“The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.”*

to O. F.

Maybe your soul is a kite right now
as I am writing on the kitchen table and
winter orchids are  earnestly blooming,
May you be peaceful in the final womb
Dostoyevsky wrote about you, the humble one -

There is a hole now in the shape of morning
I can't find you smelling pears anymore.
Only my eyes filled with dust over your casket
You hid your dreams so deep,
devouring oblivious dreams
She poisoned her milk and
that's how you learned to deny
all the streets you never went.
spring sun used to find you listening
to the solitude of trees, while the seasons were recycling your shyness.
Somehow you didn't notice the light slowly descending
into the green chaos, or just the old mundane hatred,
the embrace of a disavowing (d)evil.

- this poem could be full of the noisy blindness of life
of crushed dignity and helplessness
I want to find the right letters to write
only two impossible words: pure heart-

Farewell delicate soul,
You have died enough
.

You pass through light searching for me.
From the way you don't see me
not even when I take the shape of a cry,
I understand that your supreme triumph will be death.
Despair is an empty space
in which no one meets no one.
Despair is an autumn in which
the highest peaks are strangling each other.
Where can you be?
It's as though my days have slipped away
in a shrill season
of no one,
and no one can recall
what light flashed across their faces.

Carmelia Leonte from *City of Dreams and Whispers

Too many days come seek their past within me
I reach out my hand towards your face and it draws back.
I reach out my hand towards your heart and it stops.
I mustn't speak.
Who knows what secret code
what signals meant for death
I might disclose.

And your face.
And the vision of this hand.
And the way you're removing yourself.
And the image -
vertical as a scream.

Carmelia Leonte from *City of Dreams and Whispers

I used to love his dark T-shirts
such that
words in my language turned into hieroglyphs
nor, cer, dor
there were some dreams about
myself as a she creature
who didn't know the difference
between body and soul
endings and beginnings
his blood was unstoppable
foretelling my future
oblivious of all the serious things
like deserted crossroads, eager pensions or
sand storms on Mars

he promised my death to me
like a haiku:
more core less sore
happy woman
poppies in the wind

So then, let's take the Foraminifera.
They lived, since they were, and were since they lived.
They did what they could since they were able.
In the plural since the plural,
although each one on its own
small limestone shell.
Time summarized them later
in layers, since layers,
without going into details,
since there's pity in the details.
And so I have before me
two views in one:
a mournful cemetery made
of tiny eternal rests
or,
rising from the sea,
the azure sea, dazzling white cliffs,
cliffs that are here because they are.

Wislawa Szymborska from Here New Poems
translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh

For the kids the first ending of the world.
For the cat a new Master.
For the dog a new Mistress.
For the furniture stairs, thuds, my way or the highway.
For the walls bright squares where pictures once hung.
For the neighbors new subjects, a break in the boredom.
For the car better if there were two.
For he novels, the poems - fine, take what you want.
Worse with encyclopedias and VCR's,
not to mention the guide to proper usage,
which doubtless holds pointers on two names -
are they still linked with the conjunction "and"
or does a period divide them.

Wislawa Szymborska from Here New Poems
translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh

A gale
stripped all the leaves from the trees last night
except from one leaf
left
to sway solo on a naked branch.

With this example
Violence demonstrates
that yes of course -
it likes its little joke from time to time.

Wislawa Szymborska from *Here New Poems

Innocent mother,
Like a tree you brought me forth,
When you were praying for pardon
                                                   on your knees,
When unquenched fires were burning you
And the strands of life bound you
                                                    more tightly.

I was neither for you
                                         peace,
Nor the olive bough,
Nor against pain --
Sweet unbinding.
I did not understand how to bring wise answers,
Nails I nailed
                           into your palms, on the cross.

Blameless mother,
Passing mother,
Pallid light,
The thought pains me badly
And time does not give me relief.

Flavia Cosma from *Wormwood Wine

Speak to me of the wave of longing
That broke against you,
Pressuring your forehead,
Narrowing your narrow street,
Beating on your palms,
                                         America.

Your eyes remain unclosed,
Looking-glass and sea,
For the dream with claws.

