penumbras | she's back again | shadowlike destinies | again they're gone | is the time out of joint | suns do die too
life
life
is for us but
a trout's fugitive glance
cast
over the lake's fractured
eternity
oh you
Parmenides
oh
Temporariness
the magnolia tree has shrugged
the blooms off its back
a fresh 'there is'
with all the heaviness of
'is'
over our rigorously fragile skeletal structure
befitting a wandering
tramp-like god
of the high alpine realms
carding
the Past
its burrs
bursting with memories
snatched from the seconds
dryly breaking up
cling to he flesh
friends
death brings a lot of
turmoil more deeply going
than the plough of life
oh
the way He
hems us in
and encloses us
on each cardinal side
only the clouds
the pond and the plain
are totally unconcerned
and carelessly
flutter in the light
that which has been woven with the yarn of life
and starched with
Eternity
the Embroiled Peasant Blouse
translated from Romanian by H. O'Hare
the somnambulists are out
the somnambulists
of the dead
all of them together
are out for a walk
round the Moon
helter-skelter
on foot
on horseback
you can only see
the dim
sheen of their eyes
consumed by a colossal yearning
after a new
boundless
realm
some of them
idly swing
their legs
reaching down to the depth of the pond
in their soul
others
gazing at the sky
humbled
gasp for their unspent
breath
contemplated from this
fist-size Earth
through my heart
presumed center
they describe a fantastic halo yielded by the
incandescent
snowy
rhythm of their phosphorescent soles
and snowing on us
oh
snowing on us
with a different snow
of a different
something
which cannot be seen
around
and which even the Moon
did not possess
it looks like snowing with dead people
it looks like snowing with dead people
with dead people who have gotten sick
on the account of the too long way
up to
God
dead people drop
swooning
down here
within us
smothering us with their
own after
life
the damned dead drop
into the burning
depths
of the Earth
the more lucky ones
drop offspring seed
into the holy
womb of mothers
it snows with dead people
oh
it snows with dead people
white sifts down
building up drifts
onto hills
vacant lots
and gateways
translated from Romanian by H. O'Hare
the silence surrounding words
sacred
church spires
the silence
surrounding words
only while
the bell keeps tolling
forth a dragon
word is spewing
from its cage
a dragon springs
crimson
tinted
a dragon
with a knobby bludgeon
its curly scales like
Astrakhan fleece
embers eating
fire spewing
like ink flowing
through a pen
curling round words
crowded together
dragons
witticisms dispensing
they guard
over the crackling fire
with spears and
halberds
my pen
and its nib as well
are both in deadly awe
of you
dragon dear
dragon Sir
pray make me
a chef
and I will cook you
dainty courses
out of kindred
words
which you
in your turn
will charm
and gladly clad
in gold
dear my dragon
dragon Sir
meanings minted
garments new
rhythms aplenty
with seasoned
sugarcoated
rhymes
as many
blatant
lies
dragon dearie
dragon sweetie
golden helmeted
and plated
scales of embers
pumping hot
silence into words
and round about
we cannot ourselves skip
we cannot
ourselves skip
over from one
human orbit
to another
bread crumbs
from the very loaf
God has partaken
we're falling down
very much like stars
from the ledger
of some skiey pinnacle
tensely laughing
someone else
pushes over
Sisyphus' resigned sons
doom's
marble dice
eternity
is but
a metaphor for the bowing
which the actor
indwelling us
with life's everlasting
smile
on his lips
in going down into earth
together with
our whole body
takes before
death
a cul de sac overlooking life
a cul de sac overlooking life
in Paradise
from a street on which
you no longer dwell
with overhanging gardens
and empty corner plots
and underground silences
waited for as answers
a cul de sac overlooking death
from the realm of the living
from today's garment
toward a garment less day
a cul de sac through death
with a fence
from the soul which
I do not consume
a requiem humming
sarabands
snatched from their soil
their glands
a cul de sac overlooking life
from death
towards towers
of flesh
and clocks striking
the hour
of some very special destinies
a cul de sac overlooking the road
believed to be endless
where even the burning suns
have singed themselves
dead ended paths
short cuts toward other
dead ended winding paths
some crawling
some others speeding
or
aiming higher
center of symmetry
the selfhood's center
of symmetry
outlines an immense
troubled Moon
not all right
triangles
have
but one single
