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incubator
technological mother
wi-fi our blood vessels
to your eternal link
make us passionate machines
symbiotic connections
programming a love
continuously on update
in lieu of heartbreak
in lieu of heartbreak
in lieu of heartbreak
in lieu of...
fail
buffering
abort
retry
error
~
Moonlit angels keep turning the wheels of the universe

In conversations with God, they placed the Sun precisely in the centre

Alarum and escapement keep the gear train moving forth:

Astronomical clock, armillary sphere, lunar phases in sidereal time

All patterns of evidence -- releasing our impulses, advancing our hands

~
~
A blood promise
On the threshing floor
--a strand named Skull of Sidon.

The sunset passage
No longer a place for them,
The acceptance of absolute negation
Remedios the beauty.

Saint Fishermen churn in the waves
Crushing grapes from the estate,
Even the girl with the silver eyes,
Only then will their house be blessed.

Women uncharted,
But prisoned on watery shore,
Hum a silent prayer.

This is atonement day,
May grace be with them
In all the days ahead.

~
It's everybody's job.

Détente, rollback, middle-ground.

Working it until an internal weakness is found.

Surround the town with wire.

Eventually their voices will tire.

It does not work with fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to the logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.

For this reason, it can easily withdraw—and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point.
From the 'Checklist Before Commencing on a Dream.'

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4793791/checklist-before-commencing-on-a-dream/
~
Listen for the sirens
I'm on a highway
Along the perpendicular streets

Having escaped my killer
There's blood on the windshield
There's blood on my thoughts

The rush of song
I've experienced it all
Yet this is only track four

The night wind slices through
A fracture in me
Two sides of me
Must push on and away from here

Is there something happening
Inside that causes it all to melt?
To stick to the sidewalk?

To form into a river of transfiguration?

~
~
September 2025
HP Poet: irinia
Age: 47
Country: Romania


Question 1: We warmly welcome you to the HP Spotlight, irinia. Please tell us about your background?

irinia: "I live in a country with a difficult past, I have complicated memories of the XXth century. I studied foreign languages and literatures (English & German), British cultural studies, psychology and psychotherapy. I worked as a cultural journalist for some time, and as an English teacher for a decade. I love working as a psychotherapist, it is a humbling honour to get to know and be with people in a profound way. I am the mother of a spirited teenage daughter whom I am in love with. I am a highly sensitive person which is a blessing and a curse because I am often times moved by life in an intense way. I am from the Balkans so my taste in everything is rather eclectic."


Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

irinia: "I wrote my first poem as a teenager, and I’ve been writing since then discontinuously, whenever poetry came to me. There were periods of intense writing and also long periods of silence. It was difficult to see myself as a poet until relatively recent. On HP I've been since 2010 or 2011, I am not sure, I have to check my first post. This site and the community supported me to keep writing. I owe to HP the existence of my book of poetry called "Psychic retreat" published by Europe Books last year. Thank you Eliot for keeping HP running and thank you to all of you for keeping HP alive. I witnessed this community changing, growing, descending into chaos sometimes. I enjoy the diversity of styles."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

irinia: "I am inspired by everything that moves me, especially people, stories, the natural world, history. Poetry simply happens to me, words and images start pouring down in my mind, so I just write them down as they come. I don’t rewrite or work with conscious intention on any poem because I don’t have time to be a „serious“ writer, who has the discipline and toil of writing. At some point poetry started coming to me in English, perhaps because my readings were mostly in English. I think poetry is a way of containing or transforming my emotional processes as for me poetry happens in the presence of feelings, and I am also observing a tendency to be more reflexive or abstract as if when I write there is a witness inside. I feel more and more that I am interested in writing about politics and society too."


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

irinia: "It means a lot, I am afraid it is difficult to capture it into words. The poetry of other people touches me deeply, fascinates me, gives me the feeling of awe. It was my constant companion, it was a mirror, I found out about myself through resonance with other poets. Poetry captures the depth of life, our dreams, struggles, aspirations, our joy and our pain, creates alternative worlds from words. It captures the pulse of inner reality while it also mystifies it. It is a space of freedom and play for me. It is a protest. It is an attempt at destroying and recreating the world captured in normal language and used concepts. It is perhaps a measure of our humanity, vulnerability, resilience."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

irinia: "I will start with William Shakespeare as I love his use of language and wit. I love Japanese haiku poetry, their ineffable simplicity is mesmerizing. There are many poets that I adore: Rumi, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, Pablo Neruda, Charles Bukowski, William Blake, Robert Browning, T.S. Elliot, the English and German Romantic poets, Nichita Stănescu (Romania), Ana Blandiana (Ro), Florin Iaru (Ro), Mircea Cărtărescu (Ro), Ioana Ieronim (Ro), Gellu Naum (Ro), Nora Iuga (Ro), Paul Celan, Mary Oliver, David Whythe, Anne Sexton, Tibor Zalan (Hungary), Jean-Pierre Siméon (a wonderful poet), Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Ana Akhmatova, Viktor Neborak (Ukraine), Marjana Savka (Ukraine), Hrytsko Chubai (Ukraine), John O’Donohue, Rachel Bluwstein, Yehuda Amichai, Nathan Zach, Wislawa Szymborska (Poland), Mahmud Darwish (Palestine), John Donne, Friedrich Hölderlin, Reiner Maria Rilke, Joseph Brodsky, Marina Tzvetaeva, Octavio Paz, Garcia Lorca, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Primo Levi."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

irinia: "I love art in all forms, it moves me and it bemuses me, it stimulates my creativity. I love photography and taking photos, I attended courses in my youth. I am fascinated by cosmos and cosmology, I love physics. I love stand-up comedy, music, dancing, hiking on the mountains. I am interested in history, I am fascinated by the becoming of the world. I am fascinated by the individual and collective psyche, I think this is something that has left a mark on my poetry."


Carlo C. Gomez: “We would like to thank you irinia, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”

irinia: "Many thanks to Carlo for this series and to you all for being here!"




Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know irinia better. We most certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez

We will post Spotlight #32 in October!

~
finally this moment is here, I've been watching
and waiting, I've been hearing it all along
in between your words, in the center of the stories
you tell so eloquently, so clever, so wise

there is light in your right eye, some shadow in your left eye
the evening light is sweetly illuminating the magnitude of loneliness
some feelings need at least two people in order to be bearable

you sat and listened you looked deeper into your body
language receded, obscured itself like the moon
sometimes there is no need for words
something more important needs to be created
in between bodies and minds,
the flow of connection, of true partnership

the waves started, the waters of loneliness surfaced
you cried your tears and I cried mine
as I listened to the silence of tears I understood: this was the moment for a few simple words: I see you, I am here
there is no falling deeper than this for now
truth, this scarry creature, was there in your flesh and mine
your loneliness was like a sea without horizon but the shiver of depth  like a voice without screaming, a bird without flight

perhaps this tango with tears will fill your lungs with innocence
as you imagine a new horizon, a new architecture for happiness
This is a series of poems about meeting people, about how people pass through my body, my heart and my mind.

"Thus, if a resistance is in operation, it indicates that one is experiencing his or her thoughts or feelings as a danger."
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