"bucharest" poems
SPREADEAGLED
Bucharest,
*
Spread-eagled and naked
in her crop circle -
this one in a sunflower field:
she’s a wheel of limbs,
some sort of a ********
lusted after by the seed heavy
flowers bowing to her curves
like drooling surgeons.
*
She’s finished with running,
waiting for the fading light
to join the last of her loves,
faded with processed proclamations
of undying certainty
which were a little worse for wear
after courting
and checked into intensive care
soon after.
*
Love thought it had
ducked its obligations,
passed again
like a heavy goods train in the night,
shunted across the border
while guards waved it on;
interested only in sleep or beer.
*
But this time she’s making sure
love returns,
pays its duty and dues
and hits its target.
*
So, splayed
aryan and vigorous,
apeing a pagan
resurrection,
she waits
for the skydiver
who – with precision
confidence – happens
to be bearing down
on her charity target,
slowly filling her
with his ***** shadow.
*
She sunbathes under mirrors,
she’s a real
tough nut to crack.
I repeat myself into her.
Aug 29, 2012
Aug 29, 2012 at 11:09 AM UTC
Corina Junghiatu is a bilingual poet/writer hailing from Romania. She holds a Master Degree in Philology and Phychopedagogy and likewise she graduated from The Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Bucharest. She speaks five foreign languages.
Corina has written and publishing two books of poetry: „Exile in the light” and „The ritual of a Sunrise”. She is Administrator and Publication Coordinator of Motivational Strips, editor of "Bharath Vision" website, and Chief Advisor of World Nations Writers' Union Kazakhstan. Corina has won many awards from international institutions of repute, for poetry.
Recently, Corina Junghiatu, together with 350 poets and writers from 80 countries, received a certificate of appreciation for her entire literary activity, on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Independence Day of the Republic of India. This certificate was was handed by the famous writer Shiju H. Pallithazheth the Founder of Motivational Strips, World's Most Active Writers Forum and Padma Shree Dr. Vishnu Pandya, President of Gujarat Sahitya Akademy, a government institution of the state of Gujarat (India).
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 10:45 AM UTC
I want to go to Romania,
split this vacuum,
fly jumbo
across the deep blue
into Bucharest.
I want to adopt a gypsy baby,
a fat one with olive skin,
one with Romany eyes,
cries all the time,
bangs its head
against the crib.
I want to be a saint,
make a difference
in at least one person's life.
I figured a gypsy baby
might be the most grateful.
Having another gypsy
as a parent
would certainly
be better than
a non-gypsy one.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 6:22 PM UTC
Increasingly there’s more in my life
A life between barcode
SIM
Remote with apocalyptic news and dire pornographers
life among multiple camera teams
between several videos about a future that all sounds good
blocks of life between advertising and surveys on how
Europeans can achieve
the cosmic ****** and a more profitable single currency
living ever more my own life
inside an inland country
where in waiting and loneliness I see greetings
from where I hope to reach the Himalayas and write:
‘Life is no good with Coca-Cola!’
Dan Mircea Cipariu
[Translated by Jon a’Beckett]
New Europe Writers Bucharest Tales, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest 2014
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
Cured meats hanging hooked
veiled in shadows, flies resting on pink
salmon flesh and a tall long bearded man
wearing dark denim in the Jewish Quarter
talking adventures, jumping vibrant,
Bold questions and stares, the woman
screaming in the Great Hall Market escorted out,
back of the throat slapping smells
on the train from Budapest to Bucharest
Stories from a tired man
aging wearing a musty coat no bag, complaining about wild
children near the dead sea throwing rocks at his sinking house
Hands beckoning in between white flapping cloths
- white sails everywhere high up, sleeping in the Hare Krishna temple
with mosquitoes ******* my legs, fishing for mussels
and eating grilled corn, 6.am grey skied Istanbul,
Morning prayers, the setting up of stalls
The shouting, the tasting of honey thick with the bees still immersed,
the tasting of cheese wet and dry brânză de burduf,
chubritza, soups, the hash and the ham. Escorted out
The juice leaking from tender meat
A sweating brow
Pockets full of coffee beans
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 8:57 PM UTC
In the silent mornings or in the silent nights
there is a hunch there is a thigh there is a panther
I try to catch your shoulders using a violin
as a butterfly net
but if your hair chimes it's because it's dreaming
if your eyelid blossoms it's because of the wind
if your hand howls it's because it's night
if your ears sleep it's because they're famished
if your shoes laugh it's because they're thinking
and if your shoulders take flight it's because it's very late
If your hand falls silent it's because it's a seashell
if your veins race it's because of the mandrake
if the thigh listens it's because there are still leaves
if the blood foams it's the fault of the umbrellas
If your frock screams it's because it's dying
if your shadow flickers it's because it's burning
if your fingernail sits on the curtains it's because they're violet
if your foot whinnies it's because of the clouds
if the lungs fall asleep it's because it's dark
and if your shoulders choke
it is assuredly because of the trees.
Gellu Naum, Vasco da Gama and other pohems, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 7:08 AM UTC
Old courtyards with tubs of laundry:
‘Go to the washerwoman and do your own washing’
I whisper to you, and the wild apricot trees
all turn suddenly white, the sky pales,
the world is ****** in a drenching buzz.
There΄s a smell of bluebags and a sulphurous bubbling.
You΄d hardly believe it — so much steam rises
that only dirt is left in the copper.
The wild apricots petrify into coral.
It΄s so easy — easy in a woman΄s way —
to wash your soul, to rejoice in the spring wind
shaking the scales on its dragon-tail
so that you΄re looking at soap-bubbles
it blows for you between your fingers.
Two children pass by, holding on a string
a balloon transparent as a bubble.
