I am sitting everywhere like a stone
struck by lightning
my nerves spinning their electricity
in new revolves
this vibration is transformation

of of of of
something into anything else
syntax into the golden ratio
fingerprints into enlightened wax
lungs into vertical love
craving into silence
desire into root
immanence into
transcendence and
the other way round
projection into
introspection
nihilism into redeeemed
despair
music into a theorem
of sunrise
hatred into pain
pain into
violet mourning
bread into singing
oxes' thirst into the art
of the earth
secrets into tangible
translucent pictures
rivers into the dreams
of the sky

I into the other I
in you and him
and them
in the mycellium
of syntaxes, synapses
enchanted
ephiteliums
into a choir of selves
in love's eyes

I went against the grain
by tightening the blinds
turning off the lights
the bedroom then became
a bottle of ink
filled with ink either black
or blue
lying in my bed
like an undissolved bit
the world is jet black
i close my eyes and mouth
so as not to choke on the darkness
at this point the yearning
becomes light and thin
pale and faint
and finally it faded
like daylight
the stranger I've come to be like.

Lost
in the thick green forest
stuck
and can't get through it
to get out
i don't know where i am
don't know what time it is
don't even know who i am
anymore
can't dial the right numbers
can't get through to anyone
finally when i did get through
the person on the other end
would be a family or friend
who sees me as an unknown  
stranger
i think this is a conspiracy
i might have been deleted from the regime
of the human society.

I can see myself

dancing on fast and light feet --


all without stumbling.

I need you in my life, baby

The only productive addiction in my future is to your proximity

A decade of scattered sorrows is but an aching blink when I’m with you

You manifest what I could never say or feel without the fear of exile

Rom-Coms hold no candle or wick to our story

Proposals would only seem like trivial when it comes to you and I

We’re closer than nostalgia and episodic memory
closer than gods and their devotees
closer than the dawn and dusk
when nine to fives carry you through a day

Yet despite our bond
only I can hear you, see you, feel you, think you

So with baited breath I speak your name, or at least what you are known as:

Imagination.

Distance is the cog wheel
on the haunted axle of my hearing,
grinding fine the deadened mind
of that unborn god
waiting to be caught
by the earth's blue speed,
and carrying in a handled urn
the plucked heart - ours,
it's beating, it's heard, it's beating, it's heard,
a sphere in wild growth -
the roads are wet with tears,
memory frail and elastic,
a sling for stones, a gondola
drowned in childlike Venice's,
a tooth yanked from the cells with a string -
down the empty socket of Vesuvius. And you exist.

by Nichita Stanescu, translated by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru

with disciplined guilt
i can spill a kind of pornographic hemorrhage
                   provoking a spell into the mind
                        deluge
                      a spiel
so many illicit thoughts to priss a label on
             laxed into this state
              i imagine my punishments
               received in swollen glory
and   in turn   for this ungated imagination
                         i may earn further punishment
(no glory / dunce / head hung)

skirting dirt for promise
opening the aperture to the wild dark woods
    and beyond natures primal propeller
seeking out opportunities for submission
  under a church weight
          of my own mined and kinkled cranium

neon birds above
plastic souls beneath
I have no choice
but to feed my soul
with the secret of trees

I still dream
in the skin of the rain
I write with my eyes
poems of touch

This summer I chased
perseids
again
I tried to forget all about
this age of anxiety,
or about the eyes with no echo

For a moment I let reality crash
like cloud castles
and
neon birds spring above
my tired city

I was taught a new game
By a delightful creature,
She called it "Blend In"
It has an imaginary feature,
I was instructed to pretend
That my eyes couldn't see,
When this delightful little creature
Was right in front of me.

Could she be a Hummingbird
Or a magical fairy?
How she became invisible
Was a bit scary,
And as I looked around
Not seeing her at all,
I'm sure I heard giggling
Perhaps she makes herself small.

Goldie the cat
Played along with us too,
Goldie understood
Exactly what to do,
Take a nap in the grass
To be covered with leaves,
Goldie is magic
That's what everyone believes.

Oh, finally the fog
Was lifted from my eyes,
After searching high and low
And twenty-five tries,
Lifting rocks, moving branches
Checking closets, one, two, three,
I found Cee Cee the pixie
Right in front of me.

Blend In
Is a jolly good game,
You need magical thinking
So it's never the same,
Each time you go looking
For the enchanted creature,
But listen for giggling
It is a prominent feature.

I envy you
your suppleness of body
tuned muscular perfection
poised between
a creature of land
and a creature of water
shimmering with almost naked
beauty, you dive a perfect ten
into my imagination