though i am aware of the fact that some of these poems need a little reshaping i've decided to leave them as they are because of the meaning they have as a whole (they are meant to be read as a whole like a sort of diary). please don't skip&have patience they get better as i re-learn writting poems along the way.


'just a bilingual hissing' (nina cassian)

ian2004
I

Cancer
it’s no longer a game
- if you hide, it’s going to find you,
there’s no way you can beat it
twice –
and it makes you sick
to your bones
and they crack
like rotten lumber

Cancer
you should get used to it, child,
seems like you’re no longer a Libra,
and this word, Cancer,
stands for your lucky star;
you were born under it
and you have its name written
deep there in your blood
and your mind
must become used to it
it must record
the end of your dear ones
and learn to cope with it
and prepare
for your own long never-coming-back-from death.


II

Time passes as it has never passed before
it seems like this is the first time
it really passes
I’m dead but I don’t know it yet
oh will I ever acknowledge it?

It’s been two weeks now
since my mind hurts
each and every time I try to think about it
and I can’t decide
what to let go of
in order to make it somehow better for her.

It’s solitude
that I’m scared of
it’s this wretched death
that I hate
it is this God
that I’ve stopped believing in
and this illness
I cannot accept

But they’re all
parts of my body
they’re all tattooed
in her mottled frightened desperate voice
and I can’t sooth her dejection
I can’t take sadness away from her
oh please God
don’t make me wash her body again
I can’t stop thinking of balms
and other stuff
for the dead
I can’t remove the word “death”
from my system
there’s no way You can make it worse
and no way I can make her better

Really hopeless I am
like a bird with no feathers.


III

Because Death doesn’t want me
(though I’ve offered myself to him)
and because he does fancy
another woman, my mother,
I’ve decided to be jealous of her.


IV

I wish I could run away
and still be there to comfort her,
be able to give her great joys
and still have enough time to mourn
her immediate departure and my own
“coming soon” solitude.
How I wish I could ask God to stop this
and have enough power and legitimacy to argue with Him
but I have no right before Him
and no prayer of mine
should be received.
Then maybe not praying for me
could be considered a good deed
and be accepted and written
in her own reckoning.

V

I am not the pillow
that holds her head up,
I am neither the blanket
that covers her body
nor the sheet
that caresses her skin,
but oh how much I would want to sleep
next to her in her dying bed
so that death,
by mistake,
could take my very sinful spirit
instead.


VI

Three things that I can’t get used to:
people dying,
my mother dying,
me not dying instead.


mar2004

I will always remember
the little girl saying
Everyone is dying
and me trying to hold everything back
then suddenly
something explodes inside
or maybe just at the level of my eyes
fingers pressed hard against my forehead
“Don’t come out” I pray
“not into this space of projections
where everything becomes real”
then I rest my eyes in my hands
this is not for everybody to see
so now death can’t come out of the screen
and trace me by the blink of my lids.

?apr2004
Little newly found old customs of yours
grow inside me
as in a garden
you’ve once seeded and watered
and never had time to witness
what you’ve planted and dug.
mai2004

I

I know words like
sadness
hopeless
mesto
triste
chagrine
not good words
definitely not words that a 19 year old
should know
go to bed with
and wake up beside at dawn
instead of the fine looking young male
the girl in the next room touches at night
every night (Sunday nights included)
while I touch my own body
not caressing it but looking for nodules.


II

I translate my sorrow
into a different language
not the language in which
reality expresses itself
but that of movies and literature,
of popular songs’ lyrics and school papers,
of my own dreams when I’m very tired,
of me speaking in the mirror one morning
telling myself:
“this cannot be happening”
it’s just death and disease
it’s a game of transforming


III

She made some crosses
large gestures and all
as she was leaving the sideroom
weeping and saying:
“Please, God, help me get through this
once more”
as if the hospital room was a church
as if the doctors that had sent her home
knew nothing at all about healing.
I cried all the way to the car
carrying her many bags
trying not to let my father see me like that
as if I had no reason to cry
her prayer dissipated into the white walls
and solved all this world’s problems.