Fairy bird,
arching bird,
Sweet enchantress,
Envied by throngs.

"And you who ask about me everywhere,
By now don't you know that I am death?"

Flavia Cosma from Wormwood Wine
translated by Don Wilson with the author

with carnivorous eyes without a center
he's secretly moulding the void from behind
too many interrupted gestures
he's afraid we're going to laugh at his naked ****
he has sensitive dreams and nervous fingertips
such is the pain not kidding that he starts misspelling
his name
passionate like a colt, like a murderous silence
he doesn't mind he is a fragment
waiting to be taken somewhere
beyond
to an unknown love

sit down beside me for a while
even if it hurts
there are packs of stray dogs in my mother's smile
nothing's gonna hurt my father's fists
darkness comes with soft paws and no affection after ******
they refused their bodies such
that I had to not lose sight of the corpse of morning
I caught my eyes simply falling
waiting for the birds of prey
to tell their truth in our cage
what does it mean, you know, to have a soul

sit down beside me for a while
in this impossibly empty room
our flesh needs words

portraits in sepia crowding the table
no mirror path, no sugar
we drink our coffee black
deserted roads are blossoming in our eyes
under the table - disgust
some well disguised hatred
dinner is never served
cause the cubists reinvented the atom
I stay by the window counting widow-days
wondering
how many motherless women
can teach their children what to say
to the never day

'Traum ist des Besuchers Schaum'

love,
imposition,
matryoshka dolls
sore cage-ribs
stories are replayed,
everywhere crossroads with no signs

we cross each other
heads are heavy like pumpkins in the sun
hearts weary of keeping hope alive
I recompose myself within the confinement of sunrise
falling falling further further down
to the anarchy of living
the seduced seducer, the ripped ripper
the air collapses on collars, lapels

we all visit the fountain of thirst
secretly

they still want to learn what love is
the visitors with hurricane hearts and hungry hands
the trainers of dyeing darkness

dog days are over
healing hands are genuine and humble
he finally feels the lightness of the heartbeat

(I no longer look like a fool to you...
yes, you!)

the skin of morning heavy
on windows, floors & mugs
blue-eyed wolves trace the scent
the fragility of life in indifferent forests
uncovered shoulders near the wind
slowly absorb the horizon, the new common sense
dozens killed killed killed
killed by bombs, cars,  trucks, guns, knives
hatred grows like mislettoe
the sky an endless empty whole
the same heresy errected with fresh blood

a winter born forgetting
some hands without fingers
some children cry
some wounds have no cover
the blanket of darkness sweet
hate grows like mislettoe, remember

it must be that
I woke up on the wrong side of the
moon hide tonight

If only, if only a small red fish would come
  show his golden eyes above the apathetic ocean and ask me
to make three wishes, to have three dreams I can’t come up with one

If only, if only the tides would come, burning
  to wash us off the shore, to take us, wrap us
and bury us like amnesiac seeds in its warm *****, its vast womb

If it came as an enormous face, a shining face
  to look us in the eye, to draw us into its blinding mirror,
to make us press our mouths to its vast lips, and into its huge blue eye
  retreat and rest...

If only, if only something, someone, anything, anyone would come,
    a ray of dark apocalyptic light, an effervescent narcotic toxin,
a new shiver, a new anxiety, a leap into a different world,
    if only there could be another man, another wisdom, a new thought
to think us all          to deliver us from ourselves, to abolish us

and we cease, universe, souls, if only we could endure the birthing pain

to sleep... die... sleep... to rise again into Imagination...

Magda Carneci from *My Cup of Light

this is my city, all mine.
the houses, transparent, have no doors
and i see myself inside them all.
i walk down the streets, the streets are alive,
they change shape, keep taking me
somewhere else.
i come to a bridge: the other bank doesn’t exist,
there’s nothing beyond the bridge.
i’m looking for the church, i can’t find it —
the church is liquid and it flows.
a few dogs are running towards the still-bleeding,
still-beating, heart of an angel.
it’s neither day nor night —
there’s only the fascinating ray of death, shining.
a huge word is hurled from the skies,
smashes us to pieces
me and my city.

