My Transparent Heart

My heart, transparent,
lets you see tomorrow's disaster.
The current peace is only
a deep anaesthesia, before the cutting.
But my transparent heart
can't lie and it shows you,
between two beats,
between yesterday and forever,
the yet nameless
disaster.

[The English version originally appeared in the bi-lingual anthology On the Wallaby Track: A Journey across Memories, ed. Mihaela Cristescu & Sue Crawford (Brăila: Editura Stântul Ierarh Nicolae, 2017) and translated for Double Dialogues by the author.]

Inima mea transparentă

Inima mea, transparentă,
te lasă să vezi dezastrul de mâine.
Pacea de-acum e doar
o anestezie profundă, înaintea tăierii.
Dar inima mea, transparentă,
nu poate minți și-ți arată
între doua bătăi,
între ieri și forever,
dezastrul care n-are încă nume.

Like a Beautiful Disease

Since I've left you –
no, not behind, just to the left
or to the right of my heart -
I bear my longing for you like a beautiful disease
that nobody believes in.
Therefore no cure is available - only the illusion
that we don't actually suffer from anything,
it’s just the mouth of regrets
with way too many teeth
craving to bite
into the memories and into
everything else
that could have been.

[The English version originally appeared in the bi-lingual anthology On the Wallaby Track: A Journey across Memories, ed. Mihaela Cristescu & Sue Crawford (Brăila: Editura Stântul Ierarh Nicolae, 2017) and translated for Double Dialogues by the author.]

Ca o boală frumoasă

De când te-am lăsat –
nu, nu în urmă, ci doar mai la stânga
sau mai la dreapta inimii -
îți tot duc dorul ca pe-o boală frumoasă,
în care nu crede nimeni.
De aceea, leacuri nu-s, doar iluzia
că nu suferim, de fapt, de nimic,
e doar gura cu prea mulți dinți
a regretelor,
mușcând cu poftă
din amintiri și din
tot ce-ar mai fi fost să fie.

Alchemy (Vices) *

I smoke, I smoke, I smoke,
in goes the poison, out goes the honey
this is what I do to people, too,
I pick them up darkened, wrecked, exhausted
and sell them in working condition
for no charge,
for quiet nights,
for an infinity of absence,
for some new hope…
Come,
rootless trees
are budding
in my temple,
take heart!
So far I haven’t damaged anyone.
Calculation errors
have always come back,
with the mathematical precision
of a boomerang,
against nothing but my heart.

I’m a bazaar
for lost
things.

Hey, who else is going to wander off, into my life?!?
It’s worth it!
I’ve learnt how to turn sick biographies
into gold.
I’m an outdated alchemist, *
my only chemical formula,
repeatedly applied,
is salt rubbed into wounds
(my heart
is nothing
but a wound)

[This poem originally appeared in the author’s Versuri albe pentru zile negre (Bucharest: Editura Z.I.P., 2012) and was translated for Double Dialogues by Anamaria Beligan.]

* Alchemy (title & l. 28) is the ancient process of transmuting objects by which to fuse with or attain their original form—in effect, the four basic “cosmogenic” elements of earth, air, fire, and water, first postulated in verse, On Nature (Peri phuseos) (circa B.C. 440±) by Empedokles of Akragas, that were supposedly reunited or separated by the respective forces of love (philotes) and strife (neikos). Its occidental manifestation appears to have centred upon the Mediterranean, initially in Graeco-Roman Egypt, more specifically Alexandreia, and then in the extended Islamic world before mediaeval Europe itself, the earliest known alchemical records being associated with Zosimos of Panopolis in the Kheirokmeta (circa B.C. 300±). Characterizing much mediaeval practice was the quest to transmute metals, particularly lead, into gold which was regarded as being on par with the quest for transmuting our physical bodies into immortal energy and popularly associated with searching for the legendary substance dubbed “the philosopher’s stone.”

Alchimie (vicii)

fumez, fumez, fumez,
torn în mine otravă și scot miere
așa fac și cu oamenii,
îi iau înnegriți, ciuruiți, obosiți
și-i vând de buni
pe nimic,
pe nopți de tăcere,
pe absențe la plus infinit,
pe-o nouă speranță…
Haideți,
în tâmpla mea
dau muguri
copacii fără rădăcină,
curaj!
N-am stricat pe nimeni până acum.
Erorile de calcul
s-au întors totdeauna,
cu precizie matematică,
de bumerang,
doar spre inima mea.

Sunt un bazar
al lucrurilor
pierdute.

Hei, cine se mai rătăcește în viața mea?!?
Merită!
Am învățat să prefac în aur
biografii bolnave.
Sunt un alchemist demodat,
singura formula chimică,
repetat aplicată,
e sarea pe rană
(inima mea
e toată
o rană)

Without a GPS *

This day’s
soles
are bleeding
from their mad dance
on Hazard’s
shards…

Its swollen ankles still bear
the sign
of the beauty-that-could-have-been.

Ambulances are not provided with a GPS *
since its absence
has not been considered
“a life threatening issue”
by the Council of Square Heads…

Therefore this day’s soles
will keep bleeding,
draining slowly, but surely,
until the very last second,
into a place
not mentioned
on any map…

[This poem originally appeared in the author’s Trenul de dantela (Bucharest: Editura Z.I.P., 2014) and was translated for Double Dialogues by Anamaria Beligan.]

* GPS (title & l. 10) is nowadays the popular acronym for “global positioning system” developed, maintained, and controlled for military and civilian use by the air force of the United States by means of a constellation of satellites. For further details and examples of applications, see, e.g., https://www.gps.gov/ .

Fără GPS

Tălpile acestei
zile
sângerează
de dansul nebun
pe cioburile
Ȋntâmplării…

Gleznele-i umflate poartă încă
semnul
frumuseṭii-ce-ar-fi-putut-să-fie…

Salvările n-au GPS în dotare
întrucât lipsa lui
n-a fost considerată,
în Consiliul capetelor pătrate,
“a life threatening issue”…

Asa că, tălpile acestei zile
vor sângera,
scurgându-se încet, dar sigur,
până la ultima secundă,
într-un loc
netrecut
pe vreo hartă…