Saturday, April 28, 2012

Do You Remember The Beach?

by Ana Blandiana

Do you remember the beach
Covered with bitter shivers
On which
We couldn't walk barefoot?
The way you were looking at the sea
Pretending listening me?
Do you remember
The hysterical gulls
Wheeling in the ringing
Of the unseen bells of a church
Celebrations with fish,
The way in which
You were furthering running
Towards the sea
And yelling you needed
The distance
So you just can see me
The snowing
Was dimming
Mixed with birds in the water
With almost joyful despair
Was watching
The tracks of your feet in the sea
And the sea
Was closing like an eyelid
Over the eye in which i was waiting.


The Only Thing That Matters

by Lucian Avramescu

the woman is the only thing that matters
and i affirm this knowing that plenty
would raise their eyebrows...
her skin knows all the languages of the universal happiness,
glued to her, like to the earth,
i understand constellations, heaven and hell,
joy and sorrow;
the walking through myself
does me better and better
not to speak anymore
about the architecture of self or the one
that makes dim all the great cathedrals of the world
San Pedro, The Dome of Milan...

the woman is the only thing that matters
with her body in your arms
you can cross an ocean
even if you don't know how to swim
except in the waters of her eyes

without woman
our limo is only a broken carriage
and the bank account is smaller even if gets bigger
the friends are
full of the fever of treason
tapdoles are swimming in the most expensive wine

oh ay
the robin is singing in the top of your bosom
you happily dress in prison's clothes
like you were going to a wedding
count the coins on the sky
like a universal nabob
even if the wind is blowing through your social buttonholes:
the train runs over you
and a whisper, if left whole
follows the letters of her name
ready to weave plans for the future
when nearby a luxury morgue is lurking

the woman, gentlemen, is the only thing
that cannot be replaced except by its own self
her skin knows all the languages
of the universal happiness,
the circle of illusions
is her currency
through which we win the world crises
that's why i believe
her science
to make us happy and unhappy
gives you the title of
doctor honoris causa
of our complicated soul algebra.

the woman, gentlemen - not to bother you anymore -
the woman with her skin
which teaches us the alphabet of the blind,
with her always up side down cups of her breasts
in which we never read anything
the woman
with all the silverware of her smile
or her bareness that fills the universe
is the only thing that matters
gentlemen

Friday, April 27, 2012

The Actors



by Marin Sorescu


The most daring - the actors!
With their sleeves rolled up
They really know how to live (for) us!
Never seen a more perfect kiss
Like of the actors in the third act,
When sentiments start to clarify

Their death on the scene is so natural,
That compared to its perfection,
Those in graveyards,
The real dead,
Tragically, forever dead,
They seem to move!

And us, still in our only life!
Not even this one know how to live.
Talking small or being silent for years,
Embarrassed and unaesthetic,
And (we) don't know where the hell to keep our hands.


If I’m Not Asking Too Much

By Marin Sorescu





- What would you take with you
If you had an opportunity
To commute daily between heaven and hell
Just to teach some classes?

- A book, a bottle of wine and a woman, Lord,
If i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much, We’ll take the woman.
She would talk too much,
Fill your head with small things,
And you wouldn’t have the time to prepare your classes.

- Lord, i beg of You, take my book,
I will write it myself, if i had beside me
A bottle of wine and a woman.
That’s what i wish, if i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much.

- What would you take with you
If you had an opportunity
To commute daily, between heaven and hell
Just to teach some classes?

- A bottle of wine and a woman, Lord,
If i’m not asking too much.

- You’ve asked that before, why are you stubborn?
It is too much, I told you, We take the woman.

- What do You have with her, why so much persecution?
Better take my wine,
It softens me and i couldn’t prepare my classes,
Getting inspiration from the eyes of my lover.

Silence, long minutes,
Maybe even eternities,
Letting me time for forgetting.

- What would you take with you
If you had an opportunity
To commute daily between heaven and hell
To teach some classes?

- A woman, Lord,
If i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much, We’ll take the woman.

- Then better take my classes,
Take my heaven and hell,
All or nothing,
I would commute between heaven and hell for no reason.
How could i scare and frighten the sinners in hell
If i didn’t have the woman, as teaching material, to show them?
How could i uplift the right ones in heaven,
If i didn’t have the book to translate to them?
How could i stand the trip and the differences
In temperature, luminosity and pressure
Between heaven and hell
If i didn’t have the wine to give me the courage?

The Wheel

By Marin Sorescu

I live in a wheel.

I can realize it
By the trees.
Every time i look through the window
I can see them
With the leaves in the sky,
Or on the ground.

And by the birds
That fly with a wing in the south
And with a wing in the north.

And by the Sun
That today rises in my left eye,
And tomorrow in the right one.

And by me
Who sometimes i am
And sometimes i am not anymore.