by the heart to its seed,
to that unmoved in itself, identical
to the pit of the earth
that extends from itself
infinite gravitational arms
and draws everything into itself and suddenly
into an embrace so powerful
that through its arms leaps movement.
III.
I will run, therefore, in every direction
at once,
I will run after my own heart,
like a chariot
simultaneously pulled in every direction
by whipped horses.
IV.
I will run until advance, until rush
itself passes me
and pulls further ahead of me
like the fruit’s skin from its seed,
until running
will run even within itself, and be still.
And I will collapse
over it like a young man
onto his lover.
V.
And once I have let running
pass me by,
once
movement within itself is still
like stone, or
better, like mercury
behind the glass
of a mirror,
I will see inside all things,
I will embrace them with myself,
all things at once,
and they
will throw me back, once
all that was thing in me
has been changed, over time, into things.
VI.
See me
remaining what I am,
with flags of loneliness, with shields of chill,
back toward myself I run,
pulling myself from everywhere,
pulling myself from myself before,
behind myself, on my right and
my left, above and
underneath myself, departing from
everywhere and giving to
everywhere signs that will bring me to mind:
to the sky – stars,
the earth – air,
shadows – branches and budding leaves.
VII.
. . . odd body, asymmetrical,
surprised by itself
in the presence of spheres,
surprised to stand before the sun,
waiting patiently for light to grow
a body to fit.
VIII.
To keep yourself with your own earth
when you are a seed, when winter
liquefies its white, long bones
and spring arises.
To keep yourself with your own land
when, O human, you are alone, when you are battered
by unlove,
or simply when winter
decomposes and spring
moves its spherical space
like the heart
from itself toward the edge.
To enter purely into the labor
of spring,
to tell seeds they are seeds,
to tell earth it is earth!
But first of all,
we are the seeds, we are
those seen from all sides at once,
as though we lived inside an eye,
or a field, where instead of grass
gazes grow – and we
suddenly hard, almost metallic,
cut the blades down with ourselves, so they
will be like every thing
among which we live
and to which
our heart gave birth.
But first of all,
we are the seeds and we prepare
within ourselves to throw ourselves into something
much higher, into something
that has the name of spring . . .
To be inside phenomena, always
inside phenomena.
To be a seed and keep yourself
with your own earth.
ALPHA
(Alfa, 1967)
Raid on the Interior of Stones
Raid on the interior of stones,
on fixed formations.
I pray for boredom, spleen,
for movement so slow
a city could encompass the wooden solemnity
of a chessboard,
and sounds would make such spheres that
a hand could pluck them from the air,
and flying arrows would trail lazy spiders fluttering
I pray for boredom,
the blade of grass somehow I pray
will not emerge from itself,
but adhere to its own monotony,
like seconds to hours and hours to time.
Apples I pray, on my knees
before the shadow of apples, will stay
unseparated from apples;
and my blood-marked head I batter against the rain’s thunder,
to show it should follow
more closely the mindless zigzags
of lightning.
I pray the sun to stay round,
I pray the moon to stay far away
and lifeless,
I pray it will keep its circles just the same
and not change them into purple tentacles,
and hang like a jellyfish, dead, in space.
I pray for boredom, spleen,
to myself I pray, for boredom,
never sure how to set
my heart aside, a foreign planet within me
that I enclose like petrified air.
Raid on set destinies,
on clean formations:
I pray for boredom, spleen . . .
Surface
Because I walk on you,
you are covered in footprints.
My soles are worn through.
We only lose touch when I jump
or you cave in.
Where I end, you begin.
Glassy white with phantoms.
They reveal themselves: angels descend,
crystals rise.
Day descends upon night,
a continuous sunrise
over various planets.
I don’t know if it’s hot out or cold.
I don’t even know if we are alone.
Something, I don’t know what, passes.
I look up,
as you do, and you reveal yourself, suspended.
I hold out my hands and walk my palms over you.
Where I end, you rise,
I hang from you like a long seed pod
Underneath, far below, the whipped horses run.