IV

If you wanna go
visit someone
at the Oncological Hospital Fundeni
you’ve got to take the bus number 253
from Posta Titan
(that’s the name of the station)
and let yourself be carried away
by the music you hear in your headphones
and by the mass of people
moving restlessly
to and fro
looking for the right door
to dismount the vehicle
hurrying and yelling
except you don’t hear anything they say
One flight down
There’s a song on low
you practically whisper the lyrics
pay attention to the flowers
watch your purse too
you never know
when it could happen
ignore the smell of onions
alcohol and mixed perspiration
try to focus on the stations
it is very important not to let yourself fooled
and get off at Intrarea Fundeni
that’s before Spicului
and Fundeni(this one can also mislead you)
your destination is The Oncological Hospital
exactly
it’s very quiet out there
you’ll see
now and then some noisy birds
circle the building
their big flocks mustn’t scare you
you’re finally there
nothing happened
another mission was taken care of
by number 253

?iul2004


I’ve put on my new shoes
went to show off with them
in the cemetery.
This year’s grass ate them;
bare-footed, it felt like
stepping on a cold, echoing mirror.
“Don’t look down” the apple told me
“better have a bite of this snake”.
Unskilled prostitute,
the snake just stood there
on his two human feet.
As I passed by,
the apple exploded
above all our heads
as if touched by a wooden bird’s beak.



sept2004



The train stops. The doors open.
I’m being spat out. I tumble.
Guess it’s about time
I open my veins
and watch where I’m going.

sept2004

I’m moving restlessly
in this flesh-consuming machine
whenever I want to stop
strangers push me from behind
they yell and they gesture a lot
I don’t have time to tell them
that I’m feeling empty and superficial
as this stone grows bigger and bigger inside
someday its edges are going to come out
and scar everyone who’s around.


sept2004

I am without cause
all is possible now
trees are growing upside-down
their fruit is not for the living
it all lies in the roots
it all lies in the roots
I am without cause

sept2004

yellow tulips
new table and chairs in the backyard
cooking books and exams
fighting over your clothes
inventing old habits
shopping on Fridays
being afraid
the mantra of poems
changing diets
dirty language
new places to visit
a wedding in August
nice coloured pills
golden medals on TV
hating people
beautiful secrets
a black jacket
my birthday

sept2004


“Now you can do everything you want
no one will hold it against you
just now”
they’ve told me
“It’s your last chance
these three days are all you’ve got
you didn’t lose her
yet”

so I shouted I swore
hit and cried
watched her and made promises
and when the ceremonies were over
we all sat down at the kitchen table
drank tzuica and laughed
nothing was left of my mother
just this anger that fills my insides.

nov2004

Please share your death with me
this death you’ve kindly took upon yourself
at the end of a broken spring
I promise not to get bored
as I used to when I was a little child
and ruin it for everyone
at that select party
inside.
nov2004

my first twenty years were such a big crap
maybe this karma is over
water completed my face
I am a ragged doll
that never knew childhood
may this life be the one that concludes

nov2004

it’s snowing over my mother
and nobody seems to mind
I’ll stay out in the withered garden
shoeless
massaging the earth with my soles
while eagles eat up my liver
Si-n Viflaimul mare nimenea n-o primea

nov2004

Oh my Enkidu
my Patroclus
my mother
I shall never grow tired of crying

this womb from which I’ve departed
is now dust to dust
ashes to ashes
the hand I’ve caressed during your illness
has been opaquely veiled by the grave

Oh my Enkidu
my Patroclus
my mother
I cannot believe in gods anymore.

nov2004

I came home
saw the mirror was covered
living people don’t die
we’re not in a movie
we’re not in a goddam movie
you’ve just kissed my hand yesterday
women who kiss shouldn’t die
I hate their faces
hate all their fucking faces
wish I could tear their mouths apart
for saying such a horrible thing
I don’t want to see her like that
don’t want to see her like that
pass the image on to my children
I will never eat at that table again
formalin makeup and cancer
stop touching her as if she were a toy
she’s not yours
not yours
now that she’s no longer breathing
no longer crying
you take her stillness for death
and turn her into an object
she’s not your puppet you know
enough with the cooking and laughing
enough with the drinking I say
there’s a beautiful woman on our dining table
where do you intent to put the glasses and plates
this is not a party
it is not how it should have been
going to sleep and then waking
as if life would still exist
God how I hate your Romanian shitty customs
your talking and glee
if you don’t care at all about her leaving
please shut the fuck up for me

feb2005

Dana just phoned me
she said she has dreamt you last night
not a ghost not a shadow
but a young and beautiful woman
as you once were
I didn’t get your good looks
all that I have inherited from you
is a bunch of old black and white pictures

they didn’t want you back
those stupid people
Dana said that you begged him to receive you
but he just wouldn’t listen, my father
my sister told you she didn’t believe it was you
I was the only one that agreed to take in
my dear dead errant mother

feb2005

I wished I could have been American for the holidays
womanish and stupid
joyful and superficial
but the Christmas songs were too bitter
and the absence of snow made me shiver
I’ve tried in vain to find a place for me in this season
maybe I just wasn’t made to sparkle and glitter