For a moment we are crouched inside it.
Grete Tartler
[Translated into English by Fleur Adcock]
New Europe Writers Bucharest Tales, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest, 2014
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 11:47 AM UTC
Legs tangled together, clammy skin on skin, and the sun
rising behind pointed rooftops, painting the sky
an aquarelle of budding peonies and candied orange peel.
Bruised lips taste of chocolate and blueberries, and the
white wine from last night. My arms feel heavy and
my soul is featherlight, soaring into the sunshine.
The morning air is crisp in a way that announces
summer heat for the coming day, and a discarded blouse
moves with the breeze. Life is eminent yet strangely
far away from this corner of the earth that we have
burrowed ourselves into, hidden from the universe.
The city hums with life and wisdom and love, and we
have watched it burst into song and whisper quietly
but it has never seemed as beautiful as now.
Fingers link together like souls have, and lips brush
in a greeting, in recognition, and then smile.
May 27, 2017
May 27, 2017 at 4:47 PM UTC
In a room among newspapers from far-away climes
like a tame animal like a marvelous man you love yourself
and sit on the edge
of the bed with your palms on your knees
or absolved of birth and death you stroke your pumice-stone
cheek
until the sun crosses the other side
next to the photograph of the happy child who is piddling on
a blue shore
Then every thing returns regroups
as though in a boiling fog in which things are mended
among the obscure plantations of chance And alongside
a woman carefully hangs out the clothes of the drowned lover and
speaks to them
the one who still seeks you in the black bones of the
butterflies
And while you wander lost through the mists of a powerful
manhood
past the spades left on the fresh molehill
or gaze at the swaying of the two stakes ****** into the shore
or lie down on the ground and the wind covers your face with
thistles brought who knows whence
a great sadness brings back the lunar landscape of her tired
shoulders
and there are no more words but her whisper are things which
settle
everywhere filling the ripped silence of the train's screech
her whispers are the water gathered over the prints of her
soles after the last rain
but a simple turn of the key is enough for you to be able to hear
the slow flowing of time by your dampened socks
or the heavy breathing of the roots
and again you dream the blue shore at the end of the river
on which we ruminate our enchanted abandonment
Gellu Naum, Vasco da Gama and other pohems, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC
We are passing through a blue
period after
a grey period: 'Surely
a green age will follow.' You
stifle your remorse. We are on
our way to
yet
another chance
for tears
in our mother's eyes. Don't you agree? Mothers
enfolded
in the depths -the depths
of land dear
to our souls - where the gods
live
steeped in their
energy. That energy
is proof enough that never, not for
one single
moment, have their hearts
departed
from that magnetic place.
Magnetic? Of course...
Alone in those lands,
they hang on to their sadness, their wisdom,
while their children
reach out to catch
the golden ring of freedom,
and the risk:
the risk of wandering on an endless,
senseless pilgrimage. Flying
like model planes? Oh,
the thrill
until -
three thousand, twelve thousand
years - they're found, fossilised in sedimentary rocks,
mothers
separated from their children, layers
and layers apart, preserved,
with a bit of luck, in mint condition
(maybe) buried
with all the things that might
be needed in the afterlife...
A movement
from East to West, following
the progress
of the sun. What
was I saying? Oh yes, we are passing through
a blue period, after
a grey period...
Liviu Ioan Stoiciu, from Born in Romania, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest 2014
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 5:07 AM UTC
Lined up like angels, the Bucharest lights
Your Catholic grasp on my shaking thigh
I’ll just take this
And forget the rest
You said you do it all for your perfect daughter
That for now is just a dream,
But someday will be walking
Confidently, faithfully
From the love you give her
I’ll take how you spoke to my eyes,
Like that could be our scene,
In a few years time
Baby I’ll take that,
And forget the rest
Turn, and turn again
From your spot on the outside of the street
Protecting me
Turn and do what we both want to me
Tell me that now, this is how it’s going to be
And forget all the rest
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 2:43 AM UTC
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*
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 3:09 PM UTC
Ciao Rome, you were a splendid dream.
Au revoir Paris, you were like an autumn kiss.
Adios Barcelona, your crevices were filled
with the scent of cayenne pepper.
La revedere Bucharest, may your skies be filled with summer love.
Antio sas Athens, your temples are magnificent.
Dec 18, 2019
Dec 18, 2019 at 7:52 PM UTC
i give a **** / Roman salute every night,
each night, just before i fall asleep,
but the words recurrent with the
ghostly gladiators captivating western
society like a terrorist are: BUT, YOU, MADE ME!
your pithy apathy can get you
so along - IT'S GOOD TO BE CRITICAL
OF AMERICA AND FEEL AMBIVALENT
OF SAUDI ARABIA...
cocktails in Bucharest
are like cooler-shakers in McDonald's:
all fruity flavoured fairies with -
wingspans of pigeons at Trafalgar Sq. -
cos' we pecked those pistachios like mad.
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil, und Jude außen Europa:
inviting Muslims undermined European culture
excluding Jews made it all the more simpler
for the once cultured press to write hopes rather
than facts. the emperor came, the emperor went,
lost, forgotten, shamed the love for a neighbour.
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 9:18 PM UTC
Make up for my sins
By waiting. Patiently waiting.
No grandiosity
No thrills, chills, kills
Just waiting, not much happens
Ordinary boredom
Prayers for friends and family
Movies, the Dao De Ching
Get the timing right
Patientia
The pulpit in perplexity
The green and purple thing
Susan, Judi, Wendy
Decades, Centuries
Charlotte, North Carolina
Bucharest, Budapest, Nanking
Linkoping.
Jun 11, 2023
Jun 11, 2023 at 9:30 AM UTC