p><p>the five-legged beetle,</p><p>the cock’s shadow</p><p>in the fir branches,</p><p>therefore, resign yourself!</p><p>Iam my heart’s refuge .</p><p>Sadness and fear — my own refuge.</p><p>Most of all I must beseech you</p><p>134 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>to turn your head aside,</p><p>lest the pillars of smoke</p><p>catch your eye.</p><p>You might see life’s headstrong beasts,</p><p>worms sharp-pointed like a spear thrust</p><p>in the distant twilight.</p><p>O, graves dug in the moonlight!</p><p>O, paths of the dead!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poructuc</p><p>Dan Giosu 135</p><p>SPRING</p><p>Now the muddy waters,</p><p>now the quivering fiddleheads!</p><p>These are the days of overflowing brooks,</p><p>of young does,</p><p>of mornings like glass.</p><p>Oh, oh!</p><p>The earth turned by brawny arms!</p><p>Oh, oh, oh!</p><p>A maid with nostrils to the wind. . .</p><p>Spring!</p><p>But it’s only a blink,</p><p>a grain of sand,</p><p>the cry of a bird!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Porucwuc</p><p>136 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE RED DARKNESS</p><p>Mother, you alone can still save me</p><p>from the red darkness.</p><p>Save me, Mother, save me</p><p>from the red darkness!</p><p>Sometimes it’s a pack of wolves</p><p>with russet fur,</p><p>with iron fangs,</p><p>with fiery snarls,</p><p>with red slobber</p><p>and blood-soaked claws...</p><p>They tear everything apart!</p><p>‘Trees and posts,</p><p>the walls of buildings,</p><p>posters, trams,</p><p>the old and the children,</p><p>men and women</p><p>who shiver at bus stops</p><p>in a lurid pink fog!</p><p>They stand in silence as if</p><p>they couldn’t care at all.</p><p>They shiver in the garish fog.</p><p>But as forme. . .</p><p>oh, Mother,</p><p>save me, save me</p><p>from the red darkness!</p><p>Or else it’s eagles or ravens,</p><p>or they’re hawks!</p><p>With red feathers,</p><p>with blood-red beaks,</p><p>with talons of flame.</p><p>Dan Giosu 137</p><p>They claw out your eyes,</p><p>rake your shoulders . . .</p><p>People walk in the city</p><p>tapping white canes .. .</p><p>they walk and they walk and they walk...</p><p>as if they couldn’t care at all.</p><p>But as forme. .</p><p>save me,</p><p>save me, Mother,</p><p>from the red darkness!</p><p>Not even in sleep will it leave me alone...</p><p>it’s a millstone,</p><p>it’s a fine mist —</p><p>avoid? ...</p><p>It crushes my chest,</p><p>it crushes my soul</p><p>and it terrifies me!</p><p>It taunts me:</p><p>wretch, worm,</p><p>won't you just shut up?!</p><p>Save me, Mother, save me</p><p>from the red darkness!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Porucwuc</p><p>138 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>LANDSCAPE WITHOUT WINTER</p><p>(SLEEP)</p><p>I'm sleeping the black sleep, o my love,</p><p>in the most perfect peace!</p><p>At the end of the long bridge of light,</p><p>an untroubled sleep, with neither cares nor death —</p><p>the black sleep.</p><p>Were the sky a dog’s mouth,</p><p>surely barking would be heard everywhere . . .</p><p>without disturbing anything within,</p><p>anything beyond.</p><p>Woe unto you, bringer of fire!</p><p>divider of our time!</p><p>Woe unto you, fathomless dark!</p><p>Grain of sand</p><p>pecked by the evening birds!</p><p>I’m sleeping the black sleep.</p><p>Here. Now. Everywhere.</p><p>A field freshly plowed,</p><p>grass newly green.</p><p>The snow.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poruciuc</p><p>Dan Giosu</p><p>THE GRAPE</p><p>Between the lips of the sky, the moon —</p><p>like the grape</p><p>between the breasts of the beloved Karsun,</p><p>my beloved woven of the red-tinted yarns of twilight.</p><p>Like the grape</p><p>squeezed between the breasts of my beloved Karsun!</p><p>Then the sudden trace</p><p>of half a body through the snow,</p><p>then the drop of blood</p><p>hanging from the sky,</p><p>then I myself kissing a tree</p><p>directly upon its sadness...</p><p>Here, for all time, immutable...</p><p>waiting beside the waters.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Porucwuc</p><p>139</p><p>140 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>PEACE (I)</p><p>On the shore, the woman of sand, born at sunset .. .</p><p>amid the evening breezes,</p><p>bearers of pleasant and warm scents,</p><p>washed by the pristine water of the sea.</p><p>‘The woman of sand, suddenly appeared among us.</p><p>Singers painted half red</p><p>half green</p><p>chant her their dry songs preserved by the sun,</p><p>powdered by moondust . . .</p><p>Do you not begin to feel, creeper in the grass,</p><p>that the dew gets blown here through a pipe by an angel?</p><p>For a brief instant this woman became my peace!</p><p>Drip silver liquors into her heart!</p><p>Drape cherry blossoms about her ears . . .</p><p>Her shadow will spread</p><p>far beyond the shore,</p><p>her voice will warm the cold sea-cliffs.</p><p>For a brief instant this woman</p><p>became my peace!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poruciuc</p><p>Dan Giosu</p><p>PEACE (II)</p><p>He made him a chair on which to sit.</p><p>And a table at which to eat.</p><p>He made him a bed</p><p>in which to sleep.</p><p>He made him a lover,</p><p>to whom to make love;</p><p>he made him sky,</p><p>of which to make dreams;</p><p>he made him the earth,</p><p>upon which to tread.</p><p>He granted him hate.</p><p>Stupidity.</p><p>Death.</p><p>But peace, never!</p><p>No peace at all!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poruciuc</p><p>141</p><p>142 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>SLEEP</p><p>An ashen bouquet in which the hooves</p><p>of my horse are deep in slumber — oh, the tiger-elephant —</p><p>without moaning in their sleep.</p><p>First of all wet the tip</p><p>of your little nose in this boiling lake.</p><p>I once had a life called Treschenta . . .</p><p>But where are You still, that we might stroll together</p><p>barefoot through this autumn?</p><p>As though in sleep I stretch out my hand</p><p>to push you away. Just a little.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poructuc</p><p>Dan Giosu</p><p>GENESIS</p><p>God saw the light, that it was good</p><p>Genesis</p><p>First sadness was invented</p><p>then the figure four.</p><p>On Monday sadness,</p><p>on ‘luesday the figure four:</p><p>in the morning sadness,</p><p>at noon the figure four.</p><p>Freedom hadn’t been invented yet</p><p>because there was no need.</p><p>On Wednesday He rested.</p><p>On Thursday fear was invented,</p><p>then the sky was invented,</p><p>in the evening fear,</p><p>at dawn the sky.</p><p>On Friday He rested.</p><p>Speech hadn’t been invented yet</p><p>because there was no need.</p><p>Thereafter, endless silence no longer reigned,</p><p>but an endless roar of laughter</p><p>thundered throughout heaven.</p><p>On Sunday He rested.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poructuc</p><p>143</p><p>144 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>SHADOW</p><p>The hunters are coming, the hunters are coming! . . .</p><p>I get up. It’s right there, a hole in the grass,</p><p>a gray circumference — proof</p><p>of your passage.</p><p>Id like to have asked you first</p><p>about the black bull,</p><p>the bellower, the devourer of leaves.</p><p>I’ve come to cast my shadow; without</p><p>a shadow, I tell myself, what a sublime sadness!</p><p>In the gusts of wind,</p><p>I was the first to dig a grave</p><p>at your feet.</p><p>Without a shadow — what a sublime sadness!</p><p>For the hunters are coming, the hunters are coming.</p><p>I get up. It’s right there, a hole in the grass,</p><p>a gray circumference...</p><p>In the depths of the earth, take a look, a piece of marble.</p><p>Id still like to ask you</p><p>about the black bull,</p><p>the bellower,</p><p>the devourer of leaves...</p><p>For the hunters are coming, the hunters are coming.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poruciuc</p><p>Dan Giosu 145</p><p>THE INSINUATION</p><p>Something’s insinuated itself between you and me.</p><p>A horse said,</p><p>I can speak to you in your own language, since it suits me.</p><p>Thus I tell you:</p><p>Damn it, something’s insinuated itself between the two of you!</p><p>You say, ‘That’s some horse!</p><p>I say, Of course, he speaks our language</p><p>since it suits him.</p><p>The horse says, Climb on!</p><p>On my back I shall carry you where it snows black and green flakes,</p><p>where trees are the only possible presence</p><p>and where every natural impulse</p><p>is in fact a way to flee.</p><p>There, also, in the presence of Light,</p><p>you feel fear and die.</p><p>What about it?</p><p>You say, How wonderful! ve never been there!</p><p>I say, Of course, he speaks our language</p><p>since it suits him.</p><p>Or, the horse goes on, shall I carry you across</p><p>hard-frozen seas,</p><p>over mountains thirty miles high and more,</p><p>to a land of houses without doors or windows,</p><p>of grass growing from the soul,</p><p>of long, sprouting fingers,</p><p>where instead of children giants and giantesses give birth</p><p>to books with neatly painted red covers?</p><p>I say, Of course, he speaks our language</p><p>since it suits him.</p><p>You say, My, oh my, how beautiful, oh my!</p><p>146 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>The horse asks, Or do you want me to show you</p><p>how you look in a mirror?</p><p>For instance, you have an unfinished face,</p><p>Vet YOU. a.</p><p>you breathe nothing but blood...</p><p>Let me carry you there to take a look,</p><p>I have an implicit trust in you,</p><p>you were born under favorable signs,</p><p>among beings fond of music,</p><p>hot in anger</p><p>and kind to trees... .</p><p>You say, Oh I wish, oh how I wish I were there!</p><p>I say, Of course, something’s insinuated itself</p><p>between you and me...</p><p>And it suits him fine.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poructuc</p><p>Poems by Carmelia Leonte</p><p>DRAWING</p><p>Death, do you love me?</p><p>The way we lie down together and you glue yourself to my body</p><p>seems like making love.</p><p>A quiver in my eyelid, a vague throb</p><p>tell me you'll engender no issue.</p><p>Your back and mine, perfectly symmetrical,</p><p>glyphs in a drawing</p><p>discovered eons ago in a pyramid.</p><p>Your face and mine, alike and white,</p><p>exchange a coded message.</p><p>Only your voice gives you away,</p><p>the way it quavers in my ear:</p><p>You will be ceramics and death’s hand will seek you out</p><p>a second time!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>148 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>PASSING</p><p>You pass through light searching for me.</p><p>From the way you don’t see me</p><p>not even when I take the shape of a cry,</p><p>I understand that your supreme triumph will be death.</p><p>Despair is an empty space</p><p>in which no one meets no one.</p><p>Despair is an autumn in which</p><p>the highest peaks are strangling each other.</p><p>Where can you be?</p><p>It’s as though my days have slipped away</p><p>in a shrill season</p><p>of no one,</p><p>and no one can recall</p><p>what light flashed across their faces.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Carmelia Leonte 149</p><p>CHILDHOOD</p><p>Full of astonishment the sky gave us shelter</p><p>when we awoke we were strangers and alone, impalpable</p><p>what an extraordinary bottomless sorrow could be read</p><p>in the eyes of that creature —</p><p>and eager to approach us, who was cradling</p><p>a blue child ...?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>150 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>GEOMETRY</p><p>I kept watching him rise from the table and head for the door,</p><p>because he suddenly would turn around and sit down again on the chair,</p><p>each of his movements as deliberate and final as the other, as though there</p><p>were no contradiction between them. Time after time he sat himself at the</p><p>table as if he were just arrived, and after a little while, he rose once more,</p><p>determined to leave.</p><p>This game began to seem natural to me, unpremeditated. A sort of</p><p>floating whitish dust floated in the air, and I could see it settle on his</p><p>hands, his face. I knew that it was the last hopeless specters of the light, I</p><p>waited for night to fall so at the least I no longer could see him rising, then</p><p>sitting down again.</p><p>I held still, I had concentrated so hard on his being that it became a</p><p>burning flame within me, his ricocheting between door and chair appeared</p><p>as if it would never stop, I had a premonition that a single gesture on my</p><p>part would throw everything into disequilibrium and</p><p>“What if I told him I loved him?” I thought to myself.</p><p>(Black soles left their traces on the wall, vanishing into the farthest dark</p><p>corner of the room.)</p><p>I froze at the sudden thought that, in his fever, he might have forgot-</p><p>ten all about me, about my presence, about the fact that the two of us were</p><p>there together, and maybe I had been trying to deceive myself, maybe what</p><p>I was seeing wasn’t feverishness, simply plain exhaustion and fear, and the</p><p>howling of the dogs outside was a foretelling of the end.</p><p>The scene started turning absurd, the ravenous air was biting my</p><p>hands, it was getting darker, and there was no hope that I could see outside</p><p>any more. A sort of slippery sweat covered things. I started to hate them</p><p>for their very immobility.</p><p>I could no longer see him, but his essential being had imprinted itself</p><p>deep within mine. His dimensions inside me, amplified by the darkness,</p><p>were inundating my own, and only they, his dimensions as conceived by</p><p>my being, only they sheltered his being, protectively, perfectly superim-</p><p>posed in a kind of hallucinatory confusion. I burned with such madness to</p><p>Carmelia Leonte P51</p><p>trace his contour with my fingers, but even the blurry line separating him</p><p>from the world was hidden deep inside me.</p><p>“What if I told him I loved him?” I thought to myself.</p><p>(Black soles left their traces on the wall, vanishing into the farthest dark</p><p>corner of the room.)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>152 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE WOUNDS</p><p>You were wounds, only wounds, and the rain had filled them</p><p>wild beasts came to drink</p><p>from your lonely body</p><p>sadness or death was shredding the tree trunks</p><p>frantically I went in search of</p><p>the edge of the woods.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Carmelia Leonte 153</p><p>GRANDMA VICTORIA</p><p>Im terribly sick.</p><p>Some aggressiveness in things is menacing me.</p><p>Carefully I navigate around the knifelike corners of the table, the bed,</p><p>I avoid the wavy legs of the chairs.</p><p>I'm terribly sick.</p><p>I think of you as of a stranger</p><p>because, in fact, that’s what you are.</p><p>Here they are, my ages:</p><p>I'm a young woman.</p><p>I rouse myself from sleep terrified ’'ve forgotten your face.</p><p>And then I draw it in memory</p><p>the way a child chalks a doll</p><p>on the sidewalk.</p><p>(Part of the sketch is erased by the shoes of pedestrians,</p><p>part of it, by the rain,</p><p>and what remains is everything that the child wanted</p><p>to draw.)</p><p>I hear the door. I’m no longer waiting for you. It’s not you.</p><p>This is the last age.</p><p>I'm sick.</p><p>I wrap myself in a faded old blanket</p><p>and you, Melancholy,</p><p>now you assume the face of an old country woman</p><p>who hides her knobby hands in the grass.</p><p>A geometry which I always put off inventing</p><p>overwhelms me.</p><p>This is a circle.</p><p>This is a rhombus.</p><p>This is a triangle.</p><p>My love for you 1s</p><p>154 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>a geometry of thought.</p><p>Everything is calculated.</p><p>Everything perfect.</p><p>An absolute, ideal geometry,</p><p>which I always put off inventing.</p><p>You were offering me unreal jewels,</p><p>a handful of odd pieces, no pairs,</p><p>and for the first time, and the last,</p><p>I thought I could say to you:</p><p>Go way from here! Away!</p><p>Don’t you see that what youve offering me</p><p>DEALT</p><p>Let’s play different parts.</p><p>Ill be a character in absence.</p><p>You'll be a character in absence.</p><p>Grandma Victoria will direct the scene</p><p>(Frost covered everything and I wanted to scream</p><p>Hey...! HereLam!</p><p>in the pale-blue streets.)</p><p>I'm terribly sick.</p><p>The verticality of the walls makes me tremble.</p><p>It’s as if 1t wishes to remind me of you.</p><p>(Of you?!)</p><p>I scream your name, Melancholy,</p><p>I scream your name</p><p>and now you look at me with the face of an old country woman</p><p>who hides her knobby hands in the grass.</p><p>Who would have supposed that this year, too, would pass?</p><p>I look at you the way you look at me.</p><p>We are two amorphous bodies that</p><p>exist by pure chance.</p><p>I ask you nothing.</p><p>Carmelia Leonte 155.</p><p>You ask me nothing.</p><p>(Frost covered everything and I wanted to scream</p><p>Hey... ! Herelam!</p><p>in the pale-blue streets.)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>156 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE PAST</p><p>‘Too many days come seek their past within me.</p><p>I reach out my hand towards your face and it draws back.</p><p>I reach out my hand towards your heart and it stops.</p><p>I mustn’t speak.</p><p>Who knows what secret code</p><p>what signals meant for death</p><p>I might disclose.</p><p>And your face.</p><p>And the vision of this hand.</p><p>And the way you're removing yourself.</p><p>And the image —</p><p>vertical as a scream.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Carmelia Leonte 157</p><p>THE PROCESSION OF DOLLS</p><p>There was so much snow on your house, this morning. My weariness</p><p>gave rise to a state of euphoria, in which panic felt like joy. I was waiting</p><p>for you to open the window and call out to me, Come in. And then, qui-</p><p>etly, I could enter your house, reach your sleep . . .</p><p>All is calm now. That panic, a frozen dance. “The wheel of time is a</p><p>kind of choreography,” somebody once said, and I stand stock-still, won-</p><p>dering about the ghosts that haunt my mind.</p><p>Memory escapes time. Once in a while I feel like a Cinderella in her</p><p>rooms, attempting to dust them, to open the window and let the sun in.</p><p>But memory is an aggressive Silence. She and I sit by ourselves, at the</p><p>table, I watch how she eats, slowly, delicately. Suddenly she throws down</p><p>her knife and fork (their clattering becomes unendurable), rises stormily</p><p>and cries out to me:</p><p>Get out of my sight! You’re the one J keep inside myself, intangible,</p><p>radiant — not what yourre turning into!</p><p>I feel sickened with humiliation but . . . day after day I calculate the</p><p>time I have left with an exactitude that verges on cynicism.</p><p>You’re a strange man.</p><p>When you leave, you snatch the Road from</p><p>beneath my feet. And then I ask myself: Where have I come? What am I</p><p>doing here? Who is it ’'m waiting for, if not for yet another of the dust-</p><p>covered heroes in my Memory?</p><p>When I try to insert an occurrence, the past ones resist, contest,</p><p>refuse it. They seem to be saying:</p><p>Memory is our queen — not you, puppet. . .</p><p>And then I have to fight, I have to force this new event onto the</p><p>string that wants itself closed, I must cry out:</p><p>Tm still alive!</p><p>Why this resistance? Why this fight? Against whom?</p><p>My right lung is a spongy cathedral, it resembles a country Pve never</p><p>managed to see.</p><p>That’s where all of Memory’s dreadful and ridiculous characters meet,</p><p>unhappy Don Quixotes.</p><p>My life is a desperate effort to force you there among them.</p><p>158 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>I want you, you, to be a spectator at this frenetic decadence. Most</p><p>especially you.</p><p>Sometimes all these colorful characters are dancing, sometimes they</p><p>compose funeral marches.</p><p>I cover my lung with my hands and tell them:</p><p>Stop it! I can’t breathe!</p><p>Memory is a carnal feast. A physical evil. You’re the only one who</p><p>might help me.</p><p>You mustn’t follow the path of my Memory. Because Memory is an</p><p>imaginary beast whom I hate. She is Death herself.</p><p>She lures me treacherously, she whispers in my ear:</p><p>Be good . . . let yourself be borne off by me . . . I shall be your guide</p><p>to the farthest ends of the earth . . . to unexplored realms . . .</p><p>I shout back, No! and I tear myself away as if from a fairy tale of my</p><p>childhood, out from the eye sockets of a devouring gaze.</p><p>Memory is my power and my last remaining choice, to say NO.</p><p>I shudder at the thought that my words mean nothing to you.</p><p>I shudder at the thought that your days thread their way through a</p><p>different labyrinth.</p><p>Memoty is meta-erotica. All that I desire to offer you, I offer her.</p><p>And she responds with hideous smiles.</p><p>There was so much snow on your house, this morning.</p><p>The panic and the atrocious joy made me shiver.</p><p>Your window was a frozen silence. And then my mind was crossed by</p><p>the alien thought that I was already old.</p><p>Are you sleeping? Dreaming? The certainty that you were beyond was</p><p>like a drunkenness that helped me proceed on my way.</p><p>Memory is a form of perversion. She teaches me how to lie.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Carmelia Leonte 159</p><p>CLOUD (1)</p><p>Discreetly, the king withdraws .</p><p>The king is ill and he may die.</p><p>When the holidays come,</p><p>he drives a nail</p><p>into the hand that held the scepter.</p><p>CLOUD (II)</p><p>Wherever you are,</p><p>a cross appears — always.</p><p>Beautiful, white,</p><p>almost alive,</p><p>begging for your soul.</p><p>CLOUD (III)</p><p>As if it weren’t your own,</p><p>your hand presses down on your head.</p><p>Every sunset,</p><p>your fingers penetrate the skull</p><p>and draw forth the king’s crown.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Poems by Friedrich Michael</p><p>THE YELLOW PINES OF REPEDEA</p><p>There is a time to live</p><p>There is a time to love</p><p>And there is a time to die.</p><p>It existed, it exists and it will yet exist —</p><p>On a road of stones and fog</p><p>Blanketing the whisper of the pines.</p><p>Alongside the white fountain, the abyss:</p><p>It existed, it no longer exists and it is yet to come.</p><p>‘Today I crave the pagan drunkenness</p><p>Of death’s embrace;</p><p>‘To sink down with you in my arms</p><p>Beneath the roots of the pines.</p><p>Your soul the full measure of my soul</p><p>And my soul full measure</p><p>Of yours.</p><p>I know I shall find my redemption in Him.</p><p>But what portal to love</p><p>Will remain thrown wide open</p><p>When your eyes freeze into opaque ice?</p><p>What will remain</p><p>From this utter hopelessness, our embrace,</p><p>When the sorrowful circles of our eyes, staring round,</p><p>Are no more than cold black holes</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Across which spiders project their webs?</p><p>Above them the shiver of the yellow pines</p><p>Recalling joy unraveled long ago</p><p>And a hope that never has been fulfilled,</p><p>The whispering voice a rustling echo of nothingness</p><p>Summoning you to reveal yourself, in your youth,</p><p>At the edge of the blue forest.</p><p>O, Rocky!</p><p>Your body vanishing, still on your own two feet,</p><p>Staggering like a stabbed man.</p><p>The Lord will wipe away your tears.</p><p>There is a bitter and perfidious taste of love</p><p>Without a face, without a name,</p><p>In a secret red thirst</p><p>Where the mouths that once existed</p><p>Touch one another fiery hot, together trembling.</p><p>Love-struck carols</p><p>The unison of the silence</p><p>161</p><p>When they answer one another, when they find one another again,</p><p>The memory of singing birds</p><p>With, in their profound wandering,</p><p>The yellow perfume of the pines.</p><p>Spectral handshakes</p><p>And flames lacking light</p><p>Are, as one, a staggering, a tremor</p><p>In the dark night of this late, unanimous resignation.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihm Ursach</p><p>162 Friedrich Michael</p><p>ALPHA PRIVATIVUM</p><p>In the center of no one</p><p>soundlessly singing Your beauty</p><p>those no part of a pair —</p><p>— ocean of nocturnal disharmony —</p><p>You do not stay</p><p>not moving Yourself,</p><p>not composing Yourself,</p><p>not flowing Yourself.</p><p>Because Your pallor missing from the shadow</p><p>does not sing the eternal truth</p><p>and is neither a unity,</p><p>nor the One,</p><p>You don’t show Yourself;</p><p>neither the sacred darkness</p><p>nor the light of the ignorance of You</p><p>illuminates my passage</p><p>lost in the vortex of whirling oblivion.</p><p>Your pure inexistence</p><p>doesn’t drop in soft drops</p><p>over the shadows of my eyes</p><p>anc amrmnotee:</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihm Ursachi</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 163</p><p>ORIGINAL SIN</p><p>Oh! white water lily,</p><p>Bitter perfume of the song of light</p><p>Floating above the insistent void</p><p>Of the water fading into transparency.</p><p>Incredible concretion,</p><p>The veins of the water,</p><p>Clearly glittering</p><p>in and of itself,</p><p>Weaving your root never visible to the fishermen —</p><p>The fecund dissonance</p><p>In the deep, too pure, blue harmony.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>164 Friedrich Michael</p><p>MOUNTAIN BARCAROLE</p><p>Beyond the dark fir trees</p><p>Around the celestial lakes</p><p>Sparkle the abysses of solar snow.</p><p>Purity! Oh, blue purity!</p><p>Take pity on our tears</p><p>Which trickle along the rocks</p><p>In drops of juniper!</p><p>Miserere!</p><p>Give ear to our adoration</p><p>De profunds.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>MONODY</p><p>For less than an instant</p><p>let’s sit face to face,</p><p>my eyes submerging in yours</p><p>and my heart throbbing strongly</p><p>with the rhythm of your heart</p><p>there inside you, the exact replica of a pulsar.</p><p>Not as a unity, but as one with you,</p><p>or maybe not even that —</p><p>no longer being,</p><p>but just existing,</p><p>happily,</p><p>one and the other</p><p>one in the other</p><p>one of the other</p><p>without one, then without the other —</p><p>the other who now is one with his own other.</p><p>Imploded into love</p><p>as into the sun’s abysmal void</p><p>let's make eternal the harmony,</p><p>its vibrations inside us together,</p><p>in that place we know</p><p>as if a great secret all our own,</p><p>profound, gaping deep below,</p><p>as if the abyss</p><p>which is the foundation of every foundation,</p><p>even those beyond our world.</p><p>Thus, astonished, in the dazzling blackness,</p><p>let’s recall the celestial voices</p><p>once upon a time fully ours but now</p><p>fully dissolved together like separate waters in the sea,</p><p>in this song, which never has been, never will be, and which is</p><p>but a little less than an instant that can never die.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Hirhm</p><p>165</p><p>166 Friedrich Michael</p><p>THE HOUSE OF OUR LOVE</p><p>Just as the trees of the forest grow in secret</p><p>slowly and in silence,</p><p>just as thought grows</p><p>in shyness, seen by no eye,</p><p>so do you raise everywhere around me</p><p>the house of our love</p><p>forever empty of you.</p><p>It exists,</p><p>and in no way Can it not exist ,</p><p>it is like your thought about the gift you’re giving me —</p><p>the overflow of your heart.</p><p>It exists,</p><p>perfect, circular,</p><p>fixed like eternity.</p><p>But I, sad and in silence, wander</p><p>through its rooms without number, without</p><p>the earlier Vasile Alecsandri, not only an esteemed</p><p>poet but also a playwright, a political leader, and collector of folk material.