**Gabriel Chifu

Its baroque eyelashes still obscured
By the vapid, nocturnal turmoil,
My city rises from sleep in the morning,
To the acrid smell of taverns
Opened too early,
Where garrulous, ***** drunks
Resume their heated quarrels.

My city awakens at dawn,
In the suave perfume of flowers clouded by dust;
Those tender, resigned cupolas, waiting
For the midday summer sun, to ooze over them.

Bent backs and furrowed foreheads,
Large crowds trotting on the sidewalks,
Greet each other absent-minded, on the fly,
Hurrying on, forgetting their pitiable heritage, their history,
When, thirsty for blood, their ancestors,
Greedily slaughtered each other,
―In the name of mother country and of different Gods―,
Under the shadows of rival cathedrals.

It took me a long time to be able to discern
The time corroded voice of my city,
But today I understand its madness and its error;
I cross it lovingly, with a lithe step,
And I am saddened by the sight of lifeless, white kittens,
Lying on the pavement, snuffed out by the spirits of the night,
Red poppies blossoming from their muzzles,
In the morning light.

Flavia Cosma from * Bucharest Tales

we knock on the doors for them to open, to
let us out, but those on the other side don't hear us and
they too knock on the doors for us to open and let them out
and when they open it's ourselves we bump into
but we don't pay attention to ourselves and we say we want out
and they say we want in, don't take the door away with you,
we wouldn't have anything to open on the way out,
there would remain a blank spot in the wall,
we won't find any way to get out.

Ioan Es. Pop** from *The Livid Worlds

forests remain, farther and farther away from us.

only streets, houses
accompany me
like a fingernail on an exhausted hand
wherever i might stop, everywhere,
pain is my compass

always, along this way

forever unwalked
given back to me

the scent of roses in the garden
the waters flooded long ago, belated
tenderness, time
besieged by
time

everything goes by so easily.
life. so easily
was i
forgotten

Andrei Zanca  from *My Cup of Light

This sacred sadness of the clouds
painted on the window pane.
This end of a century
splashed all over the walls!
The evening flowing down streets like heavy water...

...Who opened these windows in our foreheads,
who built these
secondary doors in our chests?
I walk inside me as if in a diseased season.
I hear mother’s voice from beyond the dark wall:
Why are you here,
why have you come back?
Go, out with you while there is still time.

I hear my elder brother’s voice as if muffled by water:
Get out of this light as soon as you can
and leave me alone
to breathe in my own shadow...

Whose faces are preserved here,
in this putrid evening light?
What season are a thousand
cut-off heads waiting for?
Whose arms will be sown in the field,
whose teeth will grow in the grass?

I walk across myself as if I were some strange season.
With Yorick’s skull in my hands, I wonder:
If I have reaped
where and what was it I reaped?
And if I harvest, when, whom am I harvesting?

**Nichita Danilov

this pain in the middle
spinning, dividing, spinning
there are two points of him

he howls in my dreams
with cold hands in transcendental spaces
like a long absence in an imaginary present

his eyes - two black boxes
recording all the right data
everything more real than necessary
performing the body with toast sensations

he pauses naturally in the dark room
the man with the moon
swallowed
in his heart

feelings
like lizards

like she-wolves
with their eyes of ember
in the dark

motion arrested
waiting for the mind to reach
its hypnotic body

**Ioana Ieronim

forehead to forehead
and closed eyes

so close that we fall in place
like folds of silk
like folds of wool

like our flesh that knows so much
and can so much
forget

Ioana Ieronim from *Ariadne's Veil

Poems like bread, you say
rough and sweet
like the bread for those
who plough and harvest

bread like home
bread like far from home
the bread of communion
of survival

bread to feed silence and darkness
feed the beast’s hunger for beauty
and blood

wisps from Ariadne’s ball of red fleece
poems
across the void

their promise
their echoes that keep us walking
in the dark

Ioana Ieronim from *Ariadne's veil

A sound is lying between my sight and my hearing,
mornings strung astray,
noisy, lonely streets, indescribable,
only posters ― whole or torn
of some extraordinary concerts, long forgotten ―
in which lustre of the world? ―
autumn has come over the botanical garden,
her trellises have forgotten to support any leaves,
she is singing herself to me in my eyes
in one poem.
Diligent, my heart surrenders to an elegy
like that thought descending from Rainer Maria Rilke.