If I let go, I’ll fall onto a saddle.
But I won’t.
If I stay as I am any longer,
I will either freeze or catch fire.
But I won’t.
I close my eyes: only the interior is revealed.
That is, blackness, that is, purpleness.
I close my eyelids down to my feet,
as though I were an eye.
That’s it, obviously, I’m an eye.
But in whose socket?
You Might Think I Was a Tree
You might think I was a tree.
A tree has many arms,
and I, many arms:
two visible, a thousand invisible.
When the wind blows, its arms rustle;
I like to believe that when I move
my arms are stirred by a
breeze uncanny.
You might think I was a tree;
each of my words is a leaf.
This comparison pleases me.
It’s how you know I’m old.
When I was young, I compared myself to an Indian god,
one with many arms, many legs.
I liked to say that lots of my arms and legs
had been snapped off and that
I ended up with just two arms, on
the right side,
and just two legs,
also on the right side.
So when I ran, I made a circle.
Then a spiral.
Now that I’m old,
I like to compare myself to a tree.
I think I move my arms and legs
beaten by a wind, uncanny,
and I am happy
with this comparison.
Soon, I won’t compare myself to anything,
my arms or legs won’t move,
and my words
won’t look like leaves.
I will be given permission,
by friends and enemies, to change planets.
Just like that, and I will prepare, for no reason,
to compare myself to something utterly utterly other –
and when I get old again –
with another utterly
utterly other something.
Then I will change planets again
and so on, and so on,
what monotony, God Almighty!
A Sleep with Saws Inside
A sleep with saws inside
decapitates horses.
They neigh blood and run
down the street, like red tables fleeing
the Last Supper.
And the horses run, in red clouds,
and clatter their shadows. Ghosts in the saddles.
Leaves stick to their throats
or fall straight through,
like the shadow of a tree falls down a well.
Bring the buckets, bring the glass goblets,
bring goblets and mugs,
bring helmets left over from the war,
bring whoever has one eye missing,
or an empty spot for an arm
where he can be topped off.
Everywhere, blood runs from headless horses,
runs wherever it wants,
and I, the first to see
all this,
may inform you that I drank some
and it was very, very good . . .
Ulysses
for the poet Geo Bogza
And now, friends, our spine grumbles
while pulling its paws from our flesh
and tries to run off on its own
to the edge of the sea.
Such passion for ships.
Such drive for masts.
It wants itself alone, for itself,
our flesh is not its problem.
It licks itself white,
with a tongue of memories.
Nothing is its problem,
it lends itself of its own free will –
to birds, dog, or dolphin,
disturbing itself,
untamed by guns
or bridles
or tons of water above.
Each of its bones is a skull,
its vertebrae are skulls
that think of the whip’s tail,
the lash, the harness,
its ribs are stretched-out skulls
that think of horizons, embraces,
graces,
O, each bone is a skull,
only skulls are true bones.
O, each bone is a skull
that’s lost its mind
taking ownership, instead of
the earthy and watery parts of the world.
Impatient are they within us,
O friends, our spines,
they want to leap out, friends,
they want to encircle
in vertebrae
one brain apiece.
Bones cannot be bones anymore,
they can’t be ribs, tibia, or femurs anymore,
they are fed up with being the phalange,
sternum, clavicle,
they all want to be skulls.
They are in fact the skulls
of our ancestors
decapitated within us
ground up within us, drowned within us
hanged within us.
They are the skulls of our ancestors
and they fight among themselves
for the right to be a skull.
They are the skulls of our ancestors
condemned to be a kneecap, or an ankle.
O friends, what is ours is only the forehead,
all other bones are skulls of our ancestors.
Our spines scream within us,
they yearn to yank themselves out and run to the sea,
to the edge of the sea they yearn to run,
passionate for ships
insane with longing for masts.
VERTICAL RED
(Roşu vertical, 1967)
A Soldier
A soldier hanging by his hands
from the edge of a cloud . . .