</p><p>In this century, especially well-known between the two World Wars were</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 2</p><p>Magda Isanos, who died at only twenty-eight in 1944, Mihai Codreanu,</p><p>Otilia Cazimir, Al.O. Teodoreanu, and George Topirceanu, whom I shall</p><p>return to later in these introductory remarks.</p><p>But this introduction is not a history of writing in and near Iasi, nor</p><p>in Moldavia more generally, as much as it is a brief effort to preface this</p><p>volume with its representative sampling of the vital, varied, and expressive</p><p>poetry that can be found in Iasi in the 1990s. Romania’s poetic achieve-</p><p>ment in the recent decades of this century is itself an amazingly powerful</p><p>and widespread phenomenon, and the literary scene in and around Iasi has</p><p>been an important part of this cultural strength. Thus the inclusion of</p><p>twenty-one accomplished poets in this book of poetic voices associated</p><p>with just one city is a sign of the breadth of this literary culture, itself in</p><p>part the result of the high status and respect poetry has had in Romanian</p><p>life. This reverence for poets and poetry was an established social attitude</p><p>before the coming of communism to Romania, where poetry has long</p><p>been viewed as a mode for the expression of ideas, social values, and</p><p>national ideals, and it became even more true during the communist</p><p>decades, with the field of poetry also taking on an urgent role in the</p><p>expression of coded discontent and dissidence as well as exemplifying a</p><p>stance of high aestheticism and lyrical purity that served as a symbol of</p><p>intellectual and spiritual resistance to ideological contamination.</p><p>Mote or less three generations of contemporary writers from Iasi and</p><p>adjoining Moldavia are represented in this collection, loosely grouped</p><p>herein my discussion according to when their first books were published.</p><p>Horia Zilieru and Ioanid Romanescu, and a little later Emil Brumaru and</p><p>Mihai Ursachi, form a diverse congeries of authors whose initial book pub-</p><p>lication dates from the mid-1960s and immediately after, the period of a</p><p>vigorous lyrical revival concomitant with the short-lived liberalization in</p><p>communist control of literary production, the aesthetic effects of which</p><p>(though not the political and social policies) continued well into the fol-</p><p>lowing decade; to this group, consequently, one also must add Cristian</p><p>Simionescu and Aura Musat, both of whom had also begun to publish by</p><p>the early 1970s. The major portion of the poets who are brought together</p><p>here gained their initial book publication and literary prominence in the</p><p>1980s, a period characterized by increasingly dire conditions and harsh</p><p>state tyranny, but also the beginnings of an extremely eclectic and energetic</p><p>phase of poetry, with the first practitioners of a self-consciously post mod-</p><p>ern poetics. Included are writers born in the 1950s and 60s: Cassian Maria</p><p>10 Introduction</p><p>Spiridon, Nichita Danilov, Liviu Antonesei, Lucian Vasiliu, Gellu Dorian,</p><p>Dorin Popa, Aurel Dumitrascu, Mariana Codrut, Dan Giosu. Finally, a</p><p>handful of mostly younger writers — Ovidiu Nimigean, Radu Andriescu,</p><p>Carmelia Leonte, Irina Andone, Friedrich Michael, and Cristina Cirstea —</p><p>are fully associated with the last decade of this century, and have thus had,</p><p>for the most part, little direct experience of a literary career of publishing</p><p>under official censorship. No writer today, however, can be unaware of the</p><p>subtle, and not so subtle, limitations and restrictions on the publication of</p><p>poetry imposed in a free market by sales pressures motivated by commer-</p><p>cial needs and profit. In the face of new freedom but also the loss of state</p><p>subsidies and sinecures, and with greatly increased competition from other,</p><p>newly accessible modes of writing, such as memoir and the translation of</p><p>previously limited or forbidden foreign works, not to mention political</p><p>and social commentary or pornography, and likewise even stronger compe-</p><p>tition from the tremendous explosion in the availability of other, pop-cul-</p><p>ture media, the continued existence of a world-class poetry in Romania is a</p><p>matter of note — perhaps, however, soon to be a matter of worry, of active</p><p>concern, of nostalgia. One hopes not. In any case, some of the positive</p><p>effects of poets’ hard-won, post-communist liberty are evidenced in the</p><p>material and themes of the recent work of all writers, and it is of interest</p><p>that the work of the youngest poets here shows a broad spectrum of poetic</p><p>strategies, styles, and themes, from the traditional, the ritual or mythic,</p><p>and the ironic to the erotic, the experimental, and the “in-your-face.”</p><p>My primary aesthetic aim in these translations — and by writing in</p><p>the first person, I am speaking as the translator responsible for the final</p><p>English version, without belittling the contributions of my numerous wor-</p><p>thy and skilled collaborators, of whose excellent efforts I am most deeply</p><p>appreciative — this personal aim has been the creation of natural-sound-</p><p>ing, poetic versions of the works selected. Perhaps paradoxically, I have</p><p>kept in mind dual purposes: the artistic interpretation of each original</p><p>Romanian text in a way that is, nonetheless, relatively accurate to its lan-</p><p>guage and, most of all, its spirit. Above all, I felt that for this book to merit</p><p>the attention of readers of poetry, I had to create (or, as I like at times to</p><p>think of literary translation, to re-create) works of art that could stand</p><p>alone as living poems in the target language. I wanted the results to look,</p><p>to feel, indeed to speak — to whisper, to sing, to dream, to laugh, to cry, to</p><p>moan, to snarl, to lament, etc. — like poetry in English, as it were to taste</p><p>on the tongue like contemporary English poems. If I strayed from “the lit-</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers sh</p><p>eral” (which itself is ultimately a matter of one reader’s time-bound read-</p><p>ing, an individual perspective, one mind’s intellectualizing of the original</p><p>poem, not an objective fact or an absolute), it was because I felt the need</p><p>to go after something else, some effect or quality that I believed to be even</p><p>more crucial to the artistic essence of the original text. The poetic transla-</p><p>tion of poetry is at best an art of approximation, neither the transmission</p><p>of information in an uncolored, supposedly transparent way nor a scientif-</p><p>ically verifiable result, but instead, as it were, a performance, or a transcrip-</p><p>tion into another linguistic medium of something borrowed and then</p><p>reimagined. It is my hope that I have not been negligent in returning what</p><p>I borrowed back to the broad world of poetry.</p><p>Something else that I have borrowed is the title of this book, City of</p><p>Dreams and Whispers, which derives from an older poem than those in this</p><p>collection, a salute to Iasi by a writer associated with the city in the 1920s</p><p>and 30s, George ‘Topirceanu, one of Romania’s most important authors of</p><p>the inter-war period. ‘Topirceanu’s work exists in a number of versions, one</p><p>of which, part of a speech delivered in 1933 at the university, I should like</p><p>to offer below in my own collaborative translation with Laura ‘Treptow. An</p><p>elegant encomium, ‘Topirceanu’s generous-spirited poem more or less con-</p><p>cludes this brief preamble to the anthology that follows, and I intend it to</p><p>provide a fitting sense of closure to my presentation of the consistently</p><p>powertul and distinguished poetry of the city of Iasi today, with sentiments</p><p>for which I myself feel a great personal sympathy.</p><p>“Tasi, I Salute You”</p><p>I salute you, city of teachers, of chroniclers, and poets,</p><p>Cradle of so many ideas, so many a great event,</p><p>You, who gathered around yourself, like an incandescent forum,</p><p>All that is intelligence, lofty spirit, and talent!</p><p>I salute you, romantic city, full of parks and flowers,</p><p>Where</p><p>beginning or end,</p><p>where I can’t find you at all</p><p>except as a great absence;</p><p>sad and in silence, I wander about your house, our house</p><p>without end or beginning,</p><p>always puzzled</p><p>whether this is the nesting place of my dreams</p><p>of love,</p><p>a temple,</p><p>a prison,</p><p>or just the locus of my exile</p><p>where, with holy cruelty,</p><p>I have been doomed to live,</p><p>be it even for just a single lifetime,</p><p>far away from you.</p><p>It’s all the same to me wherever I start in my wanderings</p><p>because I can’t help returning to that very spot,</p><p>all the more bewildered,</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 167</p><p>realizing, with astonishment, that that which is not, is</p><p>and that which is not, is all that is.</p><p>Because only you can fill</p><p>the vast silence</p><p>of this cosmic summer afternoon</p><p>lingering in the empty house</p><p>where nothing ever is absent</p><p>because if anything were absent</p><p>then it would be absent from all things equally.</p><p>Immobile,</p><p>immutable, abiding</p><p>like a mummy’s smile</p><p>immortal in death,</p><p>the house of our love lies sufficient unto itself —</p><p>like the prison of not a single hope,</p><p>from which it’s impossible to flee anywhere</p><p>because beyond it nothing exists anymore,</p><p>but it is self-contained</p><p>inwardly within itself.</p><p>Beyond your gift,</p><p>there’s only you, you who give;</p><p>you, who don’t exist</p><p>but who must exist;</p><p>my great nostalgia,</p><p>the dog-days of the sidereal summer</p><p>when my heart fades and withers.</p><p>Your absence is the glowing fire of my love —</p><p>and I don’t want anything from this house,</p><p>chosen out of all its many riches</p><p>spread everywhere about,</p><p>every which way you look —</p><p>I don’t want anything except the absence;</p><p>I desire only the heat of love.</p><p>Everywhere I search for nothing except this absence —</p><p>because the absence is you.</p><p>The house of our love,</p><p>168 Friedrich Michael</p><p>exactly as strange and mortuary as it appears,</p><p>is your wedding gift —</p><p>and I must cherish it.</p><p>It stands as proof of your secret, mysterious love</p><p>which the darkness cannot conquer;</p><p>it exists as the vast unveiling</p><p>of an embrace so all-encompassing</p><p>that it must everywhere be within its own bounds</p><p>and no longer has space</p><p>for this boundless infinitude, this dementia</p><p>of you and of me,</p><p>but needs to make enough room</p><p>for something</p><p>that cannot be, precisely because it does exist,</p><p>a something-more-than-infinitude —</p><p>it needs this holy house</p><p>of a love</p><p>that is self-loving,</p><p>in which she never lives</p><p>but which for eternity she gives as her gift</p><p>from the abyss of absence,</p><p>or maybe from a death more alive than life.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Hirhm</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>CONSOLATIO</p><p>Yellow wind —</p><p>vibration of ethereal strings</p><p>disturbing the depths of the soul;</p><p>containing in itself the white stones,</p><p>sterile and cold</p><p>from nonliving,</p><p>drunk</p><p>with the black melody</p><p>of your eyes</p><p>your blind stare</p><p>from beyond being.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>169</p><p>170 Friedrich Michael</p><p>THE FLYING DUTCHMAN</p><p>The ocean is our homeland —</p><p>The stormy ocean of exile,</p><p>Roused into waves</p><p>By the raging, eternal wind</p><p>That haunts us everywhere;</p><p>Where will the anchor strike</p><p>The diamond sands of love?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 171</p><p>THE ENGLISH HORN</p><p>When I brace my foot upon that silence</p><p>I feel the hard strength of absence.</p><p>Tougher than stone, more transparent than glass.</p><p>The hardness of diamond,</p><p>The hardness of death.</p><p>Invisible, impenetrable, diamond-like death.</p><p>And nevertheless, at the touch of it,</p><p>My sole is immersed in nonbeing</p><p>My foot dies . . . up to my ankle</p><p>Up to my knee</p><p>Up to my thigh</p><p>— oh! what horror!</p><p>I disintegrate and perish in the void</p><p>Where my absence glitters</p><p>And flickers</p><p>and that absence</p><p>I'm falling into —</p><p>Not unity, but oneness;</p><p>A raging blaze of interpenetration</p><p>Perfect like a love</p><p>Ravishing like love in and of itself.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursach</p><p>172 Friedrich Michael</p><p>LIVING NATURE</p><p>the immaculate calm of the magnolia</p><p>rests upon your face</p><p>poetry</p><p>‘Truth springing from Good</p><p>in a whirlwind of light you come away</p><p>from the vast promise</p><p>of the white isles —</p><p>the thread of life shivering bashfully</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Poems by Aura Musat</p><p>YOUR OTHER FACE</p><p>Stasis, but</p><p>without death</p><p>out of the flower, fruit</p><p>grows deliberately</p><p>you shroud your hearing with</p><p>the rustle</p><p>of the poplars practiced at being</p><p>alone</p><p>fog like thinly sifting</p><p>sand</p><p>hills rolling round and round</p><p>as in a plasma</p><p>your other face which, in your departure,</p><p>you forget</p><p>the woodpecker</p><p>pecks at the house</p><p>of the ancient children.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>174 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>IN GOOD TIME</p><p>But where can you return</p><p>and where, now, might you start from?</p><p>You know that on the earliest new greenery</p><p>leafless</p><p>the tsee-wheet of the titmouse</p><p>has been shrilled for a century of light</p><p>that somewhere, nearby,</p><p>in darkness,</p><p>is the chatter of a nest</p><p>that farther away it has snowed</p><p>so deeply that</p><p>you can no longer recognize anything with your sight</p><p>or with your little steps</p><p>And at the crossroad you asked questions</p><p>But the rain, like a miracle,</p><p>as the Summer has been</p><p>And that Wednesday sprouted up from the ashes</p><p>like a sleepwalker — you cut down the sour cherry tree</p><p>And as you lost the cricket</p><p>everything transformed</p><p>— will be transformed,</p><p>in good time, with the idea of</p><p>not becoming lost</p><p>on any other path</p><p>that the Asiatic tumuli slumber</p><p>and the wormwood flutters</p><p>-_. Pin + en he wi</p><p>ae Pea) Ah a) padbautt</p><p>_ 3 i chr litre nero! ></p><p>4 : Pe ate</p><p>t aft titel © ‘</p><p>- -</p><p>a at ,</p><p>pe</p><p>176 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>LOTUS</p><p>Yowre my snow-drifted cry,</p><p>the edge of the eternal flower.</p><p>The chirping is at its end,</p><p>the lazybones has climbed down from the tree,</p><p>time, its snide mugging</p><p>withered in the mirror</p><p>at the river’s muddy mouth</p><p>And, look, in the middle of the waters,</p><p>astounding us...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szirb</p><p>Aura Musat</p><p>UNTITLED [FINCH AND SMALL SCISSORS...</p><p>Finch and small scissors</p><p>wind and cloud</p><p>— it would be wise</p><p>not to touch off</p><p>their songs,</p><p>airy and transparent</p><p>You walk between</p><p>descend into</p><p>then rise toward</p><p>But it would be wise</p><p>not to awaken</p><p>in the line of vision</p><p>of their flight</p><p>unbalanced,</p><p>envious girl!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>E77</p><p>178 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>PUCK CLUMSILY FILLS THE GLASS</p><p>My soul, no longer in repose above the waters,</p><p>no longer — oh, the relaxed air — in contemplation of the garden.</p><p>With a single tear</p><p>Puck clumsily</p><p>fills the glass</p><p>for as long as you sip your coffee,</p><p>for as long as you blink,</p><p>for as long as you commit murder,</p><p>the image, witness of everything.</p><p>“A kind of dying on your feet” —</p><p>I settle my accounts with time.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szirb</p><p>Aura Musat</p><p>IN SLEEP, THE TREE GROWS</p><p>The light</p><p>comes in its fury.</p><p>Death waves</p><p>its innocent smile.</p><p>Beneath the pores, the tissue grows.</p><p>In sleep,</p><p>the tree grows. Near</p><p>the anachronistic shoulder.</p><p>Scales grow</p><p>miniature scales of</p><p>seeds</p><p>herbs grow.</p><p>The other side,</p><p>the ecumenic of summer.</p><p>Beneath the pores, the tissue grows.</p><p>The tree under the eaves, shy:</p><p>in blossom,</p><p>axis of the world</p><p>bee, sparrow,</p><p>sweet poresis, but no,</p><p>nothing of an affabulation</p><p>The three together — and even</p><p>the mist of a dream enveloping them</p><p>like the unseen.</p><p>WS)</p><p>180 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Magnetic axis</p><p>And the bright interval</p><p>— to which you belong</p><p>the eon strips bare</p><p>the walnut leaves, the chestnut leaves.</p><p>The rains come as well, to wash</p><p>the crowns of wax,</p><p>and the clouds dissolve</p><p>oh, grow thorns, like on hawthorns,</p><p>mister Nobody!</p><p>There is also the Bird</p><p>which resurrects and seizes its prey,</p><p>when the tree is alone,</p><p>she’s a runner, running with time</p><p>A few clouds, a few lambs</p><p>Pure forms,</p><p>a sumptuous darkening</p><p>The telephone pleading</p><p>in a railway station</p><p>among the fields</p><p>the century anonymous, at Florica.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Aura Musat</p><p>TO ONE STAR</p><p>Herods fell from the heavens. Go away from</p><p>the heights, the path worn into the gray.</p><p>From how many masks? — I can nearly foretell</p><p>The auspicious ones.</p><p>And the stars, by the thousands, shattered in the grass,</p><p>like mercury,</p><p>and an emperor cricket chirped</p><p>— a century? — squeezed tight in the cage of my closed fist,</p><p>until morning,</p><p>when I awaken truly poor.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>181</p><p>182 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>UNTITLED [Offering us... ]</p><p>Offering us</p><p>paradox and the salt on my lips</p><p>the tide surges away from the shore</p><p>to a thousand leagues off,</p><p>the wave that washes us a thousand times.</p><p>And now,</p><p>sweet sovereign, when I give a start, inexpressibly, slowly,</p><p>and now</p><p>as I weigh the indefinite rain in my hands,</p><p>and now</p><p>when even your wakefulness conjures up</p><p>belladonna.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Aura Musat 183</p><p>YOU DICTATE (MORE SLOWLY)</p><p>... like lavender</p><p>surely, your smile</p><p>you dictate (more slowly)</p><p>you make mistakes you make mistakes</p><p>you untie the vanquished knot</p><p>you joke: there are three riddles</p><p>you keep rubbing with the eraser,</p><p>but little by little</p><p>the poem grew.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szirb</p><p>Poems by Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>THE BARREN WOMAN</p><p>the barren woman imagines she’s giving birth</p><p>she twists in the sheets and heaves herself about</p><p>she sprawls spraddling her legs against the wall</p><p>she thrusts and convulses</p><p>runs rivers of sweat</p><p>and calls me by name</p><p>she even gives birth to me</p><p>only she feels how the unseen crown of my head</p><p>bursts out through her sex unreceptive to seed</p><p>only she hears me gasp and squall</p><p>she gnaws my umbilical cord of shadow</p><p>and she fondles my head and body</p><p>with eager hands</p><p>the barren woman licks her faceless whelp</p><p>her skinless and heartless cub</p><p>only she strokes me and knows me</p><p>and suckles me on her nut-like pap</p><p>I nurse without a sound</p><p>and then let slip the delicate nipple and fall asleep</p><p>baring my gums and teeth of mist</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE RHETORICAL DRUG</p><p>a more violent burning in the cells</p><p>that should make you believe yourself inspired so raise</p><p>your fist against the sky and shout or else fill</p><p>countless pages that</p><p>must astonish you the next day reminding you of</p><p>stories about daimons and gods</p><p>wherefrom comes that feast of metaphors</p><p>in a country so poor wherefrom</p><p>such perverse refinement of enjambment</p><p>rhythm and alliteration wherefrom</p><p>the virgin-bride freshness</p><p>of comparisons when</p><p>habitually you run disgusted eyes</p><p>over facades over faces over pediments</p><p>finding paltry and infrequent repose</p><p>in the dazzling homelands: reflections halos and other</p><p>unanticipated apparitions</p><p>looming out of memory</p><p>the rhetorical drug time brilliant and rarefied</p><p>like a comet’s tail</p><p>a more violent burning in the cells</p><p>god incarnated from endocrine</p><p>glands</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>185</p><p>186 Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>THE FIRST. THE SECOND</p><p>the first</p><p>ism’t given to you by god you seek it</p><p>yourself</p><p>step by step making your own way beyond</p><p>the sign of flesh of blood and of verb — I am a seeker</p><p>myself — they started</p><p>to call me the stranger to call me</p><p>the enemy but I can hardly feel</p><p>the breeze of their words brush the nape of my neck</p><p>from far beyond the woods the mountains the whetstone the lakes</p><p>— their curse nearly a caress</p><p>farther and farther away on a narrowing path</p><p>a path of air gradually forgetting</p><p>colors because there’s only light only</p><p>darkness here — just my cherry-red blood</p><p>frightened I stare at it through transparent hands</p><p>it seems to be something else — and then</p><p>involuntarily I catch myself crying</p><p>farther and farther away on a narrowing path</p><p>but never far enough</p><p>the first isn’t given to you by god you seek it</p><p>yourself and if you find it</p><p>it cannot be written the second</p><p>is inevitably a stutter</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 187</p><p>FACES OF THE SAME POEM</p><p>books trees fortresses women</p><p>faces of the same poem</p><p>which I sink into</p><p>with fewer and fewer words</p><p>I could talk about heroes and about wars</p><p>or about the colors of autumn in the orchards</p><p>— a sunset lingering as long as the season —</p><p>about the explosion of a litmus drop</p><p>about the water dance of lithium</p><p>or about the golden skull of a girl</p><p>gleaming among the domes of moscow</p><p>about the bony Ineroglyphs of the beggars</p><p>about the groaning of ice floes and empires</p><p>about the puff-ball of dandelions and the puff of quarks</p><p>I could try a planetary rhetoric</p><p>kneading into one dough geography politics and syntax</p><p>or at random I could choose some nouns</p><p>ana show you how children play at god</p><p>were I younger or at least were I</p><p>the old man of these times</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>188 Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>AND THEN IT ALL TURNED</p><p>but if ’m nothing more than a survivor (here’s</p><p>my real voice I put to rout the plaster</p><p>angels I made all the muses take flight I closed the treatises I</p><p>forgot everything altogether I'm looking out the window</p><p>into another world I'm looking in the mirror into another world</p><p>life has come and gone — and death had come and gone _ only</p><p>my blood</p><p>keeps flowing only my heart keeps beating it’s evening</p><p>but it isn’t evening _ only on earth is there evening</p><p>I'd believed in words believed in god believed in country Id tried</p><p>to be happy</p><p>and then it all turned to shit)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>EVEN IF IT CAME ABOUT</p><p>“for the stripes of the tiger”</p><p>— Borges</p><p>if I returned</p><p>Id be sure not to have a clue</p><p>I'd drop my cup of tea I'd slosh</p><p>the spoon before it could reach my mouth</p><p>smiling and timid Pd stumble over</p><p>the carpets</p><p>Id be killed and thrown sprinkled with lime into the pit</p><p>at the back of the garden</p><p>or like a baby be fed by a devoted woman</p><p>a woman whose hands became more cracked</p><p>and split day after day</p><p>her thick fingers swollen</p><p>stiffer and stiffer</p><p>and even if this kind of</p><p>heartrending fate came to pass</p><p>what good would it do to learn to walk again</p><p>if | went wandering down the same path on which</p><p>today I certainly don’t have the slightest clue</p><p>- there are nights</p><p>when my body flutters like a scarf-</p><p>I couldn’t possibly it’s not possible one can’t</p><p>return</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>189</p><p>190 Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>BLESSING IN UNISON</p><p>like a herd of wild boars we would chase</p><p>through the tender pubescent oaks of spring</p><p>driven crazy by scents and sap</p><p>and by the sweaty croups</p><p>of the females</p><p>with our sharp teeth we would nip left and right</p><p>always in sweet sport</p><p>we would swallow the raw meat and bellow deeply</p><p>licking the blood from our beards</p><p>yow! how their red swollen cunts were steaming</p><p>and how yellow hot arousing juices went streaming down their gams</p><p>and how</p><p>their black nipples split open</p><p>and how wet they glistened like forests in the spring</p><p>with our nostrils to the wind we would halt for a moment stunned</p><p>breathing the swamp of those scents</p><p>we were drowning in so much strength and so much desire</p><p>and then we would spring forth again snorting and roaring</p><p>so many hot pieces were left behind on the grass torn apart merely</p><p>flesh and blood and seed others broad and deep would wander suffocating</p><p>and gnawing us with their white teeth shaking us and pressing us against</p><p>their thighs rumbling like the earth when split open by earthquakes</p><p>none of us had any escape we were still too much alive</p><p>everything within us was merely life merely death merely life it seems</p><p>only just now that we are learning to throw jeers and sneering curses back</p><p>at the god</p><p>blessing in unison</p><p>the crowns of</p><p>our unborn children’s heads</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers al</p><p>BUT THEY DIDN’T BEAT YOU</p><p>(but they didn’t beat you in cells they didn’t smash</p><p>your teeth they didn’t make you eat your feces they didn’t rape</p><p>your mother they didn’t starve you worse than the</p><p>others —_and in the evening under the grape arbor you breathed the</p><p>perfumed air a sonatina of herbs of leaves of fruit and you whispered</p><p>poems with few consonants almost ethereal and you watched with</p><p>dreamy eyes the lighting of street lamps and the constellations</p><p>thinking about the sex of a faraway lover</p><p>as if it were a luminous stained-glass window</p><p>why, then?) why, then?