Gellu Dorian, from *It might take me years

I must confess to you that the death problem
made us sweat:
Our old school teacher,
Miss Barnovski,
whom we used to call the Duchess,
set us two enigmas — you and I.
She wrote on the blackboard — it was a splendid autumn
afternoon —
the radical of you plus the radical of I
is zero, and got out of the classroom
leaving us alone with our queerest thoughts.

Nichita Danilov, from *It might take me years

I meant to write another poem
but time's corkscrew drills
the ribcage
my dreams are acid
the thought - a decayed staircase
don't know what I want to say
Future seems a forgotten poem
gravitation is not a joke inside the bones
I should have learnt to respect you,
death

longing creates canyons
a row of well behaved days
a new physiognomy for metaphors
the night has paused
no semiotic skin between me and my lover
ecoutez-moi
listen to the spaceless desire
this woman lost in me
my womb chimes, utopia
Unlimited

We, the rescued,
From whose hollow bones death had begun to whittle his flutes,
And on whose sinews he had already stroked his bow-
Our bodies continue to lament
With their mutilated music.
We, the rescued,
The nooses wound for our necks still dangle
Before us in the blue air-
Hourglasses still fill with our dripping blood.
We, the rescued,
The worms of fear still feed on us.
Our constellation is buried in dust.
We, the rescued,
Beg you:
Show us your sun, but gradually.
Lead us from star to star, step by step.
Be gentle when you teach us to live again.
Lest the song of a bird,
Or a pail being filled at the well,
Let our badly sealed pain burst forth again
And carry us away  -
We beg you:
Do not show us an angry dog, not yet -
It could be, it could be
That we will dissolve into dust
Dissolve into dust before your eyes.
For what binds our fabric together?
We whose breath vacated us,
Whose soul fled to Him out of that midnight
Long before our bodies were rescued
Into the arc of the moment.
We, the rescued,
We press your hand
We look into your eye-
But all that binds us together now is leave-taking.
The leave-taking in the dust
Binds us together with you

**Nelly Sachs

Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.
From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:
then time returns to the shell.

In the mirror it's Sunday,
in dream there is room for sleeping,
our mouths speak the truth.

My eye moves down to the *** of my loved one:
we look at each other,
we exchange dark words,
we love each other like poppy and recollection,
we sleep like wine in the conches,
like the sea in the moon's blood ray.

We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:
it is time they knew!
It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time

It is time

**Paul Celan

A time comes when you no longer can say: my God.
A time of total cleaning up.

A time when you no longer can say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don't cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.

Women knock at your door in vain, you won't open.
You remain alone, the light turned off,
and your enormous eyes shine in the dark.
It is obvious you no longer know how to suffer.
And you want nothing from your friends.

Who cares if old age comes, what is old age?
Your shoulders are holding up the world
and it's lighter than a child's hand.
Wars, famine, family fights inside buildings
prove only that life goes on
and not everybody has freed himself yet.
Some (the delicate ones) judging the spectacle cruel
will prefer to die.
A time comes when death doesn't help.
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.

**Carlos Drummond de Andrade

in the centre of the cathedral
the square of a little town
where those in the know tell of an invisible cathedral.
a massive guest
the outside light
there is such purity in the pigeons’ feathers
superfine flour falls from the sky
on buildings on trees on people’s shoulders.
small bones rattle echoing in the coffin of a small guitar
while the world can no longer contain happiness.
there at the wall
two lovers wind into an 8.
late. in their shade
a blind horse
is crying sweat from its neck.

