this feeling that keeps me alive, cauterized by light. the silence of silence is yet possible in the sonority of clouds and the delight of roots. the discreet spaces of time finding a voice, some harmonic highlights. it's not only the moon that gives meaning to void, fullness empties itself into the screaming of colour. almost here, almost there everything scatters, conjoines, rejoices  regurgitated by dreams. seeing with your heart an homage to the interconnectedness of life. I pass through you, you pass through me for a moment as short as a breath. our hands leave behind a trace of something, a roaring heart attuned to herself

She was a girl with oceans inside her,
waves made of dreams too fragile to hold.
But the world is indifferent —
it pulls, it drowns, it takes,
leaving salt in the wounds it never cared to see.
Her tides fought back, rising, crashing, begging to be enough,
until exhaustion felt like peace.
Now she floats—not sinking, not swimming—just there.

I stared at my monstrosities, I looked them in the eye, swimming in pools of ink.

Silent in their darkness, I spoke.

“I forgive you,” I whispered, breaking their unyielding gaze.

They reached for me,
a single claw, then many, tangled into a mess of limbs and bone.

Pulled into an embrace, thorny vines twist around me, their eyes lock on mine.

Resistance made the vines tighten,

I welcome them inside

Our embrace into melting and melting into growth,

creation

I stared into the mirror expecting to see a monster,

but all I saw standing before me was human,
flesh and blood,

and darkness too.

The temple bell stops -
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.

Matsuo Basho

night rests her weight on my shoulders
the cry of seagulls tears the unconscious of morning
I see what I need to see, the stranger in me
I absorb crises, storms, bridges,
life's torment  to invent its limits
the differance - the forgotten passion of language
the effete and the barbarian.
the sun also rises unhindered
on wheat plantations

last night I dreamt the Authority of dreaming
I had to send a petition so they tell me how to end the dream.
dreams do no harm when they keep their innocence
between innocence and experience a handful of pebbles
to help find our way in the blinding light

words transcend themselves in that land without atmosphere:
the atoms of seconds colliding in my tissues
they arrive  in a living body with her inaudible pulses
the cry of an owl defies the noise without depth: the city descends into the nocturnal abrogation of its chimera
a sudden ripple in the density of flesh, this moment reveals its round edges,  the full potential of a feeling to mould itself into an acustic tenderness
fugitive thoughts denounce their orbit in a vertical intensity
an asymmetric perspective captures my hands : time is poetry. poetry, the descent into a living anarchy, an elusive certainty.
love, a mirror reflecting myriad forms & the insistence of stones. stones, the endurance of time caught up in its excitement,
a pulse untranslatable into other than oneself.

Lord, how much life can reside in a tree?
I don’t even know his name, but then
I write down my poems every day
On pieces of paper made from his skin.

He has witnessed my winter tears
And I have enjoyed his blossoms when it’s warm
Even though my window, looking to the sky,
Doesn’t reach as far as his outstretched arms.

When I’m in pain, he
Sings my tribulations.
Even then, between us
There’s a silence so enormous
That it takes in everything
From madness to desperation:
Blasphemy, the miracle above,
Prayer and a cry of love.

Sometimes, after ages of this silence between
Us, a single leaf falls down. And then,
Without knowing why, or what the cost,
A grateful universe learns by heart
What it’s lost.

by Ana Blandiana, translated by Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea

You were so absent while washing
your face in the morning, you never saw
how the linden in the courtyard reached a limb
through the bathroom window and shook
sticky seeds into your hair. Your hair grayed
in this working class neighbourhood you’d heard
already as a child smelled like a ruined life.
The turrets of the little Russian church
once looked so fragile to you – you wanted
to feed them carrots from your hand
and croutons. Your heart was alive.
Your heart was like an iodine rain
over a crowd of crushed heads.

By Dan Sociu, from Sentimental and Naïve Poetry, translated
by Oana Sanziana Marian

You make it simple
You make it so so easy
To deprive myself of love
And hate everything about me

You make it minimal
You make it so so easy
To turn off my tears
And to hold it in fiercely

You make it innocent
You make it so so easy
To fall off my rocker
And lose sight of clarity

You make it quick
You make is so so easy
To hurl up my meals
And to punish my body

You make it humorous
You make it so so easy
To cut off every friend
And isolate reality

You make it effortless
You make it so so easy
To doubt everything I say
And to call myself crazy

When things seem easy
You don't tend to ask for help
But you make it a little too easy
To completely destroy myself

Maybe it adds up, the things we wish to ignore
And we see it set in all at once
The worst case scenario happens
and I knew it from the get go
I felt relief rushing in
That I didn't die as it happened
Like I can still breathe in
and find ways to sort the issue
It multiplies, the level of the next thing to come
I cannot believe how much this human
Is made to see in one lifetime
The limits to be taken further
One panic to other, one escalation to another
All it adds up to high blood pressure
And one day I will completely disappear
Without a care and no thought to spare.

time is circling its core like a villain
streets are running under my feet
is that the inflamed sky

call me your fortune teller, disaster, whatever
I condemn you to the bestiary of my clarity
you'd better make up  another camouflage or transparency,
a savage new name for devilry each day

you smile an unfiltered smile,
like a Sisyphus of tease and play

the rawness of things suspended in the air
an invisible hand pushes the hours through us into the compost and delight of memory
I don't have words for tomorrow, only your name today and warm tears.  I was born into a dead language so
I have this detector for the silence of windows, it sneaks in my lungs
pain is offline, the dark swallows itself
no wonder last night I dreamt a girl in a blue kimono
-you are my hiroshima, I breath like a prehistoric fish-
she was smiling to something only she could see.
love, this prehistoric wonder,
a fragile skin of this weary world

She dyed her hair pink & green.
Most people want her not to be heard or seen.
A girl too ignored to be a normal teen.
A syringe has collapsed the
creativity in her soul.
Everyone criticizes this rebel Queen.
Yet they all wonder why she can't behave.
They don't see her trying to be brave.
The taunting has made tradition seem foolish.

She shouldn't find peace in cutting.
God needs to heal the scars in her soul.
Everyone should pray for her and not
give her sour advice.
People give her warm stares that turn into ice.
This could freeze her dreams.
She stands in blue jeans with ripped up seams.
Hardships muffle her screams.
An Orphan needs a home without
moving boards or beams.
Everythings make believe in her
mind because no one ever takes the time.


Will God give someone the courage
to look at her ignored heart.
She doesnt want to be on a statistics chart.
Her appearance begs for filial love to start.
Change her but don't tear her apart.
Her creativity shouldn't be choked
like kudzu in a flower garden.
Tattooing is her preferred art.
She needs to learn to use it
in other ways besides tearing
out the car breaks.
Love turns into tragedy because
everyone leaves.


Shes been ignored.
Her feelings have been stored.
Tears have not been answered.
Smiles are forced.
Permanent homes are highly priced.
God needs to change their hearts.
Please don't judge her
by the rebal Facade.
Someday she will be loved because
theres more to her than just pink and
green dye.