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>192 Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>SONATINA</p><p>to Nichtta Stanescu</p><p>but drunk he’d acquire the grace</p><p>of an elephant soaring in flight</p><p>during any prolonged libation</p><p>he gradually became very light</p><p>golden and plasmatic he ascended</p><p>diaphanous bubble of blubber, a spirit</p><p>and amidst women and colonnades</p><p>he whirled in a giddy and tight pirouette</p><p>a delicate and frail behemoth</p><p>he bowed low sang shrilly and laughed</p><p>with a baby’s crying chortle</p><p>but then suddenly he started to drift</p><p>above us his hands waving in swim strokes</p><p>and his legs flailing in comical kicks</p><p>some of us roared supposing him playing</p><p>to others it seemed he was dying</p><p>with an accomplice’s smirk we raised our glasses</p><p>and emptied them sort of thoughtful and slow</p><p>sipping suspended as under a trance</p><p>and at last in our lisping tongues</p><p>we invited the women to dance</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 193</p><p>FLUTTERING HERE AND THERE OVER THE SLOUGHS</p><p>I want to strangle you until your eyes pop out big and white like</p><p>toad bellies</p><p>and your tongues protrude long and purple like a pig’s spleen</p><p>I want to mutilate your ugly mugs to punch in my fist as into dough</p><p>I want to crack open your skulls to squeeze that pus-pouch you</p><p>have the effrontery to call a brain</p><p>I want to trample you to pummel you beneath my heels</p><p>to pulverize your bones with a sledge hammer</p><p>to pound you with jackhammers</p><p>to crush you into pulp in hydraulic presses</p><p>I want to make you into an amorphous paste which I spit on which</p><p>I piss in</p><p>I want to flush you away with a hydrant’s force</p><p>and shove the glob of you into a public WC</p><p>to muck you up into rusty buckets with shovels</p><p>and pour you into troughs</p><p>I want to vomit on your gruesome gruel</p><p>all that you forced me to swallow for thirty years</p><p>all that I couldn’t chew all that my cells rejected in disgust</p><p>everything</p><p>everything everything almost the whole of myself</p><p>until two wings are all that remains gossamer transparent</p><p>a white butterfly</p><p>fluttering here and there over the sloughs</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Poems by Dorin Popa</p><p>EULOGY TO LIFE AND THE DREAMS</p><p>WED TO HER TO THE END</p><p>Ive begun to disintegrate</p><p>but still ’m making</p><p>plans for our future</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>LOVE STORY</p><p>(I ALWAYS CHOOSE YOU)</p><p>as I came plummeting down, I thought I was soaring high</p><p>I was ill, bewitched by my limits</p><p>a voice inside me — unknown to me — kept murmuring</p><p>that the inside is the outside, and the outside can be found</p><p>deep, deep inside</p><p>then, I saw you for the first time,</p><p>and long after I had embraced you to the unfathomed depths</p><p>my memory chose you and I always choose you</p><p>every moment I discover myself alive inside you, but</p><p>I shall have to go, go far away, so as not to lose you.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>15</p><p>196 Dorin Popa</p><p>WHAT MORE AM I WAITING FOR?</p><p>What more am I waiting for</p><p>now when I’m not waiting for anything?!</p><p>I’ve carefully counted up</p><p>all my deformities</p><p>all my incapacities</p><p>and all my bad luck,</p><p>with my heart at ease,</p><p>Ive hoarded the sum total</p><p>in my soul</p><p>— what more am I waiting for?</p><p>the deserts, the solitudes</p><p>the tattered, spidery</p><p>remains of puzzlement,</p><p>the infections, mud, slag, the confusions</p><p>have warmed me, have smothered me</p><p>withered me</p><p>and yet...</p><p>and yet</p><p>now</p><p>when Im not waiting for anything</p><p>what more am I waiting for??</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>BENEFICIAL FAILURES</p><p>like an amazing escape</p><p>like a bridge of possibility suspended</p><p>above doubts</p><p>like a tube of oxygen</p><p>in a suffocating collapse</p><p>like a spot of light</p><p>at the end of an infinite tunnel —</p><p>thus have I been waiting for you!</p><p>thus have I been waiting, and</p><p>thus I wait for you!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>197</p><p>198 Dorin Popa</p><p>MY DEATH — MY LIFE</p><p>if things had not battered me</p><p>with such fury</p><p>maybe I would not have seen them</p><p>maybe I would never have</p><p>realized</p><p>my sorrow — my joy</p><p>sometimes I’m allowed to behold</p><p>how the good and the bad are twinned</p><p>how out of their alloy arises</p><p>all that exists</p><p>my death — my life</p><p>I would never have found my way to you</p><p>if I hadn’t thoroughly lost myself, foolishly</p><p>if so many nights hadn’t blinded me</p><p>if the deserts hadn’t caressed me</p><p>sometimes in the middle of a storm</p><p>a profound sense of tranquillity overcomes me</p><p>and as I stand there battered, mangled, torn to shreds</p><p>I can watch in peace</p><p>how my death nourishes</p><p>my life</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>HIDDEN, BLOODY RAVENS</p><p>bloody ravens</p><p>dive</p><p>through my soul</p><p>and</p><p>time and time again,</p><p>after they vanish,</p><p>with great effort, just barely</p><p>I begin again</p><p>to breathe</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>122</p><p>200 Dorin Popa</p><p>ATTEMPT AT CONFESSION</p><p>I myself</p><p>am not frightened</p><p>by my multiple death sentences</p><p>near at hand</p><p>the straight road burnished with deeds</p><p>veers off in a huge detour</p><p>visited</p><p>by conspiracies against me</p><p>formless (and without substance, too)</p><p>I respond in thousands of ways</p><p>to the identical obsession:</p><p>“how far have I come?</p><p>and how far, my brother?”</p><p>I resort to the instant’s subterfuge</p><p>to sophistries, to various toadyisms</p><p>to whatever lie might more immediately tantalize me</p><p>my postulate — I detest postulates! —</p><p>adopted</p><p>in the face of the ultimate portal</p><p>(two souls cannot possess the same body at the same moment)</p><p>warmed me with a few sweet seconds of repose</p><p>when I believed Id easily sort</p><p>my brother’s ravages</p><p>from my own</p><p>(because of one pinpoint of light Pd passed at top speed</p><p>and beyond my powerlessness to know</p><p>if I myself were somehow</p><p>the brother)</p><p>precisely while I was writing the sentence with the postulate</p><p>my confidence caved in</p><p>and someone stretched wide the corners of my mouth</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 201</p><p>my fingers</p><p>disfigured beneath my very eyes</p><p>(my eyes — o, what completely different eyes!)</p><p>which started sinking as at a sign</p><p>and these last lines are being written</p><p>by a wild rough</p><p>claw</p><p>tenderly dipped in ink</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Mari Berneaga</p><p>202 Dorin Popa</p><p>ANAESTHETIZED</p><p>before I could receive no reply</p><p>my letters arrived at a nonexistent shore</p><p>no train goes past any longer</p><p>no woman smiles at me</p><p>no rifle’s barrel is aimed</p><p>at my heart!</p><p>no longer does anything lie in wait for me</p><p>on the gray field no hostile creature</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>SHIPWRECKED</p><p>Tm a quiet peaceful lake</p><p>in which demons bathe at will</p><p>praise be to the body’s power to receive</p><p>the guillotine</p><p>praise be the inability to encounter your deeds</p><p>submissively . . .</p><p>unexpectedly the song is flickering through the bars</p><p>and once again I’m devastated by the bitterness of watching</p><p>of watching of watching</p><p>the contact with the defiling</p><p>(con-tact con-tact — what a hint!)</p><p>... the ocean is the haven _ the ocean is the haven</p><p>the ocean is the haven!</p><p>master fiddlers are playing above the water</p><p>without being touched by the water</p><p>— praise be to them, praise be!</p><p>this image, however, disappears</p><p>and I get ready for the chaotic evening prayer.</p><p>a violent knocking</p><p>can be heard on my door</p><p>somebody hunted must be pounding on my door in desperation</p><p>... its beyond belief</p><p>there’s knocking, violent knocking</p><p>I hurry, one of my veins twitches hysterically</p><p>I run around the bookshelf a factory siren wails</p><p>the ceiling is covered with angels softly crying.</p><p>it’s impossible, there’s knocking on my door</p><p>I want to run away to jump out the window</p><p>but at long last I fling the door open. . .</p><p>a wary crowd looks me over, insistently</p><p>as if this had to go on and on for a long time, nobody blinks —</p><p>“we want to come in!” I can hear them clearly, precisely.</p><p>203</p><p>204 Dorin Popa</p><p>if a gun had been jabbed against my heart</p><p>a stone</p><p>had been removed from my heart</p><p>yet, overwrought, I fly into a mad rage</p><p>frightful hysterics put me to the trial:</p><p>just now when I was in fact planning to renounce it all</p><p>precisely now they find me useful?!! . . .</p><p>inside me rebellious children cry — unfairly beaten, rebellious —</p><p>with a tremulous voice I tell them, barely audibly,</p><p>“you'll feel like strangers, the laws are capricious here</p><p>you sleep at random, you dream when you least want to</p><p>you breathe on the run fleeing between two suicide pacts</p><p>joys are baseless, ridiculous aberrations</p><p>here they receive devils and depraved women with high honor</p><p>while saints and keys to church doors get discarded in the streets</p><p>everything commences without warning</p><p>nothing ever reaches finality</p><p>and God, here, has no power at all!</p><p>for your deeds you'll be tortured</p><p>much more cruelly for your good deeds</p><p>and when you crave for certitude</p><p>to your disgust, the blade of the guillotine will drop in a flash”</p><p>meanwhile someone in the crowd diligently scribbles notes</p><p>. .. somebody transcribes my heart at white heat</p><p>then promises to transcribe it for me</p><p>to send me a neatly typed copy</p><p>I put my hand on the sword — scared angry humiliated frantic —</p><p>I put my hand on the sword ready to conquer or die!</p><p>my friends appear out of nowhere and pull me aside</p><p>“conditions today aren’t propitious, let it drop, look at the sun in</p><p>the sky</p><p>flagrantly displayed, the trees have broken out in urticaria — it’s</p><p>spring) 27</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 205</p><p>“take rudotel, old man, you need to settle yourself down” (this is</p><p>liviu antonese1)</p><p>. .. I stand up uncertainly and announce, crying gently, obediently:</p><p>“Pm a quiet peaceful lake</p><p>in which demons bathe at will”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>206 Dorin Popa</p><p>A SMALL, WEAK HORSE</p><p>sometimes that’s how the need for purity</p><p>appears to me:</p><p>a small, weak horse</p><p>a poor animal grazing stifled</p><p>among graves</p><p>and oppressed beneath these clouds</p><p>of confusion</p><p>contradictory, paralyzing news</p><p>saunters by, whistling</p><p>while my friend, driven mad,</p><p>with eyes</p><p>tight shut, polishes</p><p>the piece of marble</p><p>unearthed in childhood’s crannies</p><p>(from prehistory a message arrives</p><p>so awfully clear</p><p>that nobody takes account of it)</p><p>with his legs of wax</p><p>a small, weak horse</p><p>prances across eyelids</p><p>hermetically sealed.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>WHEN YOU’VE NOTHING TO GIVE</p><p>somebody rings</p><p>nobody answers</p><p>nothing is connected</p><p>nothing united</p><p>nothing delays you</p><p>nothing stops you</p><p>yow’d like to sally forth from your house</p><p>and, mounted on the statue in the city square,</p><p>declaim to your neighbors</p><p>— what to tell them?</p><p>what? what else to tell them? —</p><p>toward evening, quietly,</p><p>you lose yourself among the crowds,</p><p>you don’t walk, just glide ahead</p><p>you let yourself be pushed, shoved aside</p><p>you couldn’t care less about anything</p><p>anyhow,</p><p>before it’s ever taken place,</p><p>your life has come to an end</p><p>curtain! curtain!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>207</p><p>Poems by loanid Romanescu</p><p>THE ATTIC</p><p>Have we become lost in one another?</p><p>or is this only the mist of memory’s pain?</p><p>Here at my fingertips I can still turn up a few words</p><p>and transform them into drops of silence</p><p>yet whenever it rains — and, yes, it rains and rains —</p><p>I’m overwhelmed by desolation</p><p>at the crumbling tombs of my parents</p><p>who grow older waiting for me</p><p>what else should I say</p><p>to you? — and to you, to all you women,</p><p>torches lighting up my hybrid life?</p><p>keep crying, cry, my Marys, all of you keep crying</p><p>remote provinces of an empire</p><p>before I fall asleep, my head pillowed on my coat</p><p>in an attic, I imagine someone somewhere</p><p>who still is supposed to arrive</p><p>and slip a weapon into my hand.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 209</p><p>THE CONTINUING REVOLUTION</p><p>There’s nothing we can do about it, M. Cézanne,</p><p>the academy is adamant that each dab of color</p><p>keep its sharp contours, that each sentence</p><p>complete itself in celebration — because, otherwise,</p><p>ideas might blur together — and then what would the vulgar herds</p><p>conclude about the confusion buzzing in our heads?</p><p>there’s nothing we can do about it, let others</p><p>become an institution and lead</p><p>a life like in some sordid bar, we won’t have</p><p>soft contours, we’re not for accommodation</p><p>we live the continuing revolution</p><p>and when we drink, we wake up: we like</p><p>music in perfect intervals, we dress in pure white</p><p>and crave an honest widow,</p><p>what can we do, M. Cézanne,</p><p>if we weren’t born for art?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>210 Ioanid Romanescu</p><p>MY LOVE — THE MINE FIELD OF POETRY</p><p>In that city where a woman — as Joyce says —</p><p>waits for me like a Pomeranian mare</p><p>(for her Pve minted a mythology of snowfall)</p><p>in that city where long ago</p><p>somebody told me I was too gloomy to be an artist</p><p>now on both sides of the guillotine</p><p>they have banked flowers — and everyone wants to greet me</p><p>with cheers, like a hero</p><p>imbecile! — I can see that woman, she’s shouting,</p><p>the companion of my immersion</p><p>in the same baptismal font, neither of us a Catholic —</p><p>inflate me!</p><p>I don’t need sable and diamond!</p><p>and I, right back:</p><p>clench your jaw and bear me up, hot-to-trot nag!</p><p>Ive made an absurd logo</p><p>and a song for milkmaids</p><p>— Im richer than Croesus of Lydia —</p><p>don’t you feel how my glory weighs heavy upon you?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 211</p><p>TO MY READERS, MY SWEET ACCOMPLICES</p><p>Between the title and the poem</p><p>sometimes an entire epoch may elapse</p><p>between the title and the poem</p><p>you can descend to the core of the earth</p><p>you can die a thousand deaths in war</p><p>you can lend your hand to dismantling the viewing stand after the</p><p>parade</p><p>you can soar inside a bird over worlds and worlds</p><p>you can murmur a prayer in every temple</p><p>between the title and the poem</p><p>you have time to pass through the kingdoms of life</p><p>and only after that — in the blink of an instant —</p><p>plumbing the body of cosmic night</p><p>the hand that writes becomes a screaming drill</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>212 Ioanid Romanescu</p><p>WHITE BOX — BLACK BOX</p><p>Is your sight failing? perhaps fine sand</p><p>sifts under your closed eyelids night after night?</p><p>or is your memory failing? do words clatter</p><p>out of the poem before you write it?</p><p>can that be death knocking at the door? is glory primping</p><p>before its entrance? but where, where has your life gone?</p><p>so many of those who are real</p><p>who could never become enigmas</p><p>still remain unreachable</p><p>behind a phantom</p><p>let the sorcerer come out on stage, they demand</p><p>and let’s see him do the trick with this, with that, and with the other,</p><p>too</p><p>— and anything else? Empedocles asked</p><p>directing a hose on Pompeii</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 213</p><p>THE WORDS</p><p>Out of amphitheaters slums and marketplaces</p><p>from the verge of swamps and the echo in courtrooms</p><p>from the honey lips of lovers and the dry lips of the dying</p><p>from politicians’ speeches and priests’ sermons</p><p>I formed a vast column</p><p>and marched you into exile</p><p>until even my name faded away into the unknown</p><p>oh, single file of ellipsis dots,</p><p>maybe you too will have long since drifted</p><p>with the grains of sand in the endless deserts</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>214 Toanid Romanescu</p><p>ALLEGRO BARBARO</p><p>Like Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, losing myself in a gypsy camp,</p><p>I would choose my departure —</p><p>if only I resist becoming so crushed and beaten down that suffering</p><p>tempts me to recast myself as the perfect man</p><p>it’s not for me that you open your blossoms, springs, -</p><p>it’s not for me that you sleep, eyes,</p><p>under wings of illusion</p><p>O, Almighty,</p><p>when waves of darkness pound against my brow</p><p>and I retreat into the heart of silence,</p><p>ravish my hearing — that I be wholly that beast</p><p>presaging the earthquake</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 215</p><p>THE DISCIPLES’ DESCRIPTION OF THE MASTER</p><p>“He was a bewildering master:</p><p>everything we learned from him left us</p><p>gaping open-mouthed like fools and we had</p><p>to pluck at the thread of his thoughts</p><p>to find our way through the labyrinth.”</p><p>“His eyesight was 20/20, but when he discoursed</p><p>he couldn’t focus on anything,</p><p>he spewed utter rant, his threat</p><p>might stand for a promise,</p><p>his promise a threat.”</p><p>“He never won our admiration,</p><p>because the full measure of his knowledge redounded</p><p>solely to his own benefit, and likely</p><p>were he master of the most inconceivable absurd spell,</p><p>he would have cast it upon only himself.”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>216 Joanid Romanescu</p><p>UNTITLED [So, In This Way... ]</p><p>So, in this way</p><p>we see whether</p><p>and how</p><p>my eye gives birth to fable</p><p>so, in this way</p><p>we see if</p><p>and how it can be done</p><p>in the first place</p><p>initially I wanted</p><p>to be called to the blackboard</p><p>without being rapped on my head</p><p>or the soles of my feet</p><p>so, in this way</p><p>while</p><p>exactly while</p><p>the Lord wipes clean the blackboard</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers DAZ</p><p>UNTITLED [I Heard God... ]</p><p>I heard God</p><p>only once among the ruins —</p><p>I believe he knows nothing about us,</p><p>I believe he knows nothing about himself</p><p>from the golden mean</p><p>only the fraction is still there</p><p>over the shoulder of which</p><p>abstraction stares</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>218 Ioanid Romanescu</p><p>AND SHOULD THERE BE A GOD</p><p>when I finally set forth, leaving behind only my shadow</p><p>it’s not toward death I'll be heading</p><p>but into the arms of my own Mother</p><p>in this way everyone born ends up</p><p>in the arms of she who bore him</p><p>just as Mother herself is in the arms</p><p>of her mother who is in the arms</p><p>of her mother who is in the arms</p><p>of her mother...</p><p>I imagine that beyond this world another world is dreaming</p><p>in the arms of a universal mother</p><p>and should there be a God</p><p>he can only be a woman</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>Poems by Cristian Simionescu</p><p>THIS PETTY SHAME</p><p>You feel a twinge of pain here and there. You swallow a couple of</p><p>pills, keep going.</p><p>You have bad dreams. How’s the nervous system, old man?</p><p>Hey, better drink a brandy, some wine.</p><p>Your heart is pensive, you dose yourself with a brandy, some wine,</p><p>it’s all right.</p><p>Someone curses you, you put up with the envy,</p><p>of course the world’s always been critical. You'll go along with the</p><p>world, it’s all right!</p><p>Snickering loudly, some jackass insults you with</p><p>a barbaric gesture, mocks you,</p><p>well, the world’s still impure. You forget it, it’s all right.</p><p>Someone or another may trip you,</p><p>people play jokes at times, life’s not just</p><p>for sorrow and disgust. It’s all right.</p><p>I myself have seen a guy —</p><p>what a specimen! he’d eaten both his cow and her fetus.</p><p>Awfully ashamed, I told him,</p><p>“Hey, old man, what’s eating your mind, are you losing it?</p><p>Hey, better drink some wine, better swallow a couple of pills,</p><p>better gulp down some commonsense, it’s all right.”</p><p>220 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>But someone comes and shoves his paw in your teeth,</p><p>stomps on your liver and doesn’t even say, oh,</p><p>sorry, excuse me. This time, hell, no way it’s all right!</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Cristian Simionescu 221</p><p>WHAT ARE YOU LEFT WITH?</p><p>So often I’ve lugged bread for buffoons! So often</p><p>I’ve set myself on fire to get warm at my own flame. So</p><p>often Pve felt the tongues of wolves licking my neck. So often the</p><p>panther</p><p>has fixed its stare on my clothes and my shoes.</p><p>So often Pve said: When I get back to the city,</p><p>a wolf's entrails over my shoulder, at least once</p><p>in my life Pll roast the livers of cocks. Must I also be party to</p><p>the others’ mistake when they experience it as their true chance and</p><p>their observance</p><p>of pleasure? No way! I paint the throat of a dying man. Really —</p><p>what else am I left with?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>222 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>GIORDANO BRUNO</p><p>That madman who discovered the center of water did not have a</p><p>splendid fate,</p><p>but a ridiculous reward, he was stoned and</p><p>directed to an out-of-the-way place for his tomb: “Here’s where the</p><p>likes of you shall be enthroned.”</p><p>His eyes beamed with pride, they addressed the genius of suffering</p><p>in a language nobody knew: “Is this all?</p><p>I can take more punishment.” With his four hands</p><p>(he’d acquired four), he molded dwarfs’ faces out of the stones</p><p>that struck his body. Kneaded by his fingers the stone became wax</p><p>willing itself to be an egg.</p><p>The hands of the clock, lurching backwards, unscrolled time</p><p>ironically;</p><p>at signs like these, the bearer of the poison cup falls timidly down</p><p>the staircase,</p><p>his bones grow, his flesh prickling and stinging. ‘The stench</p><p>of the betrayal of one being by another being,</p><p>the sulfur tongs clawing at the counterfeiter’s nostrils,</p><p>the operating table shown to the accursed, the stake, instead a</p><p>celebratory banquet</p><p>with the rarest wines, acids can be heard tinkling all across the hills,</p><p>like a flock:</p><p>fire devouring fire.</p><p>And in addition: the shame of being undressed by force under the</p><p>gaze of delicate</p><p>young women. And in addition: the giggling of girls in strict schools.</p><p>And in addition: the cold of winter fluttering the folds of his blood.</p><p>Fire</p><p>flung upon their frozen faces, the heat of the stake, which</p><p>nevertheless made as if to</p><p>to wash away their guilt.</p><p>And in addition: the madmen of the country, splattering his body</p><p>with paint,</p><p>hurling defilement upon him. Like a dolphin, the accursed man’s</p><p>mouth whispered to those cursing him:</p><p>Cristian Simionescu 223</p><p>“You, knights who strike me, I burn with longing</p><p>to caress your paleness. What gift can I grant you, that your</p><p>powerlessness</p><p>might change to power? Like a dead man, I feel no blows,</p><p>the tree smarts not from the iron teeth. What can you steal</p><p>from so poor a man, what can you sell to someone who lacks</p><p>nothing? Were you to offer me wolf meat, do you</p><p>suppose I should turn wolf? No instrument</p><p>can hurt the core of my being. It’s as if</p><p>you were torturing a man yet unborn.</p><p>You inhabit a time I inhabited centuries ago.</p><p>But I shall inhabit a time you are denied. You are striking a being</p><p>whose mother is as yet unborn.</p><p>As humiliating as for men who are pining away for a woman</p><p>who will be born long after their death.”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>224 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>HAVEN’T YOU HAD MORE THAN ENOUGH</p><p>OF YOUR THOUGHTS, WHICH YOU WHISPER AND</p><p>WHISPER LIKE AN OBSESSION, AS IF YOU WERE</p><p>WHIRLING</p><p>ROUND AND ROUND ON SOME ISLAND?</p><p>I'll wash my face and you'll forgive me</p><p>ll kneel down and you'll hate me</p><p>I'll blaspheme you and you'll be pleased</p><p>Pl love you and you'll hate me</p><p>Pll hate you and you'll love me</p><p>Pll hate you and you'll hate me</p><p>Pll love you and you'll love me</p><p>Pll drink you and you'll poison me</p><p>Pll throw you into the fire and Pll burn</p><p>I'll save you from the fire and you'll fly</p><p>O human leaf, too much is</p><p>equal to too little,</p><p>fortune and poverty equal.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Cristian Simionescu 225</p><p>VERY WARY</p><p>‘Take pity on those living creatures</p><p>who crawl under foot and under boot,</p><p>have mercy,</p><p>they don’t know you intend to trample them</p><p>at certain moments in your unconsoled roughness. Look</p><p>with curiosity at their ignorance and narrowness</p><p>(do not call it the misery of narrow-mindedness!) —</p><p>try not to let them hear the news that you can crush them</p><p>with complete casualness.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>226 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>AEROSTATIC</p><p>All-embracing voices freeze in the air,</p><p>my eye sees in sleep the cold of the cosmos</p><p>just as the unplayed organ feels music inside itself.</p><p>Between heart and mind there’s a distance</p><p>just as between Sparta and Athens. In a moment</p><p>of thoughtlessness, they can be faked or bribed.</p><p>More often than not, it was the heart which made the quarrel,</p><p>the mind that which made peace</p><p>between brothers.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Cristian Simionescu 227</p><p>WHO KNOCKS AT THE DOOR AT MIDNIGHT?</p><p>It’s me, the secretary, I record the images of the clouds in every detail</p><p>and the whispers of ants. I record all things but I don’t care about</p><p>anything at all.</p><p>Im a secretary, disinterested, and this noble mission</p><p>earns me my living —</p><p>food, trousers, tobacco, other such trifles.</p><p>I’m much too honest merely to be called honest.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>228 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>YOU, WHO WANTED</p><p>“You, who wanted to taste the fruit from the kernel outward,</p><p>for you forest paths appear to lead to paradise.</p><p>Ludwig, they’re treacherous, those alluring stairs,</p><p>renounce them: today will be ancient.”</p><p>“T renounce nothing, old man. Approaching my gate now I can hear</p><p>someone naive,</p><p>the wolfram fingers are about to touch the door. A lifeless</p><p>thing will be cured for the moment of death and of silence,</p><p>no grain of powder will ever renounce</p><p>breath, creation . The presentiment of music</p><p>itself is music. Any being who delays his birth</p><p>is in recompense twice delighted, living twice.”</p><p>And thought follows along in its course, lashing the senses</p><p>into voluptuousness.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Cristian Simionescu 229</p><p>LAST NIGHT YOU WANDERED AIMLESSLY — WHAT</p><p>WERE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THIS CITY OVERCOME</p><p>BY SLEEP? WHY DON’T YOU GIVE UP YOUR</p><p>WANDERING? AND WHY DO YOU READ THE NIGHT’S</p><p>WORK AS THOUGH YOU FELT NO AWE AT</p><p>THE EXALTED?</p><p>I come back late to my house but the house has flown away and until</p><p>it returns</p><p>I sleep in free flight under the open sky.</p><p>Beyond the scenery of night there is an unreal silence</p><p>in which human leaves tremble alone. If only this wall were</p><p>transparent,</p><p>at least for one night. O, islands, nurture and protect these souls!</p><p>Mutes</p><p>and liquidations muffle even the groans of the dissected,</p><p>but still alive. Water is petrified at the wrong stroke of some</p><p>swimmer, freezing motion into motionlessness. And from time to</p><p>time I hear</p><p>a shout in the bowels of the meat grinder.</p><p>I take a panther for a stroll about town.