From his boots, by clenched hands
hangs another soldier. From his boots
another, then another, then another and another,
and so on into the middle of the earth.
I would like to slide down that line
like a rope,
and as I slid, their belt
buckles would scratch my face.
And as I slid, they would scratch my chest
and as I slid, as I slid, they would tear
off strips of flesh,
and as I slid, as I slid, I would become
a skeleton.
When I finally finished, I would lay my head
on a stone.
While I slept, the torn-off strips
would come back down and wrap around me.
Eventually, my blood would flow back
along with my pain.
I open my eyes and look around.
The column of soldiers is gone.
The wind, probably, pushed it
and the cloud somewhere else.
EGG AND SPHERE
(Oul şi sfera, 1967)
Fate
When I opened my eyes, I was
set inside this body you see,
found guilty for the way I was,
guilty as a leaf for being green.
And suddenly I began to sense
the pace of screams and light
and feel the dolorous curve of dawn
and every tree, alive.
To shout when pecked by darting birds,
to burn when hit by a meteorite,
to sleep along the necks of swans,
and, struck by oars, to die.
O, each syllable is my elephant tusk,
its ivory inverted at midday,
and mythic, frozen letters
reform in each delirious gaze.
Smelling a Flower
Smelling a flower is
a most shameful act . . .
It’s like sticking your nostrils into your
own mother.
O, poor species,
O, sad, unstable form, vertebrate or not.
Smelling a flower is like
an involuntary rape
of volition.
It’s like
letting spring affect you
not in winter but on the moon.
Old men, young men, adolescents,
who think they can handle it,
the grandchildren of Oedipus,
dirty progenitors
of the death of their own genesis,
they believe
that burying your nostrils inside a flower is an
action
worthy of their body’s privacy . . .
Smelling a flower is an act
of incest.
Son of the father,
father of that which is –
they who believe that death itself
is a privilege their brutal natures enjoy.
O, flower,
sweet-smelling milk of the Mother of God,
stability of still stillness.
Father and Son
multiply by smell,
they rape the sacred
womb of sc
ents.
We, ashamed and ostracized,
our noses broken, we sit up straight
on stone chairs, holding books,
we smell only with our gaze – and that’s it,
and ostracized
and spring-bleached, pure
and wise.
Winter Ritual
Always a cupola,
always another.
Rising like a saint’s halo,
or a rainbow, just.
Your upright body. My upright body
posed for a wedding.
A wise priest of air
presents two rings of air.
You raise your left hand, I, my left arm:
we reflect smiles at each other.
Your friends, my friends, weep
tears in syllables from hymns.
We kiss. They take our picture.
Flash. Dark. Flash. Dark.
I bend a knee, I fall on all fours.
Melancholic, I kiss your ankle.
I take you by your shoulder, you by my waist,
and we exit solemnly into winter.
Your friends, my friends, make way.
Two thousand pounds of snow fall over us.
We freeze to death. In spring
only curls adorn our skeletons.
Medieval Letter
We rushed the pyramids of lime,
but not to make walls – no.
We carried words of this Roman tongue
but not for mouths to speak.
We are, my love, the same.
Only the stones have changed,
only the blades of grass.
The lord of this place is violet, silence,
and carpenter’s glue – yes,
to mend our broken arms.
We are, my love, the same
and no one knows – yes,
our souls have returned
from a journey through the world
of pairs, one by one,
tree by tree, blade by blade,
stone by stone.
Invocation
Don’t forget how closely bound I am to you
and don’t abandon me,
all of you, constant, forever,
you all but me,
constant, forever.
O landscapes, don’t abandon me,
I am blind, and I can hear.
Nor you, tender silks,
touched
by one without arms,
though a man, identical
to the statue unearthed from deep in the planet,
Venus de Milo . . .
My empty eye socket beds
the mummified pharaoh.
For some time, I’ve been looking
for a kind of pyramid unseen,
where invisible slaves lost
their lives, too transparent,