Ion Mircea, from *My Cup of Light

This is now. Now is. Don't
postpone till then. Spend

the spark of iron on stone.
Sit at the head of the table;

dip your spoon in the bowl.
Seat yourself next your joy

and have your awakened soul
pour wine. Branches in the

spring wind, easy dance of
jasmine and cypress. Cloth

for green robes has been cut
from pure absence. You're

the tailor, settled among his
shop goods, quietly sewing.

next to you
the knot of my hands suffer
from the ermetism of dawn
they can be no more than they are
I download fresh dreams
into breathing
it's hard to leave the bed
puzzled by perfume & body fluids

you have some sour cherries smile
left on the pillow
be the one
that easy -
like a premeditated sonata

next to you
Love is enough

my hands protest today
so they become
don’t know how it started
they were filled with air without memory
nowhere to land, no stories attached
to the sleeves
this body is a history of fights,
wandering weeds,
of fists full of laughter

I was once an empty space with time borders
a true self or a void full of ambition
certain patterns disguised in black and white
milk tears


I met my shoulders today
I no longer hide my thoughts in open spaces
or defeather my dreams
my gestures turn into statues
to be seen from afar
I put my spin into the cup of morning
so I could tell today apart from tomorrow
in time’s bone marrow

this manic song
of my feet with your feet
the quest for our names
our bodies without fence
my fingerprints like unburnt stories
on your skin
I have no alibi
you invented my desire

the whale-song of
my shoulder with your shoulder
I'm falling apart in your palms:
I invented your desire
and you have no excuse -
you hold down the night
for the next you, the new me
the unforeseen smile
at the end of the day

"my heart, all of me, this tree
turning its leaves
one by one in the wind

fluttering rustling with the call
of your closed lips

mere light can move it
a touch of light
can make it sing

the shell of our lives capturing
the tatters of a song
: a torn veil, the unraveled loincloth
of a wandering god

these sharp caressing tatters
tongues
of a song"

Ioana Ieromin, from *The Lens of a Flame

something must have happened
many times on my lips
further away into the liquid world
before the world
and on my knees full of devotion
I'm laughing a lot more nowadays
no longer baffled at the sun's *****
"seduction is the mother of wisdom" -
said the poetess
combing her hair with precise movements -
I drag my amniotic desires on to every door
I see
I'm recklessly alluding to my lover
with thick eyebrows
or to how to turn the light off
I am no longer covered with skin
when the lightest of waters dreams
between the yearning and the scream

I'll watch the birds wane tonight
tomorrow perhaps

for the distance, the blessing and the curse
in this forgetful bed, on this blank page
I sit as quiet as an empty hourglass
so used to contemplate the wounded pride
of desolation
the dilemma in your steps, the missing link
happiness just an eclipse
an accident on unmapped streets
-space is just the exhaustion of time-
worlds of words caught up in their embryo
crushed there,
their innocence stripped away
paper-thin dreams chased away like useless creatures
from your back burdened with the same shame and
no soft tissue for your tears

if only I could say this loud enough:
love is the courage in our cells
disambiguation
and there will be a day -
no more fear
no more far away

It might take me years
To dislodge myself from
Life – this magma which has swallowed me,
And be out of the reach of neighbour gossip.
To emerge from a fight not mine.
You were there, privileged angel in the dark,
Amused at my faux ferocity,
Recalling the courage of my first days,
When I was unconcerned about
What place I’d fall asleep in.
Not yet understanding
The human need to cling to a past.
Always ready to give myself away.

You watched from above
The prose of my struggles,
In the web of our common suffocation.
You knew how to be the cruel one,
To leave everything behind, in a town to which
You would never return.
Today I fear the drizzle,
I fear the fog.
I never forget my umbrella at home.
I mind the hustle of the quay,
Unusual at this early hour.
I cherish the noises which accompany my coffee on the terrace.
I watch helplessly, in exasperation,
These faces of common poems
Which harbours always hold.

Constantin Abaluta, from *It Might Take Me Years

while fishing the stars
in your window
caught my skin eavesdropping
these rhythms: it must be some truth
I came along ahead the cortege of my selves
straight from
the blues of morning

tonight is simply beautiful,
I'm just saying,
heaven & hell
one metaphor away

“sometimes I get nervous
when I see an open door”*

not really in the mood for this
“who are you?”, I was asked
and the prolonged tears suddenly receded from language
shoulders, heels, nails looking for something closer to the happiness of sunken ships or whatever
my antishoulder, antiheel hurts
when you take my face into your hands
to drag my eyes into your cries
it’s just you and me now mother
let’s face it
your dying is my breath
my joy your death bed
temptation your authority
into the cemetery of numb disillusions
you wouldn’t let go of the death of words
you keep your sleeping pills for good
on empty shelves

I’ll stay in the doorway
to watch my birth
catching up with myself

This hospital has a room

for weeping. It has no crèche.
No canteen. No washroom queue.