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>230 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THERE IS MUSIC AND DELIGHT IN EVERYTHING</p><p>And do not let Arabel get on my nerves</p><p>and teasingly point out my ugliness;</p><p>the game often turns true,</p><p>and at the border of honey the beasts are schooled in honey’s taste.</p><p>The steps of music branch disparately,</p><p>they do not connect together.</p><p>In the floating terraces the face has another countenance,</p><p>the ear another hearing.</p><p>I surrendered yesterday's body for today’s body,</p><p>today’s body I shall surrender for yesterdays,</p><p>tomorrow’s body is a stake blaspheming itself —</p><p>in addition to arboreal delights.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Poems by Cassian Maria Spiridon</p><p>I GET ALONG WELL...</p><p>I get along well with the rock</p><p>with everything that’s hard</p><p>each of us has only life</p><p>only life to lose</p><p>I get along well without heavy burdens</p><p>I strike against the weeping of the rock</p><p>I continuously strike against it</p><p>until I come to be</p><p>completely one, one with the rock</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mthaela Barba</p><p>232 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>INTERMEZZO (THE OUTCRY)</p><p>I’ve had it with being killed</p><p>in mockery</p><p>(no matter in what way / by chance)</p><p>on remote roads / in warehouses</p><p>or in boundless / factory sheds</p><p>(beneath the molten drops from welding)</p><p>I know / outside it’s pitch dark</p><p>but no more</p><p>than I face here in this so-called room and</p><p>psyche and animus and aimé and whatsoever</p><p>crammed full of a kind of apathy</p><p>stuffed with sundry emotions</p><p>ferocious / like an endless spiral</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon 233</p><p>SALUTE</p><p>I salute you, Constantin P. Cavaty</p><p>brother of mine in the blaze of midday</p><p>clear-sighted and sensitive to suffering</p><p>knower of so many ancient things</p><p>and lover of the pretty boys</p><p>old and lonely on the streets of Alexandria</p><p>master of the Word in that kingdom</p><p>in which it is no small thing to be / the one who</p><p>has climbed merely one step</p><p>I salute you</p><p>perfect master of the Poem</p><p>the silence of the suffering</p><p>when even the barbarians have not come</p><p>when</p><p>although your body is no younger</p><p>and your clothes are poorer than during the time</p><p>when only the sea was a garment made to your measure</p><p>you</p><p>still remain / with your soul / the very same</p><p>I salute the old Poet, Constantin P. Cavaty</p><p>who dreams / in Alexander’s ancient citadel</p><p>of his young body</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mthaela Barba</p><p>234 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ABOUT LOVE AND DEATH</p><p>You, swans full of enchantment</p><p>and drunk from feasts</p><p>E Holderlin</p><p>I salute you, old man, on the left and the right</p><p>I salute the light / in the dawn / in the morning</p><p>and equally the faces / of the night / I salute</p><p>don’t be consumed by hatred</p><p>living, you look much better /</p><p>a smile’s a lot of help for</p><p>the growth of the grass</p><p>you do look like a picture with your knapsack on your back</p><p>the gun on your shoulder</p><p>your ramblings</p><p>sometimes short / sometimes far and wide / sometimes terrifying</p><p>just like life / on the ground in the waters in the clouds</p><p>and along the dragon’s spiny back</p><p>you march your life away on the grass blades</p><p>both in winter and summer / both in rain and snow</p><p>you do your duty</p><p>saluting my beloved and mother / the word and death</p><p>on the left and on the right</p><p>ever more hurriedly you excise even your breathing</p><p>to spy out where the hurricane will come from</p><p>— the beloved / tramp-tramp-tramps / the horse</p><p>and everything arrives / like a fearsome</p><p>tiger / knowing the weighty things</p><p>sparkling / like a blast furnace</p><p>the aquarius of steel</p><p>above the steep tile roofs of reality</p><p>the claw scratching into the back</p><p>the complete sign of surreality</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon 235</p><p>— in myself everything is tragic —</p><p>celestial gifts for illuminated minds</p><p>like the Moon / she will be infuriated</p><p>— and in this way the lives of the saints</p><p>become void of meaning and your lives</p><p>as buffoons /</p><p>remain at the brink of the abyss / fraught with</p><p>immediate and unavoidable perils</p><p>but the Sun rises in the morning / always the same old way</p><p>yes, just the same / as brave and beautiful</p><p>as the commander of a platoon / when</p><p>he issues the order / right up against the enemy’s chest</p><p>Fire!</p><p>no compassion on the face of concrete</p><p>nothing more than</p><p>to strip bare the straight teeth</p><p>and the false values</p><p>to be accepted /</p><p>in the beautifully composed pitchforks</p><p>in despair or without despair</p><p>in happiness or without happiness</p><p>— to find you a suitable lover</p><p>how huge / must the stars be</p><p>nonetheless / they too are predestined / to perish</p><p>a small scorpion — love</p><p>she talks and talks</p><p>until the last vigilant eye falls asleep</p><p>she will show even less mercy</p><p>than the flowers of the readied fields</p><p>(symmetry, they say, is often sublime)</p><p>the</p><p>shell of the moon / above the naked body /</p><p>(lissome / with elastic skin / alive)</p><p>which could be waiting</p><p>the deathly still lethargic nave of the firmament / the forehead</p><p>236 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>that learns at the same time/ the sweet preserves of the promised</p><p>death</p><p>but not merely this</p><p>a lotus of light</p><p>like a pail lowered into the well’s thirst</p><p>promises you freshness and peace</p><p>for the trials of being human</p><p>and the splendor of pure animality</p><p>— how we tune ourselves</p><p>for years and years —</p><p>we loved</p><p>certain that nothing can save us</p><p>we contemplated until complete exhaustion</p><p>we asked for the right and the left / the right and the wrong /</p><p>the white and the black / alpha and omega</p><p>— the minotaur tumbles head over heels</p><p>the bridles of liberty have snapped —</p><p>how did you open the door /</p><p>without searching for anybody at all</p><p>how did you pierce through the wall</p><p>without loving the abysm immemorial</p><p>and henceforth I come near</p><p>despite the calm and the necessary despair</p><p>I listen to the evening service and I think to myself</p><p>/ nothing, nothing much has happened /</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursachi</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon</p><p>THE DEED (OR THE ENCOUNTER)</p><p>Atropos, I have encountered you</p><p>goddess Moira Atropos</p><p>ruthless</p><p>beautiful and sad</p><p>I saw your face composed of light</p><p>divine</p><p>almost</p><p>white / freckled / melancholy</p><p>— the long and singular tresses —</p><p>you caress your legs</p><p>you are busy</p><p>naked and free</p><p>tired of living</p><p>thoughtful</p><p>(like any woman)</p><p>from time to time you look about yourself / lost</p><p>and filled by pain</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>2a</p><p>238 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ENTRY INTO APOCALYPSE</p><p>everywhere there was darkness</p><p>high above it was dark</p><p>always it was dark</p><p>a syrupy darkness</p><p>seeped into your mouth / stuffed your ears</p><p>slapped you across your eyes</p><p>you couldn’t tell what direction</p><p>you might move in</p><p>a darkness of iron</p><p>over hearts and minds</p><p>sometimes we chance upon each other / we shake hands</p><p>with somebody / then somebody else</p><p>but the guillotine of cold</p><p>abruptly cuts short</p><p>this beginning</p><p>the dark / always the dark</p><p>forever darker</p><p>over all things</p><p>in the soul / in the mind</p><p>on the earth</p><p>(the darkness above darkness)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursachi</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon 239</p><p>THE STONE OF TRIAL</p><p>1. a deserted park / september</p><p>a muddied sunset and the soul</p><p>the sun — an age-old memory</p><p>childhood / on the belated street of life</p><p>seeking us</p><p>so many recognitions / signs / archangels</p><p>on the point of death</p><p>you, virgo / a tear penetrates</p><p>the wall</p><p>the timid mouth hears the humbling rhythm</p><p>of time</p><p>there / raised high upon the wood / is the soul</p><p>as much as is tolerated</p><p>dark harmony / on the roads</p><p>of the season / you appeared white</p><p>the pain of a repeated separation</p><p>you open your arms / whom / and until when</p><p>will you embrace -</p><p>the nails / their locations / remain unchanged</p><p>permanent / and the wearing away of the grass</p><p>with the soles of the feet / with the knees / with the shoulders</p><p>2. in pain and mourning / how to allow myself</p><p>to be abandoned / so human in this way</p><p>so biped in this way and so late</p><p>together / even in pallor</p><p>if I ask for forgiveness</p><p>whom shall I trouble / grieve</p><p>or call out to</p><p>this as well is a state of the spirit</p><p>a human gesture as we deem it</p><p>anyhow / you can be amazed</p><p>from the soles of your feet from the crown of your head from your</p><p>chest you find</p><p>a blood-soaked way for mortals</p><p>240 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>(there’s a meaning in these hands</p><p>which feel out each other)</p><p>nothing in prison comes back</p><p>or from love</p><p>surely there exists something</p><p>that Pll never do</p><p>and also others whom the thought</p><p>won't take pains to pay its respects to</p><p>— there exists a morning</p><p>which will not dawn for me —</p><p>3. (surely there exist important deeds</p><p>and kisses of salt tears</p><p>there exist nights of wakefulness</p><p>when dressed in prison issue</p><p>you review your whole life</p><p>like a story / strung</p><p>with sad joys and a lone night’s happiness</p><p>in the deep graves wherein melancholy lies low)</p><p>I'm ready / regret firmly squeezes</p><p>in its pincers my frontal bone</p><p>the opened gates / in the fresh tendrils of the night</p><p>I discover / not for myself</p><p>if you love me / forget me</p><p>cast off your suffering / (boredom</p><p>the naked king / is prostrate at your feet)</p><p>the star is asked to disappear and the heart to be still</p><p>the wave of water to cease and the wind to blow no more</p><p>the bereft soul remains and your prayer:</p><p>help, O God, help all these lonely people</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon 241</p><p>POEM OF THE LONELY</p><p>The soul weeps</p><p>the hand suffocates sleep like a ravenous beast</p><p>The raven circles the brow / truly</p><p>a black sign / on an abstract sky</p><p>wheat in Van Gogh’s field</p><p>and eyes knotted on the veins of the arm and the arteries</p><p>a grandfather clock in the heart’s tympanum</p><p>tolls at vespers</p><p>I knew how to understand the globular essence</p><p>(of the eye)</p><p>I have prepared the instruments of liberation</p><p>(of the blood)</p><p>— [ve polished them in a pyramid under the oppression</p><p>of the stars —</p><p>in heaven and on earth</p><p>love of your neighbor</p><p>apology and diatribe in the septuagint</p><p>the rock is impoverished by speech</p><p>like the heart by fear</p><p>I understand sorrow better than / the loneliness</p><p>of life lived from one day to the next</p><p>I’m helpless / like an infant</p><p>before the mouth of fire that is yet to live</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Poems by Mihai Ursachi</p><p>THE METAPHYSICAL CITY</p><p>This city is constructed of ideas.</p><p>Each of its bricks is a concept.</p><p>Thus on the Boulevard of the Excluded Middle,</p><p>at the demonstration number 77, the syllogism</p><p>Barbara, first figure,</p><p>there I make my dwelling, in a vast and ancient dilemma</p><p>out of which I can never find my way.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 243</p><p>THE SALESMAN OF NONEXISTENCE</p><p>It’s true, he can be taken for some common salesman.</p><p>When he appears at your door, you say to yourself: no, not another</p><p>one, toothpaste again,</p><p>or maybe life insurance. You can take</p><p>him for a pushy, brazen fellow, a lush, or even</p><p>a pure and simple no account, a vagrant. Only later</p><p>you will come to understand his incredible, his altogether humbling</p><p>modesty. His yellow beanie, tattered and worn;</p><p>at first it makes you laugh. But then, unexpectedly,</p><p>you will recall it so vividly, just as you do</p><p>with a costume of symbolic suggestion, perhaps a</p><p>uniform from a boarding school, or more likely from</p><p>some questionable organization you yourself once belonged to</p><p>some time ago, as though in a fog, or, if not,</p><p>sooner or later you'll surely belong to,</p><p>so that, in such a perspective, the beanie</p><p>by no stretch of the imagination appears a sort of risible</p><p>or inconsequential object but paradoxically a</p><p>helmet, some three-cornered hat or orthodox priest’s cylindrical</p><p>kamelavkion or bishop’s peaked miter even,</p><p>ludicrously perched on a totally unsuitable head.</p><p>His smile, so winning and sweet, like a student obliged to repeat his</p><p>exams having failed</p><p>too many subjects, that smile you will call to mind and it will make</p><p>your hair stand on end, although from the outset the samples</p><p>which he offers you to select from (varieties of worms: horn-hard and</p><p>little</p><p>like oats, white and flabby, greasy, worms that are clumsy and</p><p>bloated,</p><p>thin worms stiff as glass; he adds, we have a species,</p><p>“humongous-worm,” and he would show you photos</p><p>of this inconceivable monster, “it can be examined daily between</p><p>nine and two”), the samples, anyway, they first looked to you like</p><p>a student’s classroom project, something you knew all too well,</p><p>and you would give a jaded smile (“after all, ’'m grown up, I can</p><p>Mihai Ursachi</p><p>no longer be left back”), not even the slightest hint of disgust in it</p><p>(“some of them, they’re really beautiful,</p><p>brilliant red, green</p><p>stripes, well, it doesn’t</p><p>matter, ’m up to my ears in what I have to do”) and you invite him</p><p>to come back some time later, “you’re going to have second thoughts</p><p>about this,” he insists,</p><p>visibly embarrassed, but of course it’s true, time is precious, most</p><p>especially</p><p>in your situation, yes, oh yes indeed, it really could be so, but</p><p>afterwards</p><p>you cannot tell the date, in a sense</p><p>you are just about to leave, oh yes, to leave for an even longer</p><p>time, so in short, hello, good-bye.</p><p>His beanie, his smile, and his collection,</p><p>ultimately so familiar... Oh, how could you?</p><p>When you know you failed in so many subjects.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 245</p><p>LACUSTRINE DISCOVERY</p><p>In a lake in Suceava county,</p><p>a tiny, tubular animal was found.</p><p>Inside it, it’s suspected —</p><p>the map of an unknown planet</p><p>drawn in the most minute detail.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>246 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>THE DISCOVERY OF ROMANIA</p><p>Alas, alas! Walking drunk through the forest filled with snow,</p><p>through the forest of ice, of glass, 30 degrees below zero,</p><p>I came upon Vasco da Gama.</p><p>“You shouldn’t wonder at the way ’'m dressed, Ursachi,</p><p>you shouldn’t wonder at anything. I am coming from Siberia,</p><p>from Babylon, from the Moon. I am sailing in order to discover</p><p>a strange country whose name you know all too well.”</p><p>“T know nothing,” I answered,</p><p>“except that above my head I don’t see the great</p><p>Southern Cross.”</p><p>“Tell me what you can about the passage</p><p>that leads there.”</p><p>“What kind of passage, sir? Can’t you see</p><p>that your befuddled ship</p><p>is not on water but on snow?”</p><p>(That moment it appeared to me, though I must have been wrong,</p><p>I heard the voices of angels who were singing:</p><p>lily-white flowers, apple blossoms,</p><p>lily-white flowers, blossoms . . . )</p><p>“Tt must be somewhere nearby,” Vasco da Gama responded,</p><p>“my sailors can smell land very close and</p><p>white birds have appeared on the masts.”</p><p>“Why, sir,” I said, “why do you want</p><p>to discover this, too? Why would you</p><p>discover something so thickly buried</p><p>under the snow?”</p><p>“Consumer society,” he said, “consumer society.”</p><p>“Fore Number 13,” said, Prisom Number 1357</p><p>Then, above the snow-filled forest, above the blue forest,</p><p>above the forest filled with my soul,</p><p>there arose, positioned off to one side, La Cruce Meraviglwsa,</p><p>the constellation of navigators.</p><p>“Iam going to set sail,” I said. “I am setting out</p><p>on the galleon christened Esperanza.</p><p>O Vasco da Gama, you’re a very lucky guy, you’ve found it,</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>a little further on is that hidden fort,</p><p>Prison Number 13.”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>Translators’ Note: Fort Number 13 was the notorious Jilava</p><p>prison where many Romanian political prisoners were sent,</p><p>including the poet who spent three years in prison, including</p><p>time in solitary confinement, after a failed attempt to escape the</p><p>country in 1961.]</p><p>247</p><p>248 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>MEDITATION IN FRENCHMAN’S GULF</p><p>I am dreaming of the glorious betrothal</p><p>of Cancer with Folly</p><p>in the golden days of May</p><p>My beloved who is not beloved</p><p>on her dying day is marrying</p><p>and poetry goes on existing</p><p>only when it ceases to exist</p><p>You, Iris, you put all your hope on three thousand crickets</p><p>that you keep in your room</p><p>I am dreaming of the glorious betrothal</p><p>of Cancer with Folly</p><p>in the golden days of May</p><p>On the shore of the Neckar, on the road called Zwingel,</p><p>the Poet had permission to walk</p><p>to and fro. That path of stones</p><p>is two hundred feet long</p><p>and yet something somehow penetrates through</p><p>the diamond wall of this Aeon</p><p>You, Iris, do not meditate</p><p>on the huge explosion of worlds in</p><p>the Big Bang (Nobel prize in astrophysics)</p><p>My beloved who is not beloved</p><p>on her dying day is marrying</p><p>and poetry goes on existing</p><p>only when it ceases to exist</p><p>(Crickets, says Iris, come in two sorts</p><p>those with a continuous trill and those with a trill</p><p>that is fragmentary like the syntagmas</p><p>on the Orphic slates</p><p>a discontinuous signal</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>the exact nature of light)</p><p>I am dreaming of the glorious betrothal</p><p>of Cancer with Folly</p><p>in the golden days of May</p><p>It would be so easy, so easy would it be for everything</p><p>within the transparent ether of the sea</p><p>the name of the star would burn out</p><p>but the pain</p><p>of having been can’t be burnt out “with all</p><p>the waters of the seas”</p><p>A black body absorbs radiation and yet</p><p>is itself unliberated continuous radiation</p><p>a never-failing trill</p><p>of the Great Cricket</p><p>the Sun turns darker and darker</p><p>above the Scythian tomb</p><p>Innumerable lives one single life</p><p>never has anything come to an end</p><p>except this second</p><p>enumerated</p><p>to infinity</p><p>Embodiments of the vacuum</p><p>the magnificent dream</p><p>of Nothingness</p><p>Perhaps its name</p><p>is Iris</p><p>My beloved who is not beloved</p><p>on her dying day is marrying</p><p>and poetry goes on existing</p><p>only when it ceases to exist</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>249</p><p>250 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>THE SECOND MEDITATION IN FRENCHMAN’S GULF,</p><p>WITH THE INTERPOLATION OF E. ANDONI</p><p>When in 1980 I meditated in Frenchman’s Gulf the first time,</p><p>that poem could have been my last.</p><p>Eugen, you had already left from the Sea a while before</p><p>with a rather bitter taste about me,</p><p>about both of us.</p><p>I dedicated myself to Iris, the daughter of Funn,</p><p>the famous entomologist, and herself</p><p>a devotee of crickets.</p><p>(Pm repeating all this because my poems</p><p>are all but forgotten; these days nobody reads</p><p>what was written a mere /ustrum ago.)</p><p>She had just become engaged (it was the last of times,</p><p>of departures, of ultimate departures).</p><p>On that nearly deserted shore, the nudists’ beach,</p><p>for a long time she permitted me to contemplate her sex,</p><p>still virgin, and truly like</p><p>an iris. The slippery voices of the Sea</p><p>proffered majestic palinodes.</p><p>And now what is, 1s all there could be</p><p>after the end. The bewildered</p><p>in the arcana of the great oblivion; even the immortal</p><p>idols have died. And with all this,</p><p>the voices of the Sea’...</p><p>The unconsummated love, it seems, continues to exist</p><p>like the angels, although the physical body</p><p>has dissolved with the clay, and that flower, exactly like my heart</p><p>and like all poems,</p><p>has sunk into nothingness. And it isn’t nature’s</p><p>to magnify my powers through remembering or evocation, although</p><p>this is</p><p>the occasion (Occasio).</p><p>Whereas your authentic madness, your blissful indolence</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 251</p><p>which will keep you alive for a thousand years, or even longer —</p><p>that’s what causes me to wonder. How could you</p><p>have put faith in that politician Radu Campeanu? How</p><p>have you survived those daunting ten years?</p><p>How did you preserve your youthfulness, your vigor,</p><p>yes, that life-giving madness?</p><p>Do you possess the true secret</p><p>of perpetual happiness?</p><p>We both know the law that must be ours: “Everything great and</p><p>glorious</p><p>is paid for</p><p>in suffering.”</p><p>How much did you need to suffer</p><p>so as to succeed in conquering yourself?</p><p>You said nothing, not even once, about any of this.</p><p>What remains now? Shells tossed about</p><p>by the posthumous waves. The lodgers — long ago</p><p>they’re dispossessed into another, quite other world. (Ridiculous</p><p>tenants</p><p>of their own being, the form is</p><p>eternal, while the matter . . . )</p><p>You have affliction upon affliction. Angina, no doubt . Incontinence</p><p>of the bladder. Maybe even diabetes. And beyond all this</p><p>there’s a despicable guy with a name</p><p>almost identical to your own. Maybe it would indeed be better</p><p>if you were dead.</p><p>As for me,</p><p>I’m worse than dead, Pm nearly born</p><p>from that iris I once upon a time contemplated long ago.</p><p>So I greet you from</p><p>Frenchman’s Gulf,</p><p>eternally unborn.</p><p>7 September 1992</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>252 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>LETTER ON THE SHELL OF THE SNAIL ADEODATUS</p><p>Because of the very great distance, letters</p><p>arrive somewhat belatedly; this</p><p>one ’m answering</p><p>reached me out of the last century. I never noticed</p><p>the time passing, but here I am, it’s late,</p><p>so I hurry to reply to you.</p><p>The diameter of my land is zero,</p><p>and the radius of my world half of nothing;</p><p>it is a round lawn on the point of a needle,</p><p>and for a very long time, in silence,</p><p>I have busied myself raising snails.</p><p>As for my treatise, “On Flames,</p><p>Their Nature, Kinds and Sweetness,”</p><p>I can tell you</p><p>it will remain unwritten. For, if I wrote it,</p><p>who would make the effort to read it? And if</p><p>someone did, what then, what would be the point? It’s enough to</p><p>have lived</p><p>those burning evenings, when, entirely ablaze,</p><p>our soul was fire, and out of the flames</p><p>higher worlds took form, more fully alive, more immaculately pure . .</p><p>You write: “Let us redeem the glorious faces from death.”</p><p>But in themselves they are undying. Immutable,</p><p>they assume their dwelling place in the shrines of the gods.</p><p>Now it gets later and later, night has fallen</p><p>on this round lawn on the point of a needle.</p><p>I write this letter to you</p><p>on the shell of my snail, Adeodatus,</p><p>who tomorrow at daybreak will set forth</p><p>on the long, long journey to you.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE DUMB SONG OF THE SNAIL ADEODATUS</p><p>From leaf</p><p>to leaf</p><p>so endless</p><p>a distance.</p><p>I bear a letter</p><p>from the magic circle.</p><p>Everything is change</p><p>it was a dream</p><p>the mystery language</p><p>this poem was written in.</p><p>No leat</p><p>could ever comprehend</p><p>what is written</p><p>on my shell.</p><p>From leaf</p><p>to leat</p><p>so endless</p><p>a distance.</p><p>I bear a letter</p><p>from the magic circle.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>253</p><p>254 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>MOUNT CAIN</p><p>Ruin, remembrance,</p><p>the rotting maples don’t know anything else.</p><p>The moss sofa of love,</p><p>more of the same.</p><p>Mount Guilt hangs</p><p>over the forest, an immense rock</p><p>dangling from a spider’s thread . . .</p><p>The trees, the forests, they know nothing.</p><p>... Childish remembrances,</p><p>a spangle of gold suspended from a ray . . .</p><p>Cain, Cain, Cain,</p><p>a mountain of fear hangs</p><p>on a spider’s slender thread.</p><p>Ruin, remembrance,</p><p>the forests, the trees, they know nothing.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>EPISTLE</p><p>I’m letting you know you once again,</p><p>you toil in vain:</p><p>it’s fruitless to strive</p><p>after ridiculous</p><p>foundations.</p><p>Could any word</p><p>weigh on the scales more heavily</p><p>than the enormous silence</p><p>destined to be</p><p>the one and only chance?</p><p>O, take heed of the enormous</p><p>silence: do you think</p><p>it can be budged?</p><p>It’s like</p><p>the dome at Cologne.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>255</p><p>256 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>SYMPOSION NIGRUM</p><p>In weather so dolorous, so heavy and stagnant, in this time</p><p>of the somber corteges of mourning birds — ‘Take heed,</p><p>velvety leaves are waiting like crinolines</p><p>from the hope-chest of the Deceased millennia ago . . .</p><p>(A game among formulas in the minor silence,</p><p>could it suit the manhood summoned forth in error or</p><p>with especial meaning for the life of conscience?)</p><p>*</p><p>Swaddled (as the poet might say) by black night (in fact, the blind</p><p>mantle</p><p>of hopelessness), I knuckled upon shutters locked forever,</p><p>and reckless shadows — close friends and brothers to the night —</p><p>formed the equipage predestined for the Feast.</p><p>*</p><p>This Lady, the Deceased, immobile, from the ever mobile orbs,</p><p>steers our steps. The last essences</p><p>receive their ultimate life in gestures without meaning. (Blue</p><p>Toledo blades in the belly of the H-bomb.)</p><p>*</p><p>Hermetic Enigma! And the eight symbols</p><p>are opaline cups on the eight altars</p><p>of the pure sacrifice. With us is the one, she</p><p>who was born from Hermes himself! On his golden thigh</p><p>are written the triple numerals of the absolute Key. Viva</p><p>il Principe det fiort! Garlands of orchids,</p><p>of cypress and laurel, these you must make ready for the Bride</p><p>who pilots the Mad Galleon from the stars!</p><p>*</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>In truth, a Nave. Never did Antiquity</p><p>know men nobler, purer, prouder, more</p><p>resolute. On the oblong ovoid table</p><p>a purple coffin casts far-flung illuminations,</p><p>and within it, cold, sleeps the starry bride . . .</p><p>*</p><p>O sacred ceremony! While the very truth</p><p>of the crystalline spheres expires, and nonexistence</p><p>with the visage of a flabby worm cries the news,</p><p>foul and notorious and eternally detested . . .