I am ashamed that I am Spanish because of Franco
I am ashamed that I am French because of Algeria
I am ashamed that I am Algerian because of France
I am ashamed that I am American because of Bush, Iraq
and the bloodshed once among brothers
I am ashamed that I am Russian because of Stalin, Gulag
and recently of this and that
I am ashamed that I am German because of ******, clearly
(Pol *** appears more and more seldom in the lists, but one is horrified, humanly ashamed, remembering)
I am ashamed that I am English because of football etc
I am ashamed that I am Polish — only when I am not proud
I am ashamed that I am Turkish, but then there are Kurds...
I am ashamed that I am Czech and allowed myself to be stifled

(I am just as ashamed myself — some say, who feel
shame in its extremity and hide weapons in pantries, waiting for that moment
in which they wash away their shame with the blood of traditional enemies)
I am ashamed that I am Orthodox or Catholic and I wedge and split
the mountain on which Jesus bled — before others made even smaller
pieces out of his Golgotha below
I am ashamed that I am Indian because... well, it’s no matter
I am ashamed that being Macedonian I let the Greeks be even more
I am ashamed that I am Korean and one of Kim Ir Sen’s
I am ashamed that I am Korean no matter where, as long as
Kim Ir Sen’s Koreans remain
I am ashamed that I am Serbian, but... let me think
I am ashamed that I am Chinese because: ‘You’re Chinese?’
I am ashamed that I am Romanian because of Ceausescu, Dracula of course

and now, God, all these Romanians all over the world...
I am ashamed of my nation even when I am not ashamed
— but each of us seeks to forget something
I am ashamed because .......... [Everyone: fill in the blanks, write yours here!]

but you, but you — you, only you
you, whose nation filled the desolate earth with life and kindness
you are the man who begins the new day
today
with your first step

*Ioana Ieronim

let me listen to you
your hidden landscapes
your lives lost
in velvety oblivion

listen to the streams of blood
throbbing at your wrist
in the tender flesh inside your elbow

listen to the vulnerable intensity
in the soft vale at your collarbone

the silence on your lips
the whirls below

listen
listen through you
to these things that one cannot speak

by Ioana Ieronim from Ariadne's Veil

Hypnotic days
hypnotic nights
our bodies have burnt
all clothes
and several lives

we are
as hungry as the world
as old
as young

our bodies
two motionless stones
in a mountain river

Ioana Ieronim, from *The Lens of a Flame