Only this queue for weeping.
No lost property booth. No

complaints department. Or
reception. No office of second

opinion. Of second chances. Its sons
and daughters die with surprise

in their faces. But mothers
must not cry before them. There is

a room for weeping. How hard
the staff are trying. Sometimes

they use the room themselves. They
must hose it out each evening.

The State is watching. They made
this room for weeping. No remission ―

no quick fixes. A father wonders
if his boy is sleeping. A mother

rakes her soul for healing. Neighbours
in the corridor ― one is screaming

It moved from your child to mine.
More come. Until the linoleum

blurs with tears and the walls
are heaving. Until the place can’t

catch its breath ― sour breath
of pine. And at its heart

this room.

Mario Petrucci, from *Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl

Before me, nothing is what
it used to be; all seams getting ready to be;
a child with a hoop runs by, as in De Chirico's paintings
- in the distance the sky's still red, but in the poem it's gray.
I feel the words growing inside my fingers
and for the first time not for my benefit.
In the quiet of evening
the town seems a game with toy bricks
in which matches are struck and flare brightly - music cavorts at
                                                                                                       the windows -
in the distance the sky's gray, but in the poem is red.

Gellu Dorian, from City of Dreams and Whispers
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Doina Iordachescu

We are the night ocean filled
With glints of light. We are the space
Between the fish and the moon,
While we sit here together.

days revolve in circles and
transparent dilemmas: death and seduction
hours like sirens and full hearts
the conquerer is no winer with his reflexes drawn into eagerness
I saved some slopes into unknown
as they set the table for the unheard screaming
whose is the fierce desire?
what does the poor mind know about
the honest being?
what can your body do with his/hers/theirs?
dangers in the four corners
true love is the hardest thing
those days wouldn't let go of the centre
the full-emptiness of this desire:
give myself to me already devoured
hurt, shame, helplessnes

true love leaves you free
incomplete facing the heart
of darkness
unresolved

In my arms - thought - my words
you are malleable wax, a diamond
that reveals itself. Light of the tunnel, you!
The pyramid catches hold of our hands.
We become transparent, we become translucent.
Alone. I come near you ascending from time's
shadow. Free, free from everything and alone.
Above the city - fiery halo -
bodies float void of fear. The future
becomes present, the present, hope.

Liviu Antonesei
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim

a wheat field
love
even death
one cannot speak about
without enormous risks

and yet about freedom
freedom -

save our souls!

Mariana Codrut
translated by Adam J. Sorkin  and Radu Andriescu

In my native land where some have bread
but others hold the knife, and a rustless
chain of interest links the one to the other,
in my resplendent and sad country,
I'm an aged raven, wingless,
an inconsequential pariah with a white star of distinction on his
                                                                                                                       forehead,
a bottomless vessel into which all would ***** -
all - their bile and powerlessness, their hatred.
And since in my land
I fear nothing,
and since in my land nothing
can happen to me except my hopeless
love of Mary,
I suddenly feel overwhelmed with unfamiliar joy,
by unbounded happiness in my heart's
thought, by limitless ecstasy
like death in gold and blood. Like radiance of flesh.
So, in my native country of murdered thoughts,
of guilty silence, humble elation within,
I admit responsibility and affix my signature hereunto -
Liviu Antonesei.

Liviu Antonesei, from City of Dreams and Whispers
translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Ioana Ieronim

blue insomnia have woken up in my words
seeds of wind, the lament of unknown men, women
the impossible alphabet of terror
daily I pass by the same cemetery
the willow-trees have new leaves now
the words can' swerve while
their faces dissolve slowly deeper and deeper into death
and I’m holding mine into hands smeared with tears

he  loved me like
they loved their neck rope

we see through the night
what we can
empty jars
purple lies
hardly the collection of killings
that makes
the morning sing

death has no words