</p><p>Our hearts, behold, are opaline cups,</p><p>a burning purple we'll drink for the Enigma</p><p>forever celebrated in feast! From amphorae</p><p>of lapis lazuli, a liquor</p><p>like the radiant blood of the one, she</p><p>who pilots the sublime Ark to the stars. O brothers!</p><p>In the Universes</p><p>oceans of flowers collapse upon the Vessel-Nave,</p><p>sidereal cyclones. From beyond them,</p><p>the voice of the one who gives us power,</p><p>she is here, with us, now, and she is he</p><p>who was born from Hermes!</p><p>Someone asked much later: where? and when?</p><p>And what chevaliers consummated the Feast?</p><p>And he was answered: nobody, never, nowhere.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>257</p><p>258 Mihai Ursachi</p><p>CELESTIAL PHENOMENA</p><p>Above the city it rained</p><p>stars the whole summer long, when everybody supposed</p><p>they were going to drown in light. But the clay</p><p>swallowed this, too, in silence; there remained</p><p>in the sky a new constellation resembling</p><p>an immense lily flower: white stars</p><p>glittered like diamond and ice — and they called it</p><p>the Constellation of the Lily.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 209</p><p>SELF-PORTRAIT</p><p>Oh, if after death</p><p>one could go on writing poems</p><p>I would dream</p><p>of having died</p><p>long before</p><p>the Universe was born.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>Poems by Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>SUMMER IN IASI</p><p>‘Transparency, typed in a cellar on an East German typewriter</p><p>Erika brand, two carbon copies</p><p>Meanwhile, the dead sink deeper and deeper</p><p>into the forests of the tectonic terrace</p><p>Along the old walls</p><p>anarchic,</p><p>jealous gas mains slither by</p><p>Meanwhile through my underground heart</p><p>the girl gymnasts bear</p><p>the Olympic torch</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>LUCIANOGRAM (A)</p><p>You were attacked by the disciples</p><p>of my incongruous words.</p><p>Our daughter withdrew in shame</p><p>between the covers of the Old ‘Testament.</p><p>There, in the cell at the Varatec Convent,</p><p>the lights have been extinguished.</p><p>(Oh, the sweet times when the holy sisters</p><p>would inquire about our health!)</p><p>Meanwhile, high above the city,</p><p>the parachutists of winter ineffably float.</p><p>Courtyard dogs at the Pogor House</p><p>drowse, dreaming of blackbirds.</p><p>Only the watchman shoots his slingshot</p><p>at a [ransnistrian owl...</p><p>Grant me passage, 0 wife-mother,</p><p>into the coffin of your night.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>261</p><p>262 Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>LUCIANOGRAM (B)</p><p>It’s one o'clock. One. Your Georgian face</p><p>lends a reddish cast to the clock’s countenance.</p><p>What a jail, what a second nailed into place</p><p>you are, still as in adolescence</p><p>in the night’s deepest darkness</p><p>It’s one o’clock. A pregnant night.</p><p>Sunday has just eased into Monday —</p><p>the heart is prepared for a heart attack</p><p>scurrying with me among the hazelnut trees</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 263</p><p>DOUBLE PICTURE POSTCARD, IASI-VARNA</p><p>I climb the tower steps at Golia Monastery</p><p>although entrance is strictly forbidden to suicides,</p><p>and look toward the Black Sea.</p><p>I see Bulgaria sketched in the palm of the Balkans.</p><p>On the first floor of an apartment building in Varna,</p><p>at the window, I see Iana Popova,</p><p>the blond schoolgirl,</p><p>who, one unforgettable summer, guided us</p><p>through her native town.</p><p>I imagine that, at the same time,</p><p>from the seventh floor of her apartment,</p><p>Iana Popova looks at the Carpathians,</p><p>having in their palm a sketch of Romania,</p><p>and out of its heart, like a monastery, there arises</p><p>my city, my Iasi.</p><p>Henceforth,</p><p>whenever it may befall me, Death</p><p>can have its will.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>264 Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>YOUNG THING</p><p>Slyly she comes, she scrutinizes</p><p>my parchments, investigates my incunabula.</p><p>From time to time, oh her perjured rebuke,</p><p>she kisses me on the mouth</p><p>with some verses from the apostle Luke</p><p>She comes and types addresses on my typewriter,</p><p>she draws up rosters of new victims</p><p>She opens the window: she invites me</p><p>to fling myself</p><p>into her twin sisters’ arms</p><p>She comes, grandly she plucks out her own severe heart</p><p>and introduces herself</p><p>in the universally spoken tongues:</p><p>“Pm Miss Terror</p><p>the girl with the longest legs!”</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>RITUAL</p><p>I kiss</p><p>your Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic lungs.</p><p>Grass sprouts through them,</p><p>old love gets renewed</p><p>The masts of the Genoese ships</p><p>crash down</p><p>when I kiss your lungs,</p><p>when the bells of a changing Europe toll</p><p>Yourre the grave’s fundament</p><p>into which the saints sacrifice the lamb,</p><p>you're the indifference of a handful of dust,</p><p>yowre hope</p><p>drudging away in the harbors of the Orient</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>265</p><p>266 Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>IVY AND WALL</p><p>You spread upon the earth, with your shadow, androgynous.</p><p>Mute, sprouting upwards from your flesh, poplar and willow,</p><p>oak and alder, fir and apricot</p><p>You climb up in the Word, anachronistic</p><p>(ivy in search of the wall),</p><p>possessed by instincts (1ruth, Goodness, Beauty)</p><p>Overwhelmed by the children of your south-eastern race,</p><p>you swim with clouds in ineffable mirrors —</p><p>you kneel with death</p><p>in the village of your tongue</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 267</p><p>CIRCLES</p><p>Between one wrinkle and another wrinkle, the riverbed.</p><p>Under the riverbed, yet another riverbed</p><p>Between my mouth and your mouths,</p><p>the imprint of mouths that have been</p><p>We arise, then sit once more at the table of stone.</p><p>Between one gesture and another, the memory</p><p>of yet other gestures</p><p>In my eyes, the Blind Man</p><p>In my blood, the Sahara</p><p>In my mother’s belly, a different mother</p><p>multiplying her solitariness in the clear waters . . .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>268 Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>PEACOCK’S EYE</p><p>Before the mirrors.</p><p>Always before their facade of cicatrix.</p><p>Without knowing what in truth you look like,</p><p>what you looked like in a previous life</p><p>(peacock’s eye on the night stand</p><p>of the Afghan princess)</p><p>Beneath the snows, your hand stretched forth</p><p>even before you were born —</p><p>careful that the frail walls</p><p>within the lungs of the griffin should not collapse</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 269</p><p>ANIMA MUNDI</p><p>The flame speaks to me once again:</p><p>I listen to her admissions</p><p>about our genealogical tree</p><p>Its winter with padlocks on the mole’s snout,</p><p>it’s a winter of the slums huddling against the cold,</p><p>a winter of carols in your very breath</p><p>In my old words</p><p>the women I’ve loved dream their dreams,</p><p>and the cities where I’ve kissed the steeples</p><p>The flame speaks to me once again:</p><p>icon of blood</p><p>impregnated on the shroud of your face</p><p>Between one shore and another,</p><p>between one city and another,</p><p>between one woman and another,</p><p>we go on listening to</p><p>confessions of the fire</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>270 Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>DALI AND THE LIQUID CLOCKS</p><p>Come to the high grasses,</p><p>higher than Lysimachus</p><p>and his warriors —</p><p>this place retains</p><p>its ancient stillness</p><p>(only the moon</p><p>marches across the sky,</p><p>moved by an unseen hand)</p><p>All around</p><p>the universe seems a map</p><p>lacking relief projection,</p><p>like the hide of a hippopotamus</p><p>In the background the sound of the sea —</p><p>it swallows</p><p>every footstep on the beach</p><p>Come and read to me</p><p>from the apocryphal book,</p><p>conduct me into the fire of disappearance</p><p>through the orient</p><p>of refulgent night. . .</p><p>Thus I cry out in complaint</p><p>with all the liquid clocks</p><p>in Dalrs paintings</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers ZA</p><p>BESSARABIAN NIGHT</p><p>I hold the shell to my ear and listen</p><p>to your remote song.</p><p>It dissolves the borders . . .</p><p>above the city, clouds tease out imperial maps</p><p>Very soon</p><p>dark will come again,</p><p>with infantry and cavalry</p><p>This night, though, is still a young woman:</p><p>absentmindedly she washes off the museum’s floor</p><p>(metaphor dwells in her breast)</p><p>Outside, shadows embrace incestuously —</p><p>in the end,</p><p>Yl fall asleep together with the princely stones</p><p>of the street, in silent cohabitation</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>Poems by Horia Zilieru</p><p>WHERE YOU CAN UNLOCK PARADISE WITH</p><p>YOUR BONES</p><p>A bird pecks at my bones</p><p>and blind hands ruffle the invisible grass</p><p>seeking the least crumb How to endure</p><p>the hairy caterpillars</p><p>at the high crossroads?</p><p>My brother the ass has learned to sing.</p><p>A votive flame with lamp oil and honey</p><p>watches over eternity beneath the gentle saints’ gaze</p><p>On the arches a chorus keeps vigil for the resurrection</p><p>and dresses my childhood with sweet flax</p><p>awakening its broken wings from the depths of sleep.</p><p>My brother the ass has learned to sing.</p><p>But a customs officer cuts off the one direct path</p><p>js eee the caterpillars with their body of aloe</p><p>gathering under his skin Noah’s crutches</p><p>through the layers of night and at the end of the bridge</p><p>he waits for me along narrow veins.</p><p>My brother the ass has learned to sing.</p><p>The whole of my body is a delirious music</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 273</p><p>of cherubim one becomes messenger</p><p>and in a sack they collect my hoary bones</p><p>deposit them in a tower like a lyre</p><p>and then they blow thus they unlock paradise.</p><p>My brother the ass has learned to sing.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>274 Horia Zilieru</p><p>LOVE ELEGY ON THE SLAVES’ PATH</p><p>Lady, tavern and tomb are</p><p>your warm wedding breasts</p><p>their fire glows in the terror-filled night</p><p>the holy rose</p><p>the holy /zy.</p><p>Rose --=-===-++ my flower of genius</p><p>in a virginal millennium</p><p>my humility casts a spell upon</p><p>the tears of my voice</p><p>born from heaven’s lily.</p><p>In the eternally sober drunkenness</p><p>winter goes on dreaming the forms</p><p>of the white tower in love</p><p>with its humble peak in the clouds</p><p>while in the nuptial winter</p><p>Magdalene’s daughter</p><p>washes her lover’s feet</p><p>at the gate of chaos.</p><p>I</p><p>with my fair east-wind hair</p><p>drive the butterflies from the madhouse</p><p>to the pollen of the beginning</p><p>where I must be crucified</p><p>for there dwells within my skull</p><p>a braver, richer lily flower</p><p>bone of the hyperborean.</p><p>Rose ---------- Lady of Honor</p><p>drinking in the breath of the dead</p><p>has dried up the perfume of all my kind</p><p>and the divine sparks</p><p>resound through the space of suffering</p><p>in the ashes inside myself.</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Prince of night ---------- amen-lily</p><p>my blood is soaked with dew</p><p>with the all-immaculate blue</p><p>And I enter into nirvana</p><p>lonely and strange, unknown.</p><p>Behind the more splendid of breasts</p><p>the planet of sunset rises</p><p>behind the breast of tombs</p><p>the star, arisen, sets.</p><p>The crown of thorns weeps</p><p>with the asses upon Golgotha</p><p>the salt of their crying solidifies</p><p>all my woes in blocks of ice</p><p>out of the ruins of flesh</p><p>fecund swarms of bees</p><p>suck at tavern and tomb</p><p>while with robes the beeswax invests</p><p>tne NOI == rose</p><p>(NE NOs lly.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>2/5</p><p>276 Horia Zilieru</p><p>IN THE FACE OF TWILIGHT</p><p>to Michael Impey</p><p>Brother what weather</p><p>blows bones and nerves</p><p>once again theorems</p><p>form anguish’s curves</p><p>winepresses and stakes</p><p>pour forth beneath eyelids</p><p>vipers and grapes</p><p>the agape of Fridays</p><p>broken is the ring</p><p>of blood in the west</p><p>Cain cries out in vain</p><p>to Abel the slain</p><p>the hands’ faces</p><p>make ready for the magus</p><p>the parable of dust</p><p>of threshold of roof</p><p>all — a</p><p>the troubadours sit and talk away night’s hours, dreamy</p><p>With the silence of narrow streets, the past, the summer moon...</p><p>ee Introduction</p><p>I salute you, archaic city, abandoned and still</p><p>Beneath the dust of the centuries, melancholic and tranquil,</p><p>Where every stone confides to us silent stories about the past,</p><p>Where the ancient glory buried deep in parchment</p><p>Rises purer and more radiant from each pious monument</p><p>That, in the morning light, speaks of former days.</p><p>Cetatuia Monastery... The Three Hierarchs... Saint Neculai Domnesc...</p><p>I salute you, poetic city, full of dreams and whispers,</p><p>Guarded by seven hills richly burdened with vineyards,</p><p>Gentle city of times now faded, of poetry, of love,</p><p>Where the girls vie in comeliness with the roses,</p><p>And as blue as chicory is the springtime sky above,</p><p>Where at every gate lilac petals drizzle like soft rain</p><p>Over the darkened walls, the weathered wooden fences...</p><p>You, city with delicate young misses as if arisen from dream</p><p>Who in their smile and the tremor of their lashes reveal once again</p><p>The legendary beauty of Moldavian women.</p><p>I trust that this anthology will itself be taken as my own salute to the</p><p>“city of... poets” and to the writers of Iasi.</p><p>KKK</p><p>A few acknowledgments are in order: first, I need to take notice of</p><p>the fact that some of the poems that appear in City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>were first published in the following magazines: Alea, Apostrof, Buffalo</p><p>Bones, Coe Review, CQ (California State Poetry Quarterly), The Illinois</p><p>Review, Nimrod, The Plum Review, Romanian Civilization, The Spoon River</p><p>Poetry Review, and Visions International. Others have been printed in two</p><p>books, Romania and Western Civilization/Roméma si civilizatia occidentali,</p><p>edited by Kurt W. Treptow (Iasi: The Center for Romanian Studies,</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 13</p><p>1997), and Speaking the Silence: Sixteen Contemporary Romanian Prose Poets,</p><p>translated and edited by Adam J. Sorkin and Bogdan Stefanescu (San Mar-</p><p>cos, ‘lexas: Prose Poem Press, 1998).</p><p>Second, I also want to express my gratitude to the International</p><p>Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) for a travel award in support for</p><p>research and organization of this publication project, with funds provided</p><p>by the US Department of State (Title VII program) and the National</p><p>Endowment for the Humanities; these organizations have no responsibil-</p><p>ity for the content or any views expressed in this book. I am likewise much</p><p>appreciative of additional support provided by the College of Liberal Arts</p><p>of Penn State University that helped make it possible to find the time to</p><p>complete these translations.</p><p>As translator and editor, I have had lots of advice about the scope and</p><p>content of this anthology, some of it conflicting, naturally, and some of it</p><p>unsolicited. Iam most grateful to many people for time spent in discussing</p><p>contemporary Romanian poetry and for assisting me with arrangements</p><p>for texts and collaborators. The final choice of authors and the poems</p><p>included was mine alone, however, and I take full responsibility for the</p><p>book’s content. The primary criteria were therefore somewhat based on</p><p>my own taste and interest, although I believe the results fairly represent the</p><p>breadth of talent and the variety of truly notable writing in the city of Iasi</p><p>and nearby Moldavia today. I am aware of a few omissions, in my mind</p><p>most conspicuously the instance of one well-known religious poet whose</p><p>name shall go unspoken here, lest I seem to be spiteful or complaining, but</p><p>who opted not to be included. There are a number of people I should like</p><p>to thank especially for a variety of things: for logistical help, for advice</p><p>which I took and advice which I ignored (but advice which was always</p><p>generously given), for helping me with information, for suggestions, for</p><p>answering my questions, for questioning my answers: Mihai Ursachi in</p><p>particular, and Radu Andriescu, as well as Mariana Codrut, Nichita</p><p>Danilov, Laura Treptow, Lucian Vasiliu, and, not least of all, though men-</p><p>tioned last, Kurt Treptow and his staff at The Center for Romanian Studies</p><p>in Iasi, from whose cooperation and resources I have much benefited.</p><p>Adam J. Sorkin</p><p>Notes on the Poets</p><p>Irina Andone (born 1968) is the author of Caressing (1996), which</p><p>won the debut prize for poetry at the national book fair in Iasi in 1997.</p><p>Andone works as a researcher at the Institute of Romanian Philology of</p><p>the Al.I. Cuza University of Iasi, from which she graduated in 1990 and</p><p>earned a doctorate in 1998. Radu Andriescu (b. 1962) is the author of</p><p>three books of poetry, Mirror Against the Wall in 1992, The Back Door two</p><p>years later in 1994, and very recently, The End of the Road, the Beginning of</p><p>the Journey (1998). Andriescu is a lecturer in the Faculty of Letters of the</p><p>University of Iasi, the university with which the majority of the poets in</p><p>this collection have been and/or are associated. Liviu Antonesei (b.</p><p>1953), a founder and currently the editor-in-chief at the monthly literary</p><p>magazine, Time, has mostly turned away from literature to politics now,</p><p>serving as President of the Iasi County Council and of the local branch of</p><p>the Civic Alliance Party as well as philosophy professor at the University</p><p>of Iasi. His poetry titles include Pharmakon in 1989 and its uncensored</p><p>version a year later, The Search of the Searchers, a title which was also the</p><p>title of a sixteen-page chapbook he published in 1981 and containing</p><p>some of the later volume’s works. Antonesei has written five books of lit-</p><p>erary, philosophical, and cultural essays. Emil Brumaru (b. 1939, in</p><p>‘Tighina in Bessarabia) graduated from the Iasi Faculty of Medicine in</p><p>1963 and practiced as a doctor for a dozen years. Since 1983 Brumaru has</p><p>worked for Literary Conversations, the venerable literary monthly that was</p><p>first published in Iasi in 1867 by the Junimea Society. Brumaru’s books</p><p>include both Verses and The Detective Arthur (1970), Julian the Hospitaler</p><p>(1974), Nate Songs (1976), Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe (1978), The Ward-</p><p>robe in Love (1980), and The Samovar’s Ruins (1983); currently he writes</p><p>regular columns for numerous Romanian literary magazines.</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 3</p><p>Cristina Cirstea (b. 1970) graduated from the University of Iasi and</p><p>works for Literary Conversations. Her works appeared in the Romanian Lit-</p><p>erature Museum’s 1996 anthology Junimea, Today, and her book, We, the</p><p>Progeny of the Snail, won the 1997 “Frontier” Prize of Poesis magazine in</p><p>Satu Mare as well as a new prize from the Sighetu Marmatiei poetry festi-</p><p>val. Mariana Codrut (b. 1956) also graduated from the Al.I. Cuza Uni-</p><p>versity of Iasi. She has been a proofreader, a teacher, literary secretary for</p><p>the National Theater in Iasi, an editor for Literary Conversations and South-</p><p>East, and she now works as an editor at the Al.I. Cuza University Press and</p><p>also at the Chisinau (Moldova) literary magazine, The Stronghold. Codrur’s</p><p>books include four works of poetry, The Wild Rose in the Woodshed (1982),</p><p>Sketch for a Self-Portrait (1986), The Habits of a Summer Night (1989), and</p><p>Acute Existence (1994), and a novel, The House with Yellow Blinds (1997).</p><p>Nichita Danilov (b. 1952) graduated from the Economics Faculty of the</p><p>University of Iasi. He is an editor at Literary Conversations. Danilov’s</p><p>books include two volumes of essays and a book of tales, and he also works</p><p>as a journalist. His volumes of poetry and prose poetry include Cartesian</p><p>Wells (1980), The Black Feld (1982), Harlequins at the Fteld’s Edge (1984),</p><p>Poems (1987), Above Things, Nothingness (1992), and The Blind Bridegroom</p><p>(1995), the last of which won a Soros prize for the best poetry book of the</p><p>year. Gellu Dorian (b. 1953) is an editor at Literary Conversations and edi-</p><p>torial secretary of Hyperion. His first book, Aesop, appeared in 1984, a</p><p>dozen years after his initial magazine publication, and later</p><p>miracle</p><p>poised at the brink —</p><p>the shoreless smoke</p><p>ready to breathe</p><p>cold hearths and</p><p>the halo, radiance</p><p>of the rose that sheds</p><p>body and brilliance</p><p>how the spiral second</p><p>cleaves my breath</p><p>a wedding lament</p><p>a descant of death.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horia Hulban</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 2a</p><p>OH, MOTHER</p><p>Oh, Mother! out of the starry cells</p><p>the daimon screams for me</p><p>echoing in rings</p><p>a sightless tear</p><p>like the hunger of the grass</p><p>beneath the stone of the silence with pursuing body.</p><p>What fearsome heat in the claws</p><p>of gold, |</p><p>in the seventh lamb</p><p>the jugular is torn</p><p>the organ of night</p><p>reverberates to the heavens ------------- transplant of Centaurus</p><p>a funeral brass band</p><p>befitting You</p><p>O Virgin</p><p>Mary.</p><p>Alas, the circus is over, the tent is struck.</p><p>With the flower of blood</p><p>I freeze in wonder</p><p>at that burial</p><p>the icy red frost on the third meninx</p><p>Here’s the Saint, can be heard: the Saint, here She ts</p><p>far from the dew</p><p>from the building built a second time</p><p>my birth reborn</p><p>while the night falls</p><p>the three Magi who heralded the chosen one and the wedding</p><p>a funeral brass band</p><p>befitting You</p><p>O Virgin</p><p>Mary.</p><p>278 Horia Zilieru</p><p>Is this everything? The nothingness? The pupil of water</p><p>falls in its falling</p><p>adds spheres</p><p>adds pillars that grow in the disinterred darkness</p><p>oh, the difficult crucifixion at the farthest reach of the ages.</p><p>But what can still find room as part of this superabundance?</p><p>What milk-white language</p><p>shouting in wonder</p><p>the earth, oh the earth</p><p>and like a sharpened point the light ray</p><p>thrusts a harpoon ---------- un/laughing un/crying.</p><p>‘Transforming the honey ---------- the all-holy perspiration</p><p>the perspiration of sodomy</p><p>when</p><p>sweetly crying</p><p>utopian-bees from hives in nirvana</p><p>and swarming atoms</p><p>bear the fruit of purity</p><p>out of the boundless pity, out of the boundless pity</p><p>a funeral brass band</p><p>befitting You</p><p>O Virgin</p><p>Mary.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 279</p><p>LAMENTO FOR THE WOMAN ALONE</p><p>To be alone what a death! to be alone in your thought</p><p>like a forsaken wolf bitch in the forest of copper</p><p>a wolf bitch drinking from the distant breath of the pack howling</p><p>bleeding in the heavens the silence beyond life’s customhouse.</p><p>Mist cleanses the body, the body within winter’s circumference</p><p>but the wolf bitch is the woman in the earthquake of the stars</p><p>assault weapons scorn seven candlesticks are burning</p><p>low</p><p>candlesticks with seven arms in seven twilight hands</p><p>the candlesticks unearthed from the sacred Hebrew clay.</p><p>Every spirit is alone, each and every spirit</p><p>the black bull stares back from the mirror of the soil</p><p>and the dying lovers are revealed in their yearning for death</p><p>in it they die a second time, they die in a full-blown rose</p><p>submerged under the dead sea ---------- wave and dream prepare</p><p>a funeral without tongue wailing for the desolate paradise:</p><p>thighs to the salt mine, breasts to the gallows</p><p>Through the fog the wolves follow a poet and an ass</p><p>two avant-garde forms ---------- the (f)right of loneliness</p><p>— the poet gets accused of being a virgin subject</p><p>— the ass gets accused of being a predicate so upon its back</p><p>it bears a poet undressing a woman in the night</p><p>but the woman is the wolf bitch in the forest of copper</p><p>a wolf bitch drinking from the distant breath of the pack howling</p><p>bleeding in the heavens the silence beyond death’s customhouse.</p><p>and in the woman he finds the earth’s burrow</p><p>and the woman draws it into the space of golden teardrops</p><p>and the wolf bitch howls in the bones among the carcasses of words</p><p>nevermore speak of gold, nevermore speak of laurel</p><p>nevermore speak of Taurus. From the woman the lovers tear out</p><p>280 Horia Zilieru</p><p>tear out a subject ---------- the poctis-= = the (f)right of loneliness</p><p>and in the hunted wolf bitch unborn wolf cubs</p><p>the predicate surrounds: an ass bearing on its back</p><p>a poet. The woman howls in the wolf bitch from the mouths of the</p><p>wolves</p><p>and the wolf bitch in the woman howls from the mouths (of the</p><p>lovers) of the thieves.</p><p>God snows a snow like honey from the celestial beehives!</p><p>And agony takes away the body’s contours in terrible annihilation</p><p>her body in a terrible annihilation adoring in vain</p><p>adoring that woman alone within herself like the sea</p><p>like this poem in translation. Lunar breasts turn crystalline</p><p>in images that have lost the clarity the orchestration</p><p>and the subterranean percussion, the arms at the end of the bridge</p><p>the doric style which declaims too near the exhausted laurel</p><p>the stamens of stalactites/stalagmites within the cold fruit:</p><p>nevermore speak of Taurus, nevermore speak of gold</p><p>nevermore speak of laurel. 1 cry in my thought to be alone</p><p>like a forsaken wolf bitch in the forest of copper</p><p>a wolf bitch drinking from the breath of the pack which fades away</p><p>howling</p><p>a wolf bitch dragging her own body into the woman like a chromatic</p><p>scale</p><p>practiced by ghosts ---------- the sacred space of the tomb</p><p>when the woman in the wolf bitch, organ of the crying harmonizes</p><p>a wolf bitch/a woman two shapes crying as one cry</p><p>one wailing cry of blood bleeding the cemetery in my aorta</p><p>the cemetery in my aorta bleeding in the organ of the night</p><p>a woman in a wolf bitch, a wolf bitch in a woman —</p><p>and the earth kneels on its knees, the rhythm of an ancient carol</p><p>and in the crucifixion gleaming for us in the sky our rosa crucis.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 281</p><p>LIFE AND DEATH AND THE SPACE BETWEEN THEM</p><p>to Adam J. Sorkin</p><p>How high can you raise me into the sky, old star?</p><p>What form does a rose take in tender hands?</p><p>Can you not contrive a different face?</p><p>Is matter always the same? Among bones</p><p>osmosis changes drifting ice floes.</p><p>I bleed an acrobatic state of mind.</p><p>A prolix galley proof reads this witching hour</p><p>with / instead of r exchanging photons,</p><p>brother becomes brothel and the space,</p><p>a smoking clump of legs</p><p>the end of the sentence in the thighs:</p><p>“come, let’s give up the ghost with the basilisk!”