hypotenuse
neither can portraits
capture their mien
by a single
intense
brush stroke
memory's
centroid
borders a spherical
switch
with all its rails
inward bound
not all the planets'
thoughts
have gotten perfect ellipses
nor have the craters'
skulls
rattled the teeth
in their jaws
one's heart's
inertia center
traces an interplanetary
stream
flooded over by the billows
of one's void
that keeps flowing
with no meandering
sense of purpose
or
sympathy
not all the points
have gotten nonexistent
bodies
nor have all
the wise
decisions
been based
on reason
alone
the center of resonance
of one's flesh
is about the state
of absent discontinuity
which by its endless
throbbing
voices an accusation
not all geometries
have gotten names
triangles
or flawless
circumferences
within which
Divinity
might imprison us
though He so far
has constantly
refrained
from doing so
penumbras
from dual destinies
derived
penumbras
stalk the night
sucked in
through osmosis
by a dusk filled with
tuberculosis
that helpless
sunset
spitting blood
a calm
wailing sound
resplendently breaks
against the skies
with their crystal spheres
and thence through
the black diamonds
when stars come out
together with the old
unflinching
belief
providing to high noons
new suns
bright stars
amongst lights of a different order
suffused
with darkness
the whole Dream
is astir
with dreams
driving this very
instant
through the one
prevailing at the shadow's
earliest start
telescoping
the pure idea
into the wondrous being
of the everlasting wave
dancing
within the equations
one cannot help feeling
within one's soul
the gentle
new reverberations
calmly breaking
through the older ones
reader
you've gotten
the whole
friendly
universe
with all its life
throbbing
in your very palm
she's back again
the soul
is back again
with her cherished
queries
concerning the incendiary
perpetum
mobile
what could I
answer her
I keep again
pretending
that reason is still busy
with its secondary game
of mending
not conceiving
shadowlike destinies
casting bloodless
tapering shadows
destinies slowly glide
through the grasses to the willows
at a time when in the lakes
the Moon is deploring
those instances which are slower
than snails
not a leaf is stirring
or down the sky
descending
when all of a sudden
all leaves come to a halt
fading away
the instant
seems to be fleeing
though
it doesn't seem to have
feet
to walk with
wings
to fly on
the idea of selfhood
disappears from one's mind
jelly fish drift along
with the blind grouped
in an orderly fashion
through that moment when
the Dream yields its noisomeness
and the gods have a good time
reading mortals' complaints
again they're gone
the young ones
are gone again
to scoop out
some fiords
on the Moon
leaving us
parents
with the regret
of having not been able
to deal
with that
gaping failure
as well
looking at them
you review afresh
the spread-out symmetries
and roads beaten over
the hidden paths that lead
to those defeats
known only to ourselves
yet looked upon by them
as outmoded ideas
held in place
by the nails
of fanciful victories
and besides
some of them
are amazingly
right
in having gone up
to the Moon
for
by so doing
they'll be filling out
with a fantastic
dexterity
that lingering
failure
of ours
is the time out of joint
at the snuffing out
of rushlights
has the time sprung out of joint
is faith then
shamelessly pumped down
our glands while they ooze out
their slime
is the famous Archer
the moving
target now
is the converted
lice of yesterday
guzzling about the spot
which it has pricked
is one's greedy selfhood
a communion
pellet
is the idle moment
syphoned-up
champagne
is the eternal moment
free of laws
gaols
or weaponry
is the hatch trap
gaping towards Hell
have you ever been an angel
even for one sole wailing
regardless of whether it came
from that worthless thug
the armed guard
suns do die too
decoding commandments afresh
matrix moulds
fertile laws
a welter of round dances
whirl wrestling
enchained
when out of the eternal eons
wheezing across the sky
shards of time
fling themselves down
lending life to the present
packing its moments full
with its thoughts
stirring up the shades
of buried Carthages
new histories
move down the olden
path
lined by stars
hile
the bunch of those
seemingly dreamlike
experiences
which had once
been our own flesh
suckled by our own
blood
suns do die too
take heed
and keep
your wits about you
when speeding galaxies
toward the Great Pulling Actor
by countless shades
enhancing the indefinite factor
bowl over
silencing
the craved-for meaningful
word
in your mouth