The efficiency room days were
the worst and the best.
Broke and bent,
sick and deranged.
Disheveled dreams, like
horses with broken legs.

There was an occasional
miracle.
A forgotten five-dollar
bill crumpled in the
front pocket of some *****
jeans, lying by the fake
plant and a copy of Hamsun's
Hunger, long overdue from
the library.
The fiver would buy a
pint of cheap *****.
My nerves settled for a
moment.

Friends seem to drift
away by the month.

"Where's Johnny?"

"He froze down at the Raccoon River."

"Oh ****, he was always good for a snort."

"Have you seen Sue lately?"

"The cirrhosis finally took her."

"*******, I used to get drunk and
tell her I loved her, while she gave me head."

Poverty and death drank with us in
those cheap rooms,
Singing sad songs and songs
of victory.
Battles were won and lost
and great debates waged in our
addled minds.
We took care of each other the best
we knew how.
Life was just a myth.

I found her in the vapor of a summer dream
She was standing in the door to Paradise
When I asked if I could see her in the sunlight
Her laughter matched the sparkle in her eyes.

Her smile was like a sunlit pond at twilight.
Her eyes resembled sapphires at high noon.
Her hair was like a swirling touch of midnight.
Her voice as sweet as birdsong heard in June.

Her appearance gave me cause to stop and wonder
If who I saw was really standing there
Or was it just my wild imagination
Creating loveliness from smokey Summer air.

I crept a careful step or two towards her
My pulse was pounding madly in my throat
She frowned at me then edged a little backwards-
And suddenly between us was a moat.

There was no bridge or any walkway over.
She was securely on the other side.
It seemed as though she couldn't let me join her
She made that clear no matter what I tried.

I wrote a note of love on parchment paper
And sailed it to her in a little boat
She reached down to fetch it from the water
And read while lumps were forming in my throat

She tucked the folded note into her *****
And wiped a forming teardrop from her eye
She smiled and then she sadly whispered to me
The only word I feared - it was Goodbye.

The moat became a little stream of water
The doorway, two tall Jacaranda trees
The paradise that somehow she had come from
Transformed to smoke, soon taken by the breeze.

And I was left alone to stand and wonder
If everything I’d seen was truly there
Or was this just a middle-aged delusion
Providing me a thrilling tale to share.
ljm

I often forget my name
and do not always
finish my dreams
Every morning I give away
baked bread
in desolate streets
The world has been deserted
for an eternity
Instead of churches I build
a new heart
that has now walls

by Ionut Calota, translated by Lidia Vianu

I could see myself as I truly am.
what would I see???