</p><p>Like a cloud the skull flickers</p><p>grass-like, a milky fog foam insomnia</p><p>the provocation of snow and seashells emptied</p><p>of the jabber of the deaf-and-dumb pearl</p><p>the sulfur frost reproaching the hangers-on</p><p>who approach the forbidden beehives.</p><p>Leave me the ancient tower and the athanor</p><p>in which the fire burns black another silicon</p><p>to record on tapes this night, too,</p><p>when an Arghezian genius breathes</p><p>and hydrogen bombs irradiate the bony fagade</p><p>the vaulted forehead gleaming at the graveyards</p><p>nothingness is mistaken by the blind for bronze.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horia Hulban</p><p>282 Horia Zilieru</p><p>CHRISTMAS CAROL</p><p>Day bud of morning</p><p>day bud of dew</p><p>this pure ray has roused me</p><p>with light fresh and new</p><p>you were the sun beam</p><p>gladdening my face</p><p>dispelling darkest fogs</p><p>with your sweet bright gleam</p><p>the tearful icon</p><p>washing clean my cheeks</p><p>cool silver butterflies</p><p>soothing my wound</p><p>the wound is abloom</p><p>with the nails’ cruel signs</p><p>the heavy, heavy glance</p><p>climbs heaven’s high stairs</p><p>without flame, from so near</p><p>my halo takes fire</p><p>misfortune and tears</p><p>carol at my door</p><p>father, now do you look</p><p>on my fear of death</p><p>grant me your sacred smoke</p><p>that my body may breathe</p><p>then gently let it rest</p><p>upon the Holy Mother</p><p>between virgin breasts</p><p>to nestle my mouth</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 283</p><p>oh, star that’s been snowing</p><p>our lives overspreading</p><p>day bud of dew</p><p>Day bud of morning.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horta Hulban</p><p>284 Horia Zilieru</p><p>ADDENDA TO A SPURIOUS TREATISE ON GRAMMAR</p><p>In the salt mine I was living sayings and proverbs</p><p>and a Lady the muse</p><p>emerges like a medusa</p><p>emitting Russian</p><p>into unreceptive eardrums:</p><p>— out of the tower of death, mr lampedusa</p><p>has he never discovered the star of virtue?</p><p>(The last in the succession of tablets in the fortress,</p><p>I</p><p>claim dominion over nudes in adverbs)</p><p>The past, Our Lady of the fit sequence of morphemes</p><p>suffixes and inflections for a certain lapse of time</p><p>in compounds, breasts breasts</p><p>will preserve the posthumous accents</p><p>and the roots of words (some imply</p><p>phonetically alternating with foamy mouths)</p><p>The bread you cut is a part of speech</p><p>a noun the plural: cemeteries</p><p>and your laugh like a doddering sparrow</p><p>sparks between gender and the sex of the earth.</p><p>Beautiful thigh suffering puma</p><p>is an adjective sprung forth from ancient gerunds</p><p>and declined, but white frost</p><p>settles on the blind eye ---------- syntagmas in transfusion.</p><p>I separated you from death with a holy sepulcher</p><p>only he who sows death harvests</p><p>lofty interjections in his scepter</p><p>conjunctions/prepositions dead red beet.</p><p>And I? Once upon a time [Il materialize as a verb</p><p>in the very center of a church a pronoun</p><p>in candles numerals aflame</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 285</p><p>the hospital never an article</p><p>never joined to some rootstock beneath the ground</p><p>“a wolf has eaten the sheep of the valley.”</p><p>A vocative through the virgin bones</p><p>a pure coffin will launch foreign</p><p>annex-words for guillotines</p><p>a swingle and a stave and a wick</p><p>an oar adz poke and seal</p><p>the sleeper toaca wheel and kettle</p><p>the hook chisel sheave yataghan</p><p>syringe trumpet bridle</p><p>and the noose.</p><p>With such gymnastic flowers of (t)umbelliferous style</p><p>a meet thigh-pozson and sweet thigh-przson</p><p>we may dr(e)am our way</p><p>unto</p><p>righteous resurrection.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Index of Poems</p><p>Irina Andone</p><p>On Falling tnover vee send cries rate ceh ae pate grace calel et yane amr. Romeo as</p><p>Poem of the Beloved Face. ccc ta aid ancy avs eoie cos helio lel otsie etmnetene ean ante ene tenn 22</p><p>Water Daily: cnyacind cokers 8 tie gets pare ce apie arer arouses: ates integeg) meek eae. ofan ey eens 23</p><p>ASCENE,, ate 0. cua isnthal tutes arbaanee Mend REAL SURE. ee eta NALS deed Ae CRD age gon. Sek i Mee nns 24</p><p>GOl dies ose oa hale aye ect'See oa RR ee eS oe rere Pee ater 25</p><p>Lament (But the Angel was Crouched...) aac ols aero eae eis ear ciara nee tee 26</p><p>PIL Remember 5.2 %s.< vcscnveqsrt', v.c osu tes coseersitye ce ei EVEN Geis cee keme CRO Rerer ener eee 27</p><p>ies another ee curiae SAMI yy APR OORT acho Nac ceh8 < 28</p><p>Lament(was Less: than blalfa Refrain. actress ceicrne eotercne oat cnercnere sree er rere XS)</p><p>GaAressinie cre shalt eielieqshane auetereinis que wens. gieneh oe suosnttatn ran VAL ct RS Cea Neon RCE nen are 30</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the Poet</p><p>Radu Andriescu</p><p>Greek’ Bloods So cuir em cs eines w sic seonsuoretencier a tidiaas nie ere ene ere ee eee 31</p><p>The: Story Postponed ix. ci2 oi... too neo oe ee ee ore eee eee a2</p><p>The Three Sians: Seach. aco. «coe rte Ome ed ene cates cern cent rade ree eee 33</p><p>The Nights in Panenwe. ceetack tela g ees ee eet Oe ie eee eee 37</p><p>The: SourtCherty Riet Meeps watts Spe Geereecks ns ne amie ree enact ae 38</p><p>HeéavyheartediIs theSong.. a cnys os.20c1es ook cakee Oe Een eee 40</p><p>The Way: TtGoes: sete asa sic syne ee ore ee Ree cer eel ee see) ee eee een 43</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Liviu Antonesei</p><p>Who? wisrensyere er Seawtens chery ote was ReoRrE sso, 2- SREP aay ERO erp are 47</p><p>RulkesA. Drearn (ira ctenczs cea a le ossclavarn sts cme ORCI Mes roe RUT ate eee 48</p><p>Night Lifessas. « s,% ise o8s2 ocneyh recausiee Gosucs ee peice Ee na eRe ee ee eee ee 49</p><p>Ars AMmatoria.: ines 3 sian deyic's wittale eager tue gieiete poet cuneate ee ee 50</p><p>OU has gene: werner en Aare by os cn ion One aM AGIA ld tho ddod epoca écte 4 51</p><p>Time Is Love sree. c sins so ete ee Oe ee sy)</p><p>Index of Poems 287</p><p>Love Poem in a Somewhat Distorted Neo-Romantic Style ........0. cee eeeeeeee 53</p><p>lem Maer cecnctsie ocandin: Oiaee ens REMNANT edna hmm ol ah 57</p><p>IngviveNativiestandisca eae c tats hicstve one oo of cual hoe alee EAR i ele 58</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Emil Brumaru</p><p>Eines POOL Cisne ci Merabmi ucts. abil Scarce ak badtalloun the «.s,0,snces Kesssctisouss Gir shots «cote 59</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Plecies. © nevernane A chinh Swe slat fl dagblbs. ok on cand Gus easels die aa eu ne'ee nec 60</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>INaIVE;SONG” watt g eat cues MRE. Somiich, ae eric: a heh hee caer eas Beek 61</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>hnemsecondiblesvaok tie ectectvehArthutee eee ne cites an salenies © 62</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Seven Innocent Songs to Sweeten Your Mouth: Song 1, Song2...............--- 63</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>ive Last Tangostor)|ullanitiel ospitalenwNOrl Manitwiey.-aurer a ote ae /cieras <crere <r e 64</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>Batty: Vale: Aer era ates ete ee arts 1cy Seep EEN a. oars le 5 Sues yas edie. Se a1'6 here 8 65</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>Jah yeaa ereares arc cetbsitn a smeovommacecuco aay ot ech cecilia ch Chet y cago eee ORR gORT RENE eR eT REP ae 66</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>Good-Byer Robinson @rusoeys ieee rela ten) Secon: ile uee eRe Rey acter ken 67</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ion Bogdan Lefter</p><p>/Nufatiptolevelelee es o Gets obra COE 605.5 Goro OC OS Oinlo (Lo ai Crs c.oordt.o 0h aiuioicng caer 70</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Sergiu Celac</p><p>Cristina Cirstea</p><p>Oriental Poem:</p><p>deAnd Sonn: Uiniss Ways Nveht @amerA bouts seis iilsaie ale oleate e-rlete aise = eter WA</p><p>D., We SrA Ole SRACONIG: oxrardlon od dom ce Shocmecciecn Soo Aeo amdagnegeooo ac 73</p><p>Be Wihates till Remain smepaenieeie tarmiee Recent iae okie elie Weick (ener iecs tom aL) isan: 74</p><p>ZT RENT NBCIEL. bensidicusioueevouty onoeeepsalaen Olc.olD o-d\0.0 Gio.cao cibiarcad 0 Dick lok Giaic Co oceiDIo orca US</p><p>BRAS ROCCE Vnyuh Beate pee igeicys G¥elaie mit Ro uke Ayre eee ris puri oye ee o> eeepc yr a 76</p><p>Galine Guiltyalmart pero ter raiis litielen-syaleleUtetele gr afin 2 as © oni m ee eens 77</p><p>7, ilecsy 0) cacccoeou odode 04 Poon Dy um oO comodaT FOO Roo Ua Om Morr a 78</p><p>OLIN seGov OND) cotucackacueguosdu uo uouan p07 5010 oOo mIaO tO GOI oCIn mene 79</p><p>PO Mie SOMS LOP AVA werent cris uel cogtseie ote hrc or mney IS ha ABI Lae eon nape 81</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>288 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Mariana Codrut</p><p>Untitled [“A Wheat Breld ..0 7]. ecco ei cece erste tre arm e aun spepeiers sas) 6 eRe eon</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled [SUpon Iloper sol]. 0 siaeetnerclecs te oresy terssrsucr sweet ten ROC tat ket eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Fulalieinithe Summer Garden ems e ete echt one tote i oe enh rey a tae ae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled: [“Loverls Permitted’... |) spotim serceshe: aces econo eat oust enone nee woman hoe eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled: (“FromeMy"Cortern a. (0 ten ccc arate see rece onsite) amen ci-ot set -lier nee ee ete eae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>I. Gannot Laught oe... s c.c cts se ie oe ene o ooete emitie enevate nce) ty aerate one heart eae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled, [cA Wind" ot Liberty IsBlowing mes ale eee oe ick ieieiaeie cine eee eae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled [“Alivetand™ Warm 7257]. c.ne eee eer ee crete eucra tie aie eon eae eto eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled’ [= Words"Arera Boutraless skcyvaeeanere | ert terete acter ister tenets enter seen ate</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Untitled. (“A Poetor thexNorth es |. Sanne meters cree coe ecnere aera coke ae eae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Litana Ursu</p><p>Nichita Danilov</p><p>Empty Field, 22 5 widva(asaite cg wre Scoetatesete anand 2 eller cet cae aI ean Toe ea</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>The, World?s: Gold tna sisvescois sorcerers eta</p><p>eu sicpate SNS State tetera eae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>FromcaDandyisi Diary: 8 x sescayrace, sustarel oo taea a cteee oreo Fae er ote aoe eR eRe Re</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursachi</p><p>The'Face®., 02S euie coped od pleas eae 2 encore sree ae ee ae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pulat</p><p>Phe Bathisies os i084 e-m grsiavn ete see ete asae wee puekelehomryeqe a ese Reet acne oR ae ae ene</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>Nighe in: Denmark + tx terccits Seige resus tet GROnee ne Race Leo Ee eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>Medallrome 4 4 5% W505 3.5/0 oe A ei ites Pere fete ih ere Se</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>Walia os) DYexeqeetokeldUfoxeyonI ME MMENENS. cou cn nnanodnoudanaudnuvecaveduc wooo se</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>Index of Poems 289</p><p>BAN RRR: Meet RNR oe sis as esi ek 8 Bex wih Rdanin de Abas ates ones ARI GR 107</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>Pep avec, Lac dit yin staan uae Mi ye lie oi nts oem «cond ola isl Aa eeol ole MRAAY MRSA EN te Wh, (tees ig 108</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Cristina Cirstea</p><p>PSO tN ty Gash Ett yam hares ee NaN ce Ic PR TE ea lc aa ae cecapate Ms Wace os sPauguacs 109</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Monica Pillat</p><p>DPCM Ease CN -CONEUTY 2 c.0 a sane Selb oat vod dm ns dos aiernsiauent Qedtoanlvecasd ARM eee 110</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>Gellu Dorian</p><p>sithis Roem lsither Nig hter ree sncicueiemciege pabeoe me eicicu a GRRE SEE Sacro 111</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>HPF es Prancl plevosyl) OMI OE Sige rayee seaedoucpemons demon aegoacre asl euruigsisee Suen ome eoweeitae eae 112</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>PAC valuing ObeAihal CratldylMlUOve LOUmeee\eicterae eicietiee elsneiesre ele nciericie eee ease 113</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>NMiyakitl em litre rie OL Calg Few re r tasfa Ge ede Nese a oie far sto ro el gerscvo le nalin Nace te ave Salve te Jetted G sche ra ve OR 114</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>IRS CAVBNVACGIIM tame Mere eta terete ete raptete ere ee TRIN Cuts Ve ah te tar pcre fro oma Martapaseloe ao 115</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>Koma ritine the: Poem arid, Waiting 2. 6c trq se crac sists woe 1 6 Je ts 0.74 tres REN et oun Goel eden 116</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>Maverisea Continuous Adventure tract sit alae ses awinme neiamminamicte ce 6 117</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu</p><p>ATTRS UR TSIaes Coed nV HOS 9l ra bc: dint sector aro |e ees intestate ee eacnenaantA Aerie, ont con ounce tea 118</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>BearitiiuleDyay se Arey GOmin pacmeqedeucnedeisie hoe Gaels praia. cle ape te ro rele ere Riera Neen els, tu os er i)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>Paselirom a Diaty;e.s2ss+ ees seee as: eee 120</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Nora Dorian</p><p>IRENE a oop Beth ol OFO fGen ROD OTOREE OPO GROMER RCI MORENO nC rare ec ca cece 121</p><p>Aurel Dumitrascu</p><p>Novas nat Prmehten) Meg oi: sec wae oes os lie AG ee aie uae agie wee w teens 122</p><p>Aphoberus Phanaton ais tesseee. career ee cones one na Shape teehee see ee eas 123</p><p>Plumbing Shadows ies s.s.salcs dea cseds Cone saa ey bate Aida sees oem a a 124</p><p>Elansi @hooses therstrenmoOm sme sehr stress er ae ae alias em slerslie els als sate 28) 125</p><p>Pinpayed heater tyncrdtlind rap sgcle tine wetdie white vid are esi sels woenn mpgidin A acins bud aeiES 126</p><p>NLT Emergence or Poem Against My Generation of Poets ......--+e0+eeeeeee eee ees</p><p>290 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>‘Tractateyon theiilereticall 25 nc «creucncie wre clmier <desetoe ie clistellons el stele eee aie tat ei ieee</p><p>‘Tractate on thetHereticall(Dayasever) es riatermer-ewteereterte si lrslele te eitereistar aie ele eesti</p><p>Mractate on the leretical (DaysEleven)p eye eie ene eta oe ena he llel ey rede eee eee</p><p>Tractate on theblereticall(Day- Whinty=Oire)pereentetereterys ote craic tet telat ree</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liana Vrajitoru</p><p>Dan Giosu</p><p>SPLinnG S -casne- 0-0 bus (omct Gye dss SGP ana Re RA Uae ookee Deameg a meget’ nadie chen aegedusisosite (ace</p><p>Wandseape Without Winter (Sleep) spyware taeinesiee Sye-sts6 sch RPV, Ree ere eM teR</p><p>The Grape Serres ee ee eae Meee tars, a oars Whenere, cla ael oo</p><p>PEACE (Ts sacra fare tee se. c0ie Spevinicghians Ocoee prae tecdzemeone telco apayne reps GlaalPomeins sate te eek ka en a eee</p><p>Peace. (I), . Sere eh Pe Rae tera ee ee ee riick! 2ie) ay sre tan tateh-ele ter hele eens</p><p>en een rere nr rrnns ram rie cos aioe toh 4 chow, > uid io 0</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Adrian Poruciuc</p><p>Carmelia Leonte</p><p>WOPAWIUN Goss 5 chen Aud a ves we eceae ato eae Ce oleate ace meal oases ce eieee hel Ce Ree ate Neer aan</p><p>ESN BAPE (coy, OS 7 CNS OREN ce AE NOE eae eres 6 mean aloe lattniG Geos</p><p>Childhoods © os oicss.< ate orb is Bharorane eral tint nore Stern ek nna RoE ae</p><p>Ge OMe ERY. Hee cpacucuce cucuepe ey eecamons woe etd in ous Caen el tacioue ecto eR TO CaS</p><p>Tie Wotids face ates ccscteysieatacdp cis & Sd AES Octo SR RRR AR eee con ee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laura Treptow</p><p>Friedrich Michael</p><p>The Yellow Pines of Repedea</p><p>Alpha Privativum</p><p>Original Sin</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Index of Poems 291</p><p><</p><p>Mountain Barcarole</p><p>Bike PouseomOumiGves mrss nists te eee eon ee ee 166</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Hirhui</p><p>SON GO AOE A che Meare ye ak cham i: tere teats ele ees nates Gch ek Ah OER aoe 169</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Mere Vin SMOUUCHINAN fc. ole Vest he EAE ik Rae ge TR ee ORS eC tee 170</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Sete sins LOVH Vee, Kent Seer ae A AONE, ARE OME, ee ies Oee i a , 171</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursachi</p><p>TIVE Sy NAEUE GC: ostitoye swe delete aske yeeaedsasutucaeae se fexecogeatheasetogeuei- SCodeas Vedas SER Ashes 172</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Aura Musat</p><p>om @ ther baceue seie sneer ats coke stra es els ee eae ee che ds RS See Poe Se, IW:</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>MMR OOGADILe race yeustenracacxonswcn heatectafeonusbeseusois a vencetvensicus «OeWeiege ae Rains alee ase 174</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>ILGTRNS 8 6 wrdhe.S 8.5: 0-bid Bad Gydun CO IOI DRI A Pleo io er Sint toils Sine IE sere mirteonn as 176</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szarb</p><p>WintrtlecmfeimecheandeSmall Scissorsie ta llesemietce eam aetauae. ae eel cremate steers Wig</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Rage Chains hy lletinoGRGss = 6. 5c dices o Ooo Be eae Noce te oo coogouD oe 178</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szarb</p><p>iin: Skea, HS WS GROWG sb acs oth oe Abo on oboe bob ee bonne ob obos comodo Gomer 179</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>‘Thay (Oyie SiGe Gea deg eeia-cyatoceole croldigts 5.6 cl beeenciaiow cid ie Drciomoiatoroyaip antonio aicaararS ict 181</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Unde KOM GaiiUS 56.0 ll on as ducdame crated otooabGcome oS DOE s.ncod 0 Hoole 182</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Veo Dieta (UG Slob) cu ancesecas5 + oooesudoeon Coben Oo Sap aDecDUneB ee 183</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Szirb</p><p>Ovidiu Nimigean</p><p>SIptve Barner WWOlanusrsce sree ct ches cucteneteliarey ai-rckcece suc stoqetemoner cuttlel suo! pfutslian teitetateuis, etotenelten=it 184</p><p>TeiRhetorical Linus mens te ne es Ate t is ar eRe wc rcs cer tee esa et hme 185</p><p>‘Whhie [Sieg Wie Sasensl seo caeocodocedoeeoceo babes oemrsoEe coduod dane coum 186</p><p>187 acest Pithe. Sami OCmamee erty Me Pe EOI ee Otte Ue eerateaiaiiows creates eae sie nis</p><p>292 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Nin ST hems Tt Aub Dated eons sewasaits veces agavteuai rave: eucveneMstraye) <-Zeyewememe coos CoP aneitel seed ene 188</p><p>JAM GU ROMINA NOG:</p><p>nn hoo hewmo oon anonenotagomonpoorenoopanouanuoud 189</p><p>Blessing ineUinisoiimececede oie see aes eS > seus teyehs cel ener Geusel-leneuekeneusict-k-leh-eeek Tako eels 190</p><p>isthe Uavoay Dyraby Me lsyerte OW 2 econ nacodonacc0co5 onc cdMeeonepnonobeouMbOoU cs 191</p><p>Not) ieee tcc oc ooo ee oa uhaookce maaccnutoS cc omeondc 192</p><p>Fluttering Here and There OvertheSloughs .=- 9. 2 026-5 ee eos eee 193</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Radu Andriescu</p><p>Dorin Popa</p><p>Eulogy to Life and the Dreams Wed to Her to the End. -).1- 0 oe eietr teller ote 194</p><p>Love:Story (AlwaysiGhoosenvou)iy mint stole te ronctstetstoite alc) ete -teteniee ene tenes teme 195</p><p>What.More Ann Waitine FOr? =n nc se epee iets e ethene ty oc! sets a lctayetsuonans tenet meeme 196</p><p>Beneficial Failures: + sexs. vancaesenensicoeeganvasiassavt eaten ye me he date pene tomes neler neste 42h ous nolo TRO ea 197</p><p>My Death—My ite? Sana) retin. 2, Bite er clter aS MERS tee) 6 rai ev siclty elie teleporter 198</p><p>Hidden; Bloody Ravens ao. a. ic oe nae accis ota sea raverie tele ty ote ve evo el cs oie noes 199</p><p>Attempt at'‘Confession J..0. 22 op in ada s al saeco a ete ees) eee e's 2 Cee ee 200</p><p>Anaesthetized We Fy aidecvaiesanc sue ao even ae a she: a's cetisuar oi Gusmao RSIS ao ne een eee 202</p><p>Shipwrecked arse. stoi si shar 20 cate aaa) ale le atta sted alba a aa tats Sees Melee res reece eT 203</p><p>A Small, WeaktH arse ree are rh re nee Pe tere ctin Sree sh orc eon en Toe 206</p><p>Wihen, You’ve<Nothing toiGives aq-i cerca roe tet uencnee enenen ener t-te ete ene 207</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ana Maria Berneaga</p><p>Ioanid Romanescu</p><p>(Ui Nee Ea OE ee eee ate Am eno e en oat eon Ob baos 208</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>The:Gontinuing Revolutioniy) uc. meme eerie ke OE ere ee 209</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>Miygove—al hesNimelKieldiof Rocthysammnrcr meine ator ita t aan ene ere 210</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>Top MiyeReaderss\VivaS weeteAccoimp ices megty iii ent ier entrain ean ee 24</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>White Box—Black Box iia: acct ey eae Looe ater net Reem een Tee WN,</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>eS Wonds 0s th tee Yee dart 6 lsu: ad pte plac aie tates eee ee aera eee 213</p><p>Allegro: Barbaroy..iiss+ ats sys cca oe ee Cree bie Acoma nese eee 214</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>june Discipless Descriptionyomthes Mastery err teeter eee eee 215</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>Untitled [So, In This Way... ]</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Liliana Ursu</p><p>Index of Poems 293</p><p>elec (etteard Godin, tue ovals sem aekad ts sasrws to .ne aes cn ee ee 207</p><p>na Should i here Bee GOW e.g ec. ss age ck ks oe aese Oot Le oe ee 218</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Moscaliuc</p><p>Cristian Simionescu</p><p>URI SU SES ET Sorc iar reset ce dlaritag JRO, et an, ng nt a a 219</p><p>WIAeVAr esvounluehtsWithie’= ak ann eeetodes oheateceee eee eae ee Ge 221</p><p>GiordanolBrunnowns wat ee ee eT a Pe Hae Se eid eee Ng 0 DD)</p><p>Haven’t You Had More Than Enough of Your Thoughts,</p><p>Which You Whisper and Whisper like an Obsession, as if You Were Whirling</p><p>Roundtand ound on Somerls) an doaeee ene w ein nearer are ee 224</p><p>NMOL 5 BS Wc cto ORES Oe RO ee ee Ce 225)</p><p>iS CL OSUACIC mae taenaeu teense Te eect Nie mE ER Sr dG Io ae gh onus terete bbesivtes 226</p><p>Wihrornocksrattne DooratiMidnight? tarsi cs erin aetna ahonieds eeaieke Siem erer 227,</p><p>ROUT AW DO WV ATICCCENM aPnere ret eter Et eee Pht SON 8 AEG ze pie anenacial Sas 228</p><p>Last Night You Wandered Aimlessly—What Were You Looking for in This City</p><p>Overcome by Sleep? Why Don’t You Give up Your Wandering? And Why Do You</p><p>Read the Night’s Work as Though You Felt No Awe at the Exalted? .............. 229</p><p>reredssMusic.andeD clichtinekvyenythine emt aeeeeeme ce acs sme rrsieies eae: 230</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Cassian Maria Spiridon</p><p>He Get Alon ouWwelliyereperctteretiertsas che ete sts sia crete, onidiniers ey eos auataneke nc unralpny egereh wns Deyil</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>iintentmezz Ou GhiietOucchy) users ces se cericncr iene tekaicucesy kenciatsrcmeie ae aahene rr, suepncc tt aue DE</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>CANES oo ohn Ge eS BAIS Clo rcs 6-0 ROIC GIS Gl OR DORE SF ORO TSRRIDI IIE Ei eee saree 233</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Noro erie aie IER coogadeogooskanend obo dcoonmouoomunonoosomomomons 234</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursachi</p><p>The Dexel (Ge UMS MEOMNTSS) 2 on 4c Seo HOUNEe nd oHbeeonyoouco emo oe esbMdoS 237</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Pngry Into Apocalypse = «1. «+ + 4 matslailtat Memeo = neha gale OMS SRW Gua ao 0 a 238</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihai Ursacht</p><p>he Gis we Usa, shor obsos oomcioopmeso bhoasemarego coo meen oo ol oO © mogmon 239</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>Doce are UNS WODEG aoocorens oe Conn pues DDO ooo ODS oUDoE DUNO Ue MDGOUGdoDL 241</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mihaela Barba</p><p>294 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>Mihai Ursachi</p><p>fie Metaphysical City janac et vote siti cen thet elena</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>the Salesman otiNonexistence ay anarc cee aetna tl icin eer een</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>Lacustrine, Discovery, a2. is cia, alereeeee tne here aenct aed TURete et MCR cst ent) este tete ts 1c aoe</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>The Discoveryof Romania st. eas susceie mus ere ieee ee Be 1 oh Oe eee eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>Meditation in Frenchman’s:‘Gult -iii.-ed= oii os cei koe ee eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>The Second Meditation in Frenchman’s Gulf, with the Interpolation</p><p>OLE, AMOR possesses nica gee atid eatacud oe aeusite Gus @uttoun Suse Phe elem een teas PIER Cee ee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Letter om the Shell of the Snail’ Adeodatus) 2-1. ie aeeeeieieto ene ieee eet es ane</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>The Dumb)Song ofthe SnaliAdeodatust seme aan dee ee eee een meee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Magda Teodorescu</p><p>MourttGCaim Witiifdataciaise sf es saeco mele scauer oun lemtane milage tee et easua cneteeeaotes</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Epistle atic i. chest aie natiare a Lote erie eran ao tet ter meee aya oe ee ae</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Lidia Vianu</p><p>Symposion Nigtumi .. 6 6 sci bce a eneieis swe) «ew So Oe mye ee ree ete oe ae ee a</p><p>Gelestral Phemomena 61a inc ccsuctene an cae h oa one bees ee ne ee aC eae</p><p>Self-Portrait so .s kis aa went a ons.e ens ied de ontaeh terre EET RRC ROR ene</p><p>Lucian Vasiliu</p><p>Summer in Iasi</p><p>Lucianogram (A)</p><p>Lucianogram (B)</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>DoublewPictureyPosteard wlasi=Varnawaee ea aden tat aetna ae ae ee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumara</p><p>Young Thing</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>Index of Poems 295</p><p>oie) (ni 7sCeneiee sl ere: teiseieiseigelje tale ele .taike! s (s\¢/iqy a) ie) eljeive’ elie: 4) 275! 1s, pie) [el.a:cel.6' A</p><p>INEM A WRULICIIN NS Sle skeet es Geis eee tants GPT nn See od, Pe ee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Laurentin Constantin</p><p>Dalivancdithesleiquich@lockou-t crt pasm eckson ths ae, wan nce tee cites</p><p>Translated by Adim J. Sorkin and Laurentiu Constantin</p><p>DeSe Sea) AUMNIO MOR Rh alr ante gio sniats AERA snes eis desire © ade LeB 6 ton oe</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Dan Jumari</p><p>Horia Zilieru</p><p>Wiheresou Can Unlock Paradise with, Your Bonesis via seach eke eee eta ot ee</p><p>Translated by Adam_J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Move Blesyron trie Slaves: Path Qrpnape wusyeye c we cle a on gauskey altel curr sutus a srasiie. cos sseys) sun) outs Or</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Enrthe Facetotsiwailight ses. os See ea alerts ak oe os wits acta</p><p>e ste Saaee SEE ales teers</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horia Hulban</p><p>@ Moth ergeeep-. sepeeerase We oe siete Spen cke oise cars op at are = Aeparer pags faue vs yb yenawendyeese Yo oysres</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>LAGE ONO HS MIEN INOS 4 1ocancsacacaabentooos sous aD en Uso oOUs doo.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>Kite-and»Deathvand the|Space Between hemi a. .eenlecie las aves cere lomks inate</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horia Hulban</p><p>(CN TRACR Gl 5 bb RS COS omc oe Bord els Habe lsten oc 0 TOI e Oo mrOlaRa COCR</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Horia Hulban.</p><p>Addenda to a Spurious Treatise on Grammar .........- see eee eee eee eee</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Alexandru Pascu</p><p>About the Translator</p><p>Adam J. Sorkin is the leading translator of Romanian poetry in the</p><p>United States. His collaborative translations of contemporary Romanian</p><p>poetry and short stories have appeared in more than 125 literary and poetry</p><p>magazines including some of the most important in this country, among them</p><p>The New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Salt Hill, The</p><p>Literary Review, Partisan Review, New England Review, Press, Another Chicago</p><p>Magazine, Sulfur, Tampa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, 13th Moon, Kalh-</p><p>ope, and Exquisite Corpse. Since 1992, Sorkin has produced six books of trans-</p><p>lations of Romanian poetry. In 1994, he published An Anthology of Romanian</p><p>Women Poets, edited with Kurt W. Treptow, and Transylvanian Votes: An</p><p>Anthology of Contemporary Poets of Cluj-Napoca; the former was reprinted in a</p><p>second edition in 1995, the latter (the only poetry anthology to join Roma-</p><p>nian, Hungarian, and German-language traditions) in a revised and enlarged</p><p>edition by the Center for Romanian Studies in 1997, doubling its size. In</p><p>1997, Bloodaxe Books published The Sky Behind the Forest, a selection of Lili-</p><p>ana Ursu’s works translated in a three-way collaboration with both the poet</p><p>herself and Tess Gallagher; the book was the British Poetry Book Society Rec-</p><p>ommended Translation for the winter quarter and the recipient of an Arts</p><p>Council of England translation grant.</p><p>This year, besides City of Dreams and Whispers, Sorkin is also issuing an</p><p>anthology of Romanian prose poems, Speaking the Silence, published by the</p><p>Prose Poem Press (San Marcos, Texas). In 1999, he has two more books slated</p><p>for publications: from Bloodaxe Books, a volume of prose poems by Ioana</p><p>Ieronim, The Triumph of the Water Witch, translated by Sorkin with the poet;</p><p>and from BOA Editions, Sea-Level Zero, a volume of poems by Daniela</p><p>Crasnaru, mostly translated with the poet. Sorkin also has published short sto-</p><p>ries by Crasnaru (translated jointly with her) in Tit-Quarterly, Southerly, and</p><p>International Quarterly. He is the author of numerous essays on contemporary</p><p>Romanian literature.</p><p>Adam J. Sorkin is a Professor of English at Penn State Delaware County,</p><p>and he has been awarded support for his translation work from the Fulbright</p><p>Scholar Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Research &</p><p>Exchanges Board (IREX), and the European Association for the Promotion</p><p>of Poetry. In 1995 one of his collaborative translations was nominated for a</p><p>Pushcart Prize, and in 1997 he won International Quarterly’s Crossing Bound-</p><p>aries ‘ranslation Award. He is a member of the American Literary Translators</p><p>Association.</p><p>a ne ced</p><p>-</p><p>:</p><p>?</p><p>4</p><p>.</p><p>or,</p><p>%</p><p>red</p><p>ot</p><p>iat ee</p><p>‘one ihe</p><p>ia</p><p>wo ‘</p><p>ste</p><p>. tors</p><p>rh 24</p><p>rt</p><p>61</p><p>Pa ieee</p><p>jon eee ate</p><p>whe</p><p>Piret</p><p>iS</p><p>r omy! “| |</p><p>mila Mn = I</p><p>§</p><p>MOS</p><p>volumes of</p><p>poetry include Introductory Poems (1986), Elegies After Rilke (1993), In</p><p>Search of the Lost Poem (1996), and In Love’s Absence (1996), a selected</p><p>works. He also published The Writer, a work of prose, in 1996. Aurel</p><p>Dumitrascu (1955-1990) published his first book, The Storms of Memory,</p><p>in 1984, and his second book, Library in the North, three years later. The</p><p>Messenger was completed in 1988 but remained unpublished at the time</p><p>when Dumitrascu died of leukemia at the age of 35; it came out posthu-</p><p>mously in 1992 and was followed by Tiactate on the Heretical in 1995.</p><p>Dan Giosu (b. 1960), an editor at the literary magazine Time, has</p><p>been publishing books of poetry since The Return of the Words in 1984. His</p><p>other poetry volumes are Free as a Bird (1989), Afansol’s Plank (1992),</p><p>Four Plus the Angel (1994), and The Shadow’s Square (1995); currently he</p><p>notes that he has three books in press, entitled “Deuteronomy,” “But in</p><p>Fact There Will Be a Holiday,” and “The Institute of the Left Hand.” Car-</p><p>melia Leonte (b. 1964) is an editor at Literary Dacia, published by the</p><p>16 Notes on the Poets</p><p>Romanian Literature Museum; she has published two collections of</p><p>poetry, The Procession of Dolls in 1996 (from which her poems in this collec-</p><p>tion were translated) and The Myopic Dragon-Fly (1997), as well as a book</p><p>of fiction for children, Tivo Galoshes. Friedrich Michael (b. 1969) is the lit-</p><p>erary pseudonym of Friedrich Mihail Gradinaru, who serves as a juridical</p><p>counselor of the Iasi County Council. His books of poetry include Eusebera</p><p>(1992) and Mystic Words (1996), and he has also published Poetics and Post-</p><p>modern Poetry (1994) as well as a translation from the German under his</p><p>own name. Aura Musat (b. 1947) has published four books of poetry, Jd</p><p>the Sunset (1972), The Interpreter (1977), Puck Clumsily Fills the Glass</p><p>(1982), and The Phantasm of the Cricket (1996). She also is co-author of</p><p>The Dictionary of Romanian Literature from its Origins to 1900. Ovidiu</p><p>Nimigean (b. 1952) is a researcher at the Faculty of Letters of the Univer-</p><p>sity of asi. He is the author of two books, Selected Works (1992), issued at</p><p>the price of 1,000,000 /ez in a very small printing, and weekend among</p><p>mutants (1994), issued at the price of 1 Jew in a somewhat larger edition.</p><p>Most of the poems here come from the latter book. He notes that he is at</p><p>work on at least six other works, including Nammugeans Wake and a novel,</p><p>a play, a collection of short fiction, a literary history, and a journal.</p><p>Dorin Popa (b. 1955) is counselor to the Prefect of Iasi as well as a</p><p>television and radio producer and an editor and journalist. He graduated</p><p>from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Iasi. His first book of</p><p>poetry, The Utopia of Possesston, came out in 1990. Since then he has pro-</p><p>duced No Return and Eucharistic Conversations in 1992, Attempt at Confes-</p><p>ston 1n 1994, and What More Am I Wauting For? in 1996. He has won</p><p>awards for his work in Iasi, in Satu Mare, and in contests in Italy and</p><p>France. Ioanid Romanescu (1937-1996) published his first book, Sol-</p><p>tude in Tivo, in 1966, and his last, The New Adam, in 1994, followed by a</p><p>selected volume posthumously published in the year of his death, Paradise,</p><p>also the title of one of his books of poetry from a little over twenty years</p><p>before.Other titles among his total of more than twenty-five collections of</p><p>new poems and anthologies, many honored by awards and prizes, include</p><p>The Pressure of Light (1968), Favor (1972), The Energy of Dream (1977),</p><p>Magic (1982), Orpheus (1986), The School of Poetry (1989), and Urania</p><p>(1992). Cristian Simionescu (b. 1939) graduated in Philology from the</p><p>Al.I. Cuza University of Iasi in 1966 and published his first book of poetry,</p><p>Taboo, four years later. Other volumes include The Ocean’s Wiles (1980),</p><p>Marathon (1985), The Island (1988), a 1995 anthology of his works given</p><p>City of Dreams and Whispers 17</p><p>the same title as his book of a decade earlier, and Poems (1997). Writer,</p><p>journalist, and engineer with a degree in mechanical engineering, Cassian</p><p>Maria Spiridon (b. 1950) worked for over a decade as a researcher in Iasi</p><p>while producing technical articles and patented inventions and beginning</p><p>to publish poetry. His first collection, Starting from Zero, came out in</p><p>1985, and since the 1989 revolution, during which he was arrested as an</p><p>organizer of the anti-communist movement in Iasi, he has been a founder</p><p>and director of Time, an editor at The Chronicle, chief editor at The Poem,</p><p>and chief editor of Literary Conversations while publishing three more</p><p>books of poetry, The Zodiac of Night (1994), The Stone of Trial (1995), and</p><p>About Love and Death (1996).</p><p>The most widely honored of Romania’s contemporary poets —</p><p>among his many awards the first national Mihai Eminescu poetry prize to</p><p>be bestowed since World War II, which honor he won in 1992 — Mihai</p><p>Ursachi (b. 1941) defected from communist Romania in 1981, the year</p><p>of the publication of a major volume of his selected poems, a book of over</p><p>300 pages issued before he left Romania and given the title of his 1970</p><p>debut book, An Enigmatic Ring. Ursachi had served time as a political pris-</p><p>oner twenty years before his defection for his intellectual opposition that</p><p>culminated in an escape attempt while a student at the University of Iasi in</p><p>1961, and he had been forced to spend eight months in solitary confine-</p><p>ment in the notorious Jilava prison, in his own description, “a place where</p><p>you were expected to die.” He was released in 1964 in a general amnesty</p><p>that was part of the de-Stalinization program of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.</p><p>After leaving Romania in 1981, Ursachi earned a Ph.D. in German from</p><p>the University of Texas in Austin and went on to teach at the University of</p><p>California, La Jolla, for four years. But after the 1989 revolution, declaring</p><p>he was not an economic émigré and could no longer in good conscience be</p><p>a political refugee, he returned to Romania, serving until February 1992 as</p><p>Director of the National Theater in Iasi. This year he published a 400-page</p><p>collection of poetry from throughout his career, Madness and Light. His</p><p>other books include Missa Solemnis (1971), The Purple Poem and Other</p><p>Poems(1974), Diotima (1975), and The Great Confrontation (1978), as well</p><p>as two additional anthologies, The Arch(1979) and Poems (1996). Ursachi</p><p>has also issued a collection of his short stories, Masonry and Other Tales</p><p>(1978, reprinted 1990). It was in solitary confinement that Ursachi began</p><p>to compose poetry: “I wrote my very first poem, ‘wrote’ in memory, that</p><p>is,” he has said. Poetry became “a kind of spiritual resistance.” Since his</p><p>18 Notes on the Poets</p><p>return, Mihai Ursachi has also served as president of the Civic Alliance in</p><p>Iasi and the Iasi Writers’ Association, and he is now on the faculty of the</p><p>University of Iasi.</p><p>The Director of the Romanian Literature Museum in the Pogor</p><p>House in Iasi (where the Junimea Society used to meet) and of Literary</p><p>Dacia, Lucian Vasiliu (b. 1954) is a graduate in Romanian and French of</p><p>the Al.I. Cuza University of Iasi. He has published a novel, Together, Let’s</p><p>Run (1985), and six books of poetry: Mona-Monada (1981), About How I</p><p>Make My Way Ahead (1983), The Son of Man(1986), Summers After Cona-</p><p>clt (1986), The Blackbirds of the Pogor House (1994), and Beyond Despair</p><p>(1995). Horia Zilieru (b. 1933) graduated from the Faculty of Philology</p><p>of the University of Iasi in 1955. Currently Executive Secretary of the Iasi</p><p>Writers’ Association, of which he has previously served as president, Zil-</p><p>ieru has published some 20 volumes of poetry, among them Orpheus in</p><p>Love (1966), Erotic Winter (1969), The Shadow of Paradise (1972), The</p><p>Murvor of Fog (1979), Addenda to a Spurious Treatise on Love (1983), Thun-</p><p>der and Ash (1989), and Between Tivo Nights (1995).</p><p>Adam J. Sorkin</p><p>City of</p><p>Dreams</p><p>and Whispers</p><p>Poems by (rina Andone</p><p>ON FALLING IN LOVE</p><p>In long processions the beloved come,</p><p>the chaste.</p><p>And I, too, in my gown of gossamer,</p><p>I arrive furtively,</p><p>to steal and then to steal away,</p><p>garrulous like a small seed,</p><p>an acorn a lentil,</p><p>in its turn</p><p>delivering its soul to the earth,</p><p>beneath the breath of the mole</p><p>who tunnels near</p><p>whispering something about desire,</p><p>tiresome, almost in my ear:</p><p>the mothers have heard, the grandmothers long before,</p><p>and the daughters, now they also hear.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>22 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>POEM OF THE BELOVED FACE</p><p>There, on that wall,</p><p>a man has carved his face</p><p>and turned himself to stone.</p><p>Don’t watch me so, with your eye sockets of vapor.</p><p>The mild upheavals here in the light</p><p>are answered in the depths of the earth,</p><p>in the fracture of the strata of inelastic rock.</p><p>The entire house will shake</p><p>with its ribbons and rotted frames,</p><p>and [ll awaken much in love</p><p>with a hazy face</p><p>like a cheek of crystal, kissed.</p><p>Soon Pl be able to stroke it, with aching touch,</p><p>when night draws over us its dark mist.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Irina Andone 23</p><p>WATER LILY</p><p>It came to rest nearby,</p><p>the vessel gleaming gold:</p><p>the sky, anchored. . .</p><p>My legs, columns of uncommon woman.</p><p>In a translucent bowl, gold and communion bread burn.</p><p>Hands bathed in gold</p><p>singularly upraised toward the heavenly Bear.</p><p>The Great Bear, in the liquid night’s hour,</p><p>The lily flower.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>24 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ASCENT</p><p>A matchless woman,</p><p>with hobbled legs</p><p>and gems set in my soles,</p><p>with a feeling of collapse</p><p>to my left,</p><p>when the rain pours down</p><p>when the wind buffets,</p><p>when giving birth,</p><p>or I don’t know what similar high estate.</p><p>A matchless woman,</p><p>as is my right,</p><p>drying myself in starlight.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Irina Andone 25</p><p>GOLD</p><p>I'm made to order for the golden day: a fern of unfurled gold,</p><p>with the man of gold a hairbreadth from my seeds of clay.</p><p>The man of gold draws close, born with eyes of gold,</p><p>and the golden baby moves in the golden womb</p><p>shielding the knees, the eyes, the curled fists of the son.</p><p>The hand of gold on my womb ripe with birth,</p><p>o newborn twin to gold, forever we tend under the ever dying earth.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>26 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>LAMENT [“BUT THE ANGEL WAS CROUCHED...”]</p><p>But the angel was crouched nowhere that might matter</p><p>deliberately eyeing me</p><p>so that deep within, the venomous sky would shatter.</p><p>I reached down lower, so far below</p><p>that beneath the house</p><p>my blood oozed and gathered.</p><p>The world</p><p>swarmed like a seed kernel</p><p>as it lay mother-like in the rich loam,</p><p>only, once in a while</p><p>the angel was crouched nowhere nearby</p><p>deliberately eyeing me</p><p>until it started to thunder across the land and sky and sea.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Trina Andone</p><p>LL REMEMBER</p><p>The walls surrounding me are mighty,</p><p>and you, harsh and heavy like a yoke.</p><p>Pll remember you,</p><p>the nights spent in such bashfulness.</p><p>From the field, a flame hissing in its rush,</p><p>a creak from the corner of the room,</p><p>who knows what sylph hides in the ashes,</p><p>tilling whatever her wish.</p><p>Pll remember you, ever more I'll remember,</p><p>abiding in adoration, the ember.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>27</p><p>28 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>SHE</p><p>I would talk so much to my own dense shadow.</p><p>All the words would incline to one side,</p><p>the house spiders busied themselves spinning and weaving a bier,</p><p>as the poplars lazily trickled underneath the house.</p><p>And where, untouched, is the heavenscape?</p><p>The Great Bear declines to one side,</p><p>the Great Bear and the Lesser Bear</p><p>set long ago into the valley’s chosen shape.</p><p>I wait both in this house and out. I wait for the queen.</p><p>“She will surely come, she can’t be dead,”</p><p>the meek of the earth all cry aloud, while inside silent people sulk.</p><p>And the horizon is sharp like a silken spider’s thread.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Trina Andone</p><p>LAMENT [“I WAS LESS THAN HALF A REFRAIN...</p><p>I was less than half a refrain,</p><p>I was a valley of ice,</p><p>a valley wild with weeds.</p><p>Such troubled sleep my mother would endure</p><p>to muddy the water in the valley,</p><p>the sun like honey,</p><p>the sun like poison.</p><p>Always the horizon, more and more a knife-edge.</p><p>The harp grew</p><p>long and dolorous legs.</p><p>I was less than half a refrain</p><p>and changed places with my bones,</p><p>the sun like honey,</p><p>the sun like poison.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>29</p><p>30 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>CARESSING</p><p>My bed becomes a fragrant glade,</p><p>where summer flowers grow,</p><p>holy plants that reach high</p><p>and slowly bow low.</p><p>My eye becomes a fairy nymph,</p><p>a desert maid, a siren of sea foam,</p><p>ivy with its growing tip tendriled</p><p>on the sterile moon.</p><p>On the ripe bosom, eight starlings</p><p>fluttering their wings,</p><p>beautiful as never to be seen,</p><p>caressing, Caressing.</p><p>translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Poems by Radu Andriescu</p><p>GREEK BLOOD</p><p>Badge believed he had Greek blood in his veins and hence</p><p>the whole world was a fishing boat and the whole of the sky</p><p>a bottle of rum</p><p>the night was a balmy Hellenic one through which you could pass</p><p>in just a shirt</p><p>in shirt sleeves Badge passed through the streets of Iasi while</p><p>the frost</p><p>bit fiercely</p><p>one night while music was dissipating hazily between</p><p>the two undivided rooms of his garret digs</p><p>while I was befriending a vicious runty dog</p><p>his fur half mangy</p><p>more than ugly</p><p>Badge broke the landlady’s sink with an empty bottle of Russian</p><p>vodka</p><p>the bottle had to get broken, the bottle as with the Greeks</p><p>his Greek blood drained from his body to the rotten wood of the</p><p>staircase</p><p>the cur G.G. smelled it and licked it</p><p>outside the cold was doing its utmost and not until much later</p><p>did he come to learn</p><p>that only through a marriage, you understand, only through</p><p>a marriage</p><p>anyway his short Greek life</p><p>had been wonderful</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>32 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE STORY POSTPONED</p><p>In this Part of Town a creature was born</p><p>small and white, a sweet navel</p><p>it began to live</p><p>in an Apartment House, on a Floor, ina Room</p><p>since it was just a kid it shampooed snakes</p><p>or smashed glasses because of tedium</p><p>the tramps in the Neighborhood adored the creature</p><p>the mascot of spume</p><p>they would toss it to the Sky in a carpet</p><p>the Sky was close to the Apartment, to the Garage and Parking Lot</p><p>the Building had a Superintendent but no one gave a damn</p><p>deep below was the Basement and the darkness</p><p>outside were the Shrubs and the Corner -</p><p>everywhere were Mr. Neighbor and Mrs. Neighbor</p><p>Nearby was the Dragon family</p><p>they never had windowpanes in the windows of their Room</p><p>but neither does the Sky</p><p>Next door lived a Secret Police Agent</p><p>at work he had a Swimming Pool guarded by a Soldier</p><p>in the Parking Lot he had a Car</p><p>little by little a story gets pieced together</p><p>but we won’t hear about it here</p><p>because the hours are congregating over this Part of Town</p><p>and it’s getting awfully crowded</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Radu Andriescu 33</p><p>THE THREE SIGNS</p><p>He was dreaming terrifying things:</p><p>it came about that he could see his innards as though displayed on a</p><p>butcher-shop’s counter;</p><p>everything was in place, the kidneys and the liver, the guts and the</p><p>muscles, the eyes, dark spheres in the center of which he sat as in a velvet</p><p>armchair. There were steamy hallways, slippery floors, the coatrack, the</p><p>chest of drawers. There were windows, too — soft, hairy, a metallic black.</p><p>The basement reeked of hate and bile. And the darkness there was dead.</p><p>High in the attic, there still was a hint of warmth. That darkness betrayed a</p><p>few vestiges of life. It’s there he became terrified, in the attic: the signs of</p><p>that</p><p>presence unnerved him. He was munching on the heel of a bread,</p><p>secreting a sticky, silvery trail of slime behind him. He remembered the</p><p>slugs behind the house in the evening, everywhere in the garden, all over</p><p>the walls. He remembered the fustiness of a mildewed shirt, soaked with</p><p>sea water, in a tent. He remembered fabulous, unconquerable paper for-</p><p>tresses. He was tumbling within the velvet eye, plummeting without get-</p><p>ting banged up, sailing higher without reaching any bounds. He was</p><p>frightened and silent. ‘Totally alone. ‘Those traces of life had signs of still-</p><p>ness in every ripple. The water and the cream of fallen chestnuts crushed</p><p>by passing cars frothed the darkness. The waves of the forest of fir trees</p><p>were flinging ashore the petrified bodies of rabbits. The dining-room china</p><p>cabinet, the crystal glasses, the porcelain knickknacks, everything was in</p><p>place, but this failed to comfort him. That yellowish foam flowed through</p><p>all the sewers, along the hallways, down the stairs. It had even reached the</p><p>elevator, or so it seemed. The old neighbor was there, too, in his tattered,</p><p>threadbare smock, his gray undershirt, and his laceless tennis sneakers. He</p><p>had on his beret, and he was standing under the bare light bulb dangling</p><p>from an apple tree, fussing about in the dead of night, fondling the entrails</p><p>of his ancient car. Only a miracle could have moved that car off its blocks.</p><p>And the old man’s house was there, too, the garage converted to a hen-</p><p>house, filled with worn-out car parts and tools, with grain, with cocks. The</p><p>house was covered with newspapers to its peak, even the TV antenna was</p><p>wrapped up. The old man had to push his way through lines of text into</p><p>the house. He would go inside and come out again without leaving a trace</p><p>in those printed stories. That was the most horrific thing, not the old</p><p>man’s decrepitude. He shivered seeing the old codger right there, in the</p><p>darkness, going inside and coming out of the papers again without leaving</p><p>34 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>a trace. Without crumpling history, without crinkling the tiniest corner of</p><p>it. The old biddy in the neighboring yard was there, too, bustling about</p><p>her boiling lye. She would stir the yellow, reeking paste, spawning whirl-</p><p>pools and storms, raising dust in the school yard, scattering candy wrap-</p><p>pers, sticking terror to the brain, the old crone. In her dressing gown, a</p><p>cigarette in her right hand and a piece of liver in her left, among her dogs</p><p>and mink, the old hag coughed and spat. There are recesses where no</p><p>human foot has ever trod. He dreams of reaching there, into those deep</p><p>dead angles, and christening them points of view. He wants to furnish</p><p>them with simple things, like thoughts about life and thoughts about</p><p>death, but most of all thoughts about limits. He’s sprawled out in the</p><p>scoop of the tongue, and the permanent undulation of the muscle lulls him</p><p>to sleep. He dreams he’s sleeping a peaceful sleep, without dreams, with-</p><p>out disturbances. A lock of hair slips down, plunging into the deepest of</p><p>darkness. He dreams that this profound sleep might be the gate to the</p><p>unconquerable fortress. Issuing from the dense lung forest, he reaches the</p><p>shores of the fir-tree ocean. The bracing air, the smell of iodine, the raw</p><p>wounds, carefully wiped clean, swabbed with tincture — all this confounds</p><p>to him. He seats himself on the shore of the ocean, looking at the yellow</p><p>fluttering of the clouds. There’s the carpenter, too, the narrow alley</p><p>between the two wire fences, the cherry tree and the pear tree, the rope-</p><p>and-board swing. The toddler who will soon prove to be an idiot is splash-</p><p>ing in a tin tub. He smells fresh lumber and sun. The pores are opened</p><p>wide, like blossoms. Through them gush the shrill smells: terror, love,</p><p>doubt. The carpenter’s mongrel is barking and wagging the stump of its</p><p>tail. A jerk of the tongue hurls him beyond the probable, into the obscure</p><p>world of endless contemplation. Here, the fir-tree ocean is motionless.</p><p>Only a few scarlet streaks furrow the sky. ‘The pelt of the shore never puck-</p><p>ers in the chill. The entrails are cold and rock-hard, you couldn’t find a</p><p>crack to squeeze through. Here, in a hidden little creek, he finds a fir tree</p><p>loaded with red squirrels. Tomcats swarmed on the ocean floor, among the</p><p>desiccated fir needles. Fat, bushy, lazy, they would cling to the bottom;</p><p>curling in a ball on the ceramic-tile flooring, under the counter, they would</p><p>drowse off in the heady perfume of freshly clotted blood. The squirrels,</p><p>however, swirled in a permanent flux. They would nibble at the pulpy</p><p>hearts of dried fir cones. Inside, Gobelins covered every wall of the house.</p><p>Princesses and Cinderellas. Princes, hunters, and milkmaids. Tomcats and</p><p>fruit. Jesuses, maidens, marquises, ceramic jugs. In the bedrooms and in</p><p>the dining rooms. The skin has the pale violet hue of the twilight sky. The</p><p>blackened capillaries have long ago stopped pulsing. Livor mortis — the</p><p>Radu Andriescu 35</p><p>idea slips palely down his backbone. There, in the delta, ships become</p><p>stranded in the fir needles. The red tomcats clamber though the piles of</p><p>scrap metal, chasing butterflies, sniffing after the caterpillars dangling on</p><p>thin silky threads. The clean white whaling ship is almost nibbled away by</p><p>bees. Far-reaching clots of seagrass stain the shores as far as the eye can see.</p><p>This whole world could cram itself into a briefcase. The drawing teacher</p><p>has found a man for herself. He is wearing an undershirt, too, but his is</p><p>almost white. He doesn’t have a beret, and his car still works. Entire apart-</p><p>ment house floors of children take drawing with Miss. On her desk,</p><p>squeezed tight in its cage of ribs, a gigantic heart. Rigor mortis, whisper the</p><p>kiddies. They clean their brushes in plastic glasses, in jar lids, in little boxes.</p><p>They sketch the heart and giggle: the drawing lesson is their last, maybe</p><p>they'll play football, the boys, or gather together and talk, the girls, until</p><p>their parents come. Their parents will appear in silvery boats, athletic,</p><p>enveloped in auras. The ball comes to a stop in the yellowish foam; these</p><p>words can no longer glide along very well, either. Everything has its end.</p><p>They grab their drawing tablets, their satchels, their soda bottles. They</p><p>dash to the shore, jump into their parents’ boats, set out on the boundless</p><p>ocean. It smells of salt, it smells more of ether. The biology teacher smells</p><p>of formaldehyde. Through the mouth. She’s got toads and rabbits with</p><p>distended bladders. She’s got jars and an absent gaze. She’s got lead in her</p><p>smile. This door is locked. He doesn’t want to open it. He isn’t curious any</p><p>longer. He hasn’t been curious for quite a while, now. He’s almost cold.</p><p>Nearly frozen. Algor mortis, he says to himself, without a great deal of</p><p>regret. He keeps on walking, following only the well-worn paths. He</p><p>dreams without enthusiasm of unknown angles, of brilliant points of view.</p><p>He dreams of a change without caring two bits about it. Algor mortis, he</p><p>says again, and seats himself on the shore. Golden streaks drifting through</p><p>the clouds. And stretching as far as the distant horizon, the biology</p><p>teacher. She seizes him with a rope, or a belt, some kind of extension cord,</p><p>an umbilical cord filled with white acacia honey. She holds him to her</p><p>breast, tenderly. Her breath smells of formaldehyde. She puts him to bed</p><p>among her partly dissected rabbits, among her toads. She picks out for him</p><p>muscle fibers heavy with motion and boldness. She sings him to sleep. She</p><p>kisses his eyes and his mouth. She licks his teeth and his lips. Her immense</p><p>belly is floating high above the fir trees. Her feet reach the whaling ship.</p><p>Clouds of bees spiral from her hair. She is suckling him with sweet acacia</p><p>honey. She forgives him. She forgives his not asking questions. She for-</p><p>gives his coldness, his stillness, his pallor. She draws</p><p>him closer, clutching</p><p>him with her legs, sinking his head deep in the tomcat thicket. She has a</p><p>36 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>jumbo handbag, packed with everything. She lifts him and watches over</p><p>his sleep. He is no longer afraid. All traces of terror have trickled, in silvery</p><p>streaks, to the cement floor. On his loins and his legs, great clots of sea-</p><p>grass start to appear.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Radu Andriescu</p><p>THE NIGHTS IN PANCIU</p><p>On a collective farm in Panciu I climbed with a turkey hen</p><p>to the roof of the canteen</p><p>we looked around it was fantastic I was chortling</p><p>she was clucking, a bit frightened</p><p>she was a white turkey hen</p><p>we could hear voices songs and curses from the dining hall</p><p>the long dormitories next door oozed silence</p><p>on all sides only grapevines I clutched her to my breast</p><p>she was frightened</p><p>she was like a book you open for the first time</p><p>I took her to the canteen I placed her in front of the singers</p><p>her shy movements were more graceful than</p><p>a ballerina’s</p><p>in her whitest tutu</p><p>I took her into the dormitories I swallowed the protests</p><p>she was whiter than the bed sheets</p><p>from the roof of the canteen we’d seen the world together</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>37</p><p>38 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE SOUR CHERRY PIE</p><p>you really know how to make your biscutts</p><p>soft and brown</p><p>mama, dont you know</p><p>— Ty Mahal</p><p>the girl with her hands in the margarine</p><p>was singing a sweet and empty song</p><p>slowly the night streamed through the vent</p><p>and froze the breath</p><p>of the girl with her hands in the margarine</p><p>smiling almost frozen, the girl watched with empty eyes</p><p>the chattering midnight flock</p><p>in the dead of every night —</p><p>the flock which would slice the night into downy</p><p>and black pieces</p><p>like a sour cherry pie</p><p>the chattering flock of migratory</p><p>self-referential lines</p><p>searching for sundry Germanys</p><p>with roads guarded by windmills</p><p>spinning round in the breeze grinding light for the trees</p><p>two small wings</p><p>alliterative and self-referential</p><p>searching for a nesting place</p><p>far away from the girl with her hands in the margarine</p><p>and her town slumbering in the linden-sweet air</p><p>like the gir?’s dream</p><p>the lines go in search of the haughty shadow of the castellan</p><p>from whose manor garden the Danube springs</p><p>— or of his shadowy dream</p><p>Radu Andriescu 39</p><p>however, the culmination of this adventure</p><p>took place nearby when the town awoke</p><p>and threw a dense net of starlings</p><p>over those migratory lines</p><p>commonly known as</p><p>self-referential</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>40 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>HEAVYHEARTED IS THE SONG</p><p>Thad the blues so bad one tume</p><p>it put my face in a permanent frown</p><p>— Ty Mahal</p><p>do you know what he says</p><p>black and drunk</p><p>what glittering clothes he’s thinking about:</p><p>he’s thinking about those days</p><p>when thoughts can go on thinking without restriction</p><p>darkest black and heavy</p><p>and so sad and thick-lipped</p><p>so faraway and heavy</p><p>for so long, so tangled-up he’s thinking</p><p>because she</p><p>she</p><p>dressed in glittering green</p><p>skirts</p><p>spangled</p><p>green</p><p>she feels the rhythm oh down low</p><p>all of it</p><p>beneath her sash</p><p>she feels it all | what an ache</p><p>beneath her sash</p><p>under the gray ash __ like a rumor like the wind</p><p>so down</p><p>so heavy is thought at night when you’re on the move</p><p>and thinking about new digs _ so heavy is thought</p><p>at night</p><p>when you think</p><p>this is what my girl’s thinking about</p><p>and let me say itto you _ let me lay it on you</p><p>for her it’s hard and heavy</p><p>Radu Andriescu</p><p>this is what my girl’s thinking about</p><p>and it’s downright hard for her</p><p>because when my girl’s got no clothes</p><p>when she’s got no new clothes</p><p>both of us feel so down</p><p>so down and both so low</p><p>because when my girl stares in the mirror</p><p>and the mirror, so stark, stares back at her</p><p>and her skin has no sparkle</p><p>and her clothes aren’t green</p><p>aren't sparkling</p><p>then it’s snake-eyes,</p><p>that’s your lie, death says</p><p>but we, we know, next throw</p><p>it’s going to go our way</p><p>then, that’s it, that’s your number, death says</p><p>and we're very</p><p>so very</p><p>happy</p><p>because</p><p>that’s it, that’s your number, death says</p><p>we're very</p><p>so very</p><p>happy</p><p>he says:</p><p>woman</p><p>you've got nothing but trouble in mind</p><p>but she says,</p><p>trouble’s soft as honey</p><p>the honey of words</p><p>she says</p><p>all that the sun gives</p><p>it gives through our garden</p><p>the sun</p><p>41</p><p>42 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>and you know that this light is</p><p>light 1s</p><p>like her or like us</p><p>so sad so lowdown</p><p>like us</p><p>and I don’t care what you tell me</p><p>I pay it no mind</p><p>because</p><p>because</p><p>heavyhearted is the song</p><p>black and beautiful</p><p>epilogue:</p><p>a. diirer is peering like an owl</p><p>a cold green lizard</p><p>he peers</p><p>and my girl’s body freezes</p><p>my girl myegirls body</p><p>freezes</p><p>when a. d. smiles from the drawing on the wall</p><p>that’s yours</p><p>that’s it</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Radu Andriescu 43</p><p>THE WAY IT GOES</p><p>Everybody knows what the blues is all about</p><p>— Gary Moore</p><p>this story no longer is mine</p><p>it’s theirs</p><p>this isn’t her story but rather theirs</p><p>and not really a story</p><p>instead, a sort of migrating</p><p>more or less musical feeling</p><p>that assumes the place of light</p><p>we were dancing stupid dances in the yellowish glare of the gym</p><p>amid the tables and the parallel bars on the wall</p><p>I often walked out to the soccer field</p><p>it smelled sickeningly sweet from linden flowers and she felt nauseous</p><p>the light inside was yellow</p><p>and the lathes silent in the basement</p><p>we were talking about the poet in Cluj in love with the bald</p><p>working-girl</p><p>about the other in love with the waitress at the rotisserie</p><p>and the young wife at the tobacconist’s</p><p>we were a little sick and the air was heavy with linden</p><p>those women always metamorphosed</p><p>into beautiful roses</p><p>the evening was melting all the people on the soccer field</p><p>my short-sleeve green suit</p><p>her Anais perfume</p><p>her large hands and the lathes in the basement</p><p>I was walking home at leisure</p><p>plum brandy and a pack of Gauloises hidden in my pockets</p><p>my hair long and still slicked in place</p><p>passing by the morose blue-eyed principal</p><p>and palming my cigarette</p><p>44 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>and Alin</p><p>in his uniform Alin looked dapper</p><p>mischievous and disrespectful I suggested</p><p>let’s go to the power plant</p><p>I’ve got plum brandy and Gauloises</p><p>but that was a kind of ending</p><p>with lindens and lathes making my girl feel sick</p><p>the music was not music and the day was night</p><p>the parallel bars clung</p><p>yellow against the walls</p><p>we were whirling round and round, so many of us, so sticky</p><p>the past was beautiful the future possible</p><p>the stupid light the mindless music and it felt good and warm</p><p>so warm evenoutside _ on the sports field</p><p>at the drinking fountain</p><p>all our mouths gathered</p><p>on the golden-necked green drinking fountain</p><p>warm water under the linden tree</p><p>a beautiful past and the future possible</p><p>we were trading good-bye gestures over the water in the heat</p><p>feeling somewhat sick</p><p>we were shaping signs with wet and coyly questioning lips</p><p>immersed in cheap or costly</p><p>priceless perfumes</p><p>slightly lost on the sports field</p><p>with the smell of lindens and lathes drifting over our heads</p><p>there we’d played soccer and worn the school emblem</p><p>we hadn’t dared to cut classes</p><p>the air the cement the rope nets</p><p>and the green drinking fountain</p><p>that evening showed me no mercy</p><p>dressed in loathsome green sleeves too short</p><p>Radu Andriescu 45</p><p>with some sort of a tie and highly polished shoes</p><p>hands in my pockets and a distant look in my eyes</p><p>my girl sick with the smell of lindens</p><p>and greasy lathes in the basement</p><p>it was too much even outside</p><p>inside</p><p>inside were the gray-glassed teachers</p><p>the parallel bars useless the tables empty</p><p>and my girl’s hands were bigger than the best music</p><p>but it was warm and her hands grew larger and larger</p><p>they were growing vast and turned threatening</p><p>on two or three floors the glass began melting from longing</p><p>for my</p><p>girl</p><p>and my girl was never the same</p><p>the glass was just the same</p><p>and the sports field</p><p>the green of my suit grew dimmer and dimmer more rapidly than</p><p>the evening</p><p>my tie grew shorter more rapidly than the year</p><p>the drinking fountain kept spitting out water and oblivion</p><p>every morning I get up from the gray down</p><p>and give the clouds and the cold bitter weather a brotherly look</p><p>I know that part of the ending is there</p><p>the other part is to be embraced</p><p>with love</p><p>at the power plant thoughts splintered into lives</p><p>he who held out could have the life of his choice —</p><p>that god was one of warmth and dust</p><p>a perfect god</p><p>my girl had palms so huge that</p><p>words would freeze on her lifeline</p><p>46 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>and blossom there too</p><p>upside-down inside-out</p><p>their roots too much in the air the words drawled out too leisurely</p><p>even feeling sick my girl is applying makeup to her eyebrows</p><p>the colors are those of the night and the night belongs to no one</p><p>this story no longer is mine or the green drinking fountain’s</p><p>it isn’t the night’s or the lathes?</p><p>this story just is</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin with the poet</p><p>Poems by Liviu Antonesei</p><p>WHO?...</p><p>Who 1s silent now, who speaks?</p><p>To whom?</p><p>Cinches of lead stifle the lungs</p><p>in long typographic nights.</p><p>Then beyond. On the blue, chymic flight.</p><p>In the space between worlds, in the fluid and phosphorescent body,</p><p>in the eternal field of alien light.</p><p>(The dawn which comes. Watery dawn in the diencephalon.</p><p>Red triangles dead center in the pupil of our time.</p><p>A continuous buzzing upon our tympanums. Excited</p><p>thoughts, irritated senses.</p><p>And no one comes here, to the utmost floor.</p><p>We're not afraid. We’ve got sharp blades</p><p>of steel, of silver, of copper. Delicate necks,</p><p>strong nails. Soul fully</p><p>at anyone’s disposal.)</p><p>Who is silent now, who speaks?</p><p>And to whom?</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>48 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>RILKE. A DREAM</p><p>Happy the one who — without chyme — can bear sad life</p><p>on his shoulders. He has seen, he has heard, he knows.</p><p>After evil, worse evil. But after good?</p><p>Let’s listen to the bird soaring up from the waves</p><p>of renunciation, let us reach aloft on tiptoe — explosion.</p><p>of the heard, spirit minced small by a jaded machinery. . .</p><p>Great black wings will lift us above everything —</p><p>far, far away in the mist, the city with its metal tower.</p><p>The morning like a quilt sliding from the solitary</p><p>body — a season fit for dying,</p><p>for fear.</p><p>The Greeks, the ancient Hellenes launch the trireme upon the waves.</p><p>Letter lambda, letter alpha still breathe.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Liviu Antonesei 49</p><p>NIGHT LIFE</p><p>The narrow, deserted street snaked round to the American’s</p><p>house. There were three of us. The grimy snow</p><p>scrunched under our soles. . .</p><p>There were three of us — the fourth made his presence felt</p><p>through words of fire, of snow and blood.</p><p>The ancient houses still live under the icy shore of the water.</p><p>The smoke rises in a pillar up</p><p>to the sky.</p><p>But God was not to be found there.</p><p>There were three of us — the fourth let himself</p><p>be sensed in the pure and anarchic air.</p><p>In the night — I remember how the weary flesh</p><p>sheds tears. The word. The wine.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>50 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ARS AMATORIA</p><p>Like strong liquor the night lashes at</p><p>the torpor of arteries, the unregulated beat</p><p>of the heart — interruption of rhythm loneliness and</p><p>dread that you’d no longer be by my side in the night.</p><p>Let me embrace you — disrobed of biographies</p><p>and our individual signs; but the gaze of our eyes alone</p><p>speaks, our palms again breathe their longing</p><p>and we cannot find words for our thoughts,</p><p>nor our hearts all alone and so alive.</p><p>Cancer in this third decade under the sign of Jupiter</p><p>and the lunar stone gleams near the domain</p><p>of the ocean. Colors planets aromas dreams</p><p>are all known to us through the memory of the Great</p><p>Merchandiser of Secrets</p><p>accountant of destinies and of intersecting trajectories</p><p>mortal cheerful and accidental. Let’s give up</p><p>esotericism and theory — thus begins the occult amble</p><p>through the winter of the botanical gardens. Who will discover</p><p>the hidden pathway beneath temporal mountains of snow?</p><p>Like a strong liquor the night lashes at</p><p>the torpor of arteries, the beat of hearts divided</p><p>by the prisons of an irresponsible past, by the imprecision</p><p>of a future which proffers fear but flees.</p><p>Sentenced not to pronounce your name, to shut tightly</p><p>in silence the passage of your hand through your hair, to know</p><p>that nothing is possible, that everything will be atoned for</p><p>in loneliness, silence and fear...</p><p>Cancer in this third decade under the sign of Jupiter</p><p>and the lunar stone gleams near the domain</p><p>of the primordial sign. But now I gaze at you,</p><p>I imagine you while yow’re absent and I shut your face and</p><p>name in the perjurer memory, traitorous and</p><p>evil. Like strong liquor the night lashing</p><p>at the separateness of our bodies. If you weren't...</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Liviu Antonesei yl</p><p>THIRTY</p><p>Passage from thirty-three to thirty —</p><p>in the tunnel of time, towards beginnings,</p><p>in a fiery and clear cavern.</p><p>We have seen one another there once,</p><p>we have known one another. Yes, and also in other places.</p><p>Bodies in violet light. Rediscovery.</p><p>Radha and Krishna. Heavenly shiver.</p><p>Also. Calm fever.</p><p>Also. Gliding on waters.</p><p>Also. A delicate glass which recovers again, in</p><p>my hands, its equilibrium.</p><p>You are as beautiful as death, my reed,</p><p>as beautiful as death and as alive.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>52 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>TIME IS LOVE</p><p>In my arms — thought — my words</p><p>you are malleable wax, a diamond</p><p>that reveals itself. Light of the tunnel, you!</p><p>The pyramid catches hold of our hands.</p><p>We become transparent, we become translucent.</p><p>Alone. I come near you, ascending from time’s</p><p>shadow. Free, free from everything and alone.</p><p>Above the city — fiery halo —</p><p>bodies float void of fear. The future</p><p>becomes present, the present, hope.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Liviu Antonesei 53</p><p>LOVE POEM IN A SOMEWHAT DISTORTED</p><p>NEO-ROMANTIC STYLE</p><p>And if we were to let everything glide by us</p><p>like an express train in the night — the future ahead</p><p>of us wearing the visage of a toilet bow];</p><p>and my hand smashing open the torrid globe of air</p><p>towards the pyre presumed under the sulfurous fabric...</p><p>And then I heard his voice speaking to the disciples:</p><p>“I have emerged from the first mystery, which is</p><p>the last mystery, which is the twenty-fourth,”</p><p>and I have shuddered with awe and felt my entrails turn purple</p><p>and I said to you:</p><p>And if we were to rise above our own bodies</p><p>(naked, tattooed with helium, in chains) and were to</p><p>behold them as in dream — the bodies of two young dead</p><p>in beautiful contrast against the velvet of a putrefying cherry.</p><p>Like a single scream — our thought, instantaneous, opaque,</p><p>starting to clarify, clarifying, clarifying us:</p><p>“We are to die soon, soon we shall die.”</p><p>And the hurried parting — a train to the eastern plain,</p><p>a departure from the station with the soul clenched in my fist</p><p>against the blue vomit outside,</p><p>like rotgut vodka which burns the throat,</p><p>which insinuates itself into veins, arteries, cells,</p><p>which fills the paralyzing void — which puts things off.</p><p>O Acionus, Aeon, Agapé, Agératos, Alétheia, blond bards</p><p>of the Absolute. O, Pistis Sophia!</p><p>But —</p><p>enthusiasm is divided, gets sold, goes flat,</p><p>falls in splendiferous waves of renunciation,</p><p>of boredom...</p><p>Then, remembrance — a unique memory of the body/ thought</p><p>54 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>(a heart with only two communicant chambers</p><p>throbbing in the wilderness like a poisonous pomegranate),</p><p>an iron memory invading everything — the present</p><p>slowly dissolving in the purple glory of remembrance</p><p>and the hand gliding</p><p>gently, gently in sleep toward an</p><p>assassin space and a tender absence. ‘Toward...</p><p>(oh, P’ll not speak now about the unending</p><p>pleasure of crossing Venus’s meadows,</p><p>about the staccato shudder of the velvet surface,</p><p>about the translucent dewdrop waiting in front of</p><p>precious entryway ... )</p><p>But we, we shall rise from our own bodies</p><p>and we shall cross huge expanses of water,</p><p>smoldering gardens of poppies, fields of black hemp,</p><p>forests of pine and sequoia, endlessly smoking</p><p>highways, silences and rhymed proverbs — we shall exhaust</p><p>everything.</p><p>O, Pistis Sophia!</p><p>666 eyes stare at us like one lightning bolt of flesh</p><p>666 mouths chew at our hearts with gingerly greed</p><p>666 voices sing through the night the red choir of public scorn.</p><p>But we, we shall make our way everywhere, everywhere</p><p>we shall break through,</p><p>everywhere we shall pay a thousandfold —</p><p>in the clay hut of the fisherman, in the reed hut of the fields,</p><p>in the caravaning fairs of the past,</p><p>in empty hospitals, in lunatic asylums, in prisons . . .</p><p>We'll thumb our noses at the petty bourgeois animal</p><p>(oh, how he scrambles to the top in order to address us</p><p>with his rusty magnetic vocal cords).</p><p>We'll defy him in his own house, we’ll tickle him underneath</p><p>his beard,</p><p>we'll seduce his children in accordance with a plan designed for</p><p>every eventuality,</p><p>Liviu Antonesei 55</p><p>we'll steal his goods away for the grand ball —</p><p>Mr. Bulgakov’s masked ball —</p><p>and we'll go further, to vast oneiric spaces,</p><p>out of our recurrent fear of the eternal return.</p><p>(Interlude: seven bars from Mozart’s Requiem to be heard.)</p><p>Eve’s gone. Mary shows up: “. . . and there was Mary Magdalene,</p><p>and the other Mary.”</p><p>O, Euthymésis, Epinoia, thrice Epiremon, and again thrice,</p><p>and again thrice!</p><p>We shall find one another again on the deserted beach, on</p><p>the neurotic shore</p><p>of the sea, with the green music resounding on our eardrums</p><p>like a virgin pipe organ.</p><p>So peaceful then shall we be, two bodies lying at peace</p><p>on the warm sand,</p><p>with sea foam hardened upon our ankles and eyes open</p><p>(immutable) toward the wide floor of the water.</p><p>(... but I was on a high mountain, and I could</p><p>see a woman, a beautiful woman of diamond,</p><p>and I could hear a voice like a storm, so I drew</p><p>near to listen and she said unto me: “I am you</p><p>and you are me, and wherever you are, there am</p><p>I, and I have been sewn as seed everywhere in</p><p>all things. And if you want to, you shall come</p><p>to resemble me, and if you come to resemble</p><p>me, if you seed me, you shall become the sem-</p><p>blance of yourself”</p><p>— apocryphal fragment of the Panarion)</p><p>A lone mouth.</p><p>A huge eye.</p><p>A profound cancer digging at the world’s foundation.</p><p>Sheaves — crystal flowers, “flowers white and red,”</p><p>56 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>growing out from our bodies like</p><p>throbbing, living magma. . .</p><p>Darling, Japanese gardens shall we be. It’s time for us to believe.</p><p>It’s time. An impalpable rhythm is everywhere in everything.</p><p>It’s time to believe. Cold food for the journey</p><p>shall we be — in the scaly, slippery belly</p><p>of the Leviathan.</p><p>And if we wanted to rise, rise above our naked bodies,</p><p>tattooed with helium, in chains, and were to</p><p>behold them as in dream — the bodies of two young dead</p><p>in beautiful contrast against the velvet of a putrefying cherry. . .</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Liviu Antonesei EWE</p><p>COLD’S DUE</p><p>How can the body’s breathing be a path</p><p>to perfection? Or all its exercises . . .</p><p>Cold surrounds me this crystalline</p><p>night — silk of the scaffold</p><p>on which I learned to lose my confidence in the direct</p><p>journey of blood in the arteries.</p><p>Therefore the unknown face of the Montevidean</p><p>wandering everywhere in the memory of an untouchable splendor —</p><p>and the words thump into each another in a game</p><p>where no one keeps score.</p><p>Dance of words without a body. Or with another body.</p><p>That’s it — the knife blade of an iconoclastic idea</p><p>missing (at what time?) its target.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana leronim</p><p>58 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>IN MY NATIVE LAND</p><p>In my native land where some have bread</p><p>but others hold the knife, and a rustless</p><p>chain of interest links the one to the other,</p><p>in my resplendent and sad country,</p><p>I’m an aged raven, wingless,</p><p>an inconsequential pariah with a white star of distinction on his</p><p>forehead,</p><p>a bottomless vessel into which all would vomit —</p><p>all — their bile and powerlessness, their hatred.</p><p>And since in my land</p><p>I fear nothing,</p><p>and since in my land nothing</p><p>can happen to me except my hopeless</p><p>love of Mary,</p><p>I suddenly feel overwhelmed with unfamiliar joy,</p><p>by unbounded happiness in my heart’s</p><p>thought, by limitless ecstasy</p><p>like death in gold and blood. Like radiance of flesh.</p><p>So, in my native country of murdered thoughts,</p><p>of guilty silence, humble elation within,</p><p>I admit responsibility and affix my signature hereunto —</p><p>Liviu Antonesei.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Poems by Emil Brumaru</p><p>THE CUPBOARD</p><p>Dim cupboard, in you an angel burns</p><p>Blossoming from the coffee grinders</p><p>Dreaming of round peppercorns, sugar cubes,</p><p>Yet no one suspects your mysteries.</p><p>Fathomless eggs with noon in fragile shells</p><p>Silently you hide the smells which you forgive,</p><p>Sweet saucers with the soul a rose,</p><p>All perfume beside the great, still fish.</p><p>But at nightfall every shadowed niche</p><p>Shivers with dread at the robber beetles!</p><p>Where is the subtle, the tender key</p><p>‘To break the inertia in which you lie?</p><p>In order first to hear what time will bring,</p><p>And if the knives gossip of sour apples,</p><p>And whether water’s heart, gently raised from cups,</p><p>On your shelves, sacred cupboard, is shimmering.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>60 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>ELEGY</p><p>Oh, old and familiar kitchens of summer,</p><p>Once again my mouth savors the succulence of noon,</p><p>And in the sadness that looms around me everywhere</p><p>My childhood dreams its dreams again.</p><p>Peppers roasted on the stove, sticky juniper,</p><p>Thick fish asleep in milky sauces,</p><p>‘Turkeys basking in their juices through the night</p><p>Steeped in an infinite delicacy,</p><p>Mushrooms big as sofas, trimmed in lace,</p><p>Slimy-grained caviar with gaping eye,</p><p>Upholstered doughs bulging and bloated</p><p>In the angelic ignorance of dumb beasts,</p><p>Soft hearts of liver in tiny casks</p><p>Of snail egg, basted with sweet tears,</p><p>Ethereal mayonnaises of garlic, svelte hams</p><p>When deep in mustard the soul gives itself to rest,</p><p>And in kettles revealing its eminence</p><p>‘Through the iridescence and filigree handles</p><p>Of the tea distilled to splendid essence,</p><p>The rosy elixir of the thing in itself.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p><p>Emil Brumaru 61</p><p>NAIVE SONG</p><p>To be anonymous like a plump pumpkin</p><p>And the svelte, devil-may-care ravishers</p><p>Of the souls of maidens, hidden deep within.</p><p>On rubber balls, to pen love letters. ‘Then</p><p>At dawn to clap hands in the sparkling dew</p><p>Soaked through by destiny to the skin.</p><p>Poets, a smile as of trepidation</p><p>Coolly promenades on the avenue.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Rodica Albu</p><p>62 City of Dreams and Whispers</p><p>THE SECOND ELEGY OF THE DETECTIVE ARTHUR</p><p>Oh, if only we could hide from the world deep within</p><p>the old wardrobe</p><p>Filled with jackets and dresses from the cavernous dining room,</p><p>When afternoon turns the mind into plush and blur</p><p>And in the corners lost buttons pray eternally to endure . . .</p><p>Everybody would suppose we’d eloped from too much love...</p><p>Only your tender-hearted tomcats would know our terrible secret</p><p>And they'd bring clandestine oranges, rolling them</p><p>For us to eat in our pleasure, curled up beneath a coat...</p><p>And later, if it pleased you to go outside in the twilight’s</p><p>subdued glow,</p><p>Shaking a blue syphon we’d become so deeply sad</p><p>That, astonished by all the things gathered in the bitter light,</p><p>We'd hide once again under the immense mahogany bed.</p><p>Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim</p>
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