feb2005

a winter of recollection and cooking
of massive shopping and visits from friends
I’ve tried to find shelter
in gifts and in hospital beds
spent all my nights learning and reading
for unimportant exams
I thought I would die but I didn’t
looks like my illness resides in my veins
maybe I’ll cut them open one blessed morning
and let everyone wonder at my hemorrhagical pain


feb2005

Where the fuck did it go
I stood wondering
somewhere up at the second floor
of the ill-famed county maternity.
There was a funny mixture
of new life and cancer
and a special smell in the air
my arms hurt from perfusions and needles
I knew nothing bad happened
my virginity was violently removed by a doctor
like a bad tooth, like a spreading tumour.
And while I laid there bleeding
on the other side of the Acheron river
I understood that I had entered the hell with a faint.
These were the last days of a terrible year.

feb2005

You came to me last night
you didn’t know you were dead
you never know it in my dreams
and I am too afraid I might scare you
if I tell you the truth
so I let you stay and I hug you
you laugh and you ask me what’s the matter
I feel like crying while I rack my brains
trying to find a way to keep you here forever.
But last night you helped me pack up some of my towels.
Maybe you can’t tell it to me either.

mar2005

I’ve cut my hair short
I’m as ugly as Death
only Death holds something in her arms
while my arms are empty
pietà
pietà
pietà

mar2005

I remember that spring
three years ago
when we shared the same room
slept in the same bed
reading and laughing
and then the door was draped in black
for the first forty days
to mark the transition
we took the cloth to the cemetery
to be washed white by rains and snowfalls
what a cheap metaphor
places you’ve been
can’t be purged of your presence.

mar2005

My grandparents’ bones
have been neatly put in two sacks
to make room for your own
down under
they’ve poured red wine
over your body
in the shape of a cross
my grandmother used to be such an elegant woman
and you weren’t a fucking wine glass


mar2005


they’ve sent us a box with your stuff
notebooks, agendas, an eraser, a ruler
daddy – well, he’s not such an over-emotional man
he gave those sheets of paper one use or another
I took one of your old fashioned ballpoint pens
we’ll write about the things that just happened
together.

mar2005

hospitals flying
with their windows wide spread
that man carefully looking inside me
for an illness I didn’t possess
it hurts and it is humiliating
at twenty that’s how a man’s hands feel
I can see the intern grinning
while the doctor says please be still
the colposcopy is over
but there may be other abortions
cysts
births
cancer
and medical operations
to come. with being a woman.
I wish for a son
mar2005

no one around me
no one who could understand
this language
my scribblings
a therapy that renders me
even more lonely
estraniare
is a possible verb
pain knows many tongues
and it feels at home
teaching my fractured insides
(ovaries and mind)
the correct pronunciation

apr2005

in a month’s time I won’t be in weeds anymore
I’ll wear blue skirts
sparkling jewels
dye my hair red
and buy a new pair of sandals
I’ll visit you then
so many things we’ve forgotten
I’ll help you remember
we’ll talk
yes
the shuffling of feet on the pavement

apr2005

somewhere in the centre of the city
girls dance
on top of tall buildings
per sora nostra morte corporale
the dog lowers its hind legs
a gipsy woman shouts
that she is collecting old metal

apr2005

the wooden bird again
its great sweaty beak at my window
only now it is golden
its plumage begins to resemble an orthodox icon
ohmarymotherofgod
death is grace
grace be upon us

apr2005

I used to faint a lot as a child
and always woke up on the kitchen table
like Snow White after the removal of the poisonous apple
I laid
but someday
verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi


mai2005

people say the skies open
these forty days
between easter and ascension
in the country they put a plate for them too
lay the tables at home
or in church yards
near their places of rest
these are the days when they walk the earth again
and rejoice in the resurrection of christ
imagine them all
sugar-drunk and happy
in the trembling sunlight
the fragile feast of the dead
mai2005

I’ve bought myself
a bunch of daisies
a jar of mustard and some bread
a little bee kept flying around me
the street was burning under my sandals
my bag seemed to melt in the sunlight
don’t be jealous, I’ve said
you know I can’t buy you back
got to live
no one comes back
I will never come back

mai2005

my sister doing a most shameful thing
in the presence of our mother
I told her: “look what she’s doing
why don’t you punish her?” but she didn’t bother
to listen to my poisonous words
she kept watching the tv and smiling
in such a distant way and my sister continued
to touch herself in the presence of our mother
who had been dead for a year
and hadn’t completely recovered


mai2005

I’m a peculiar sort of lizard
which is to be found in the sunny regions
of this world
I eat red leaves and colourless spiders
and have long crawlings
along the great river
sleep under high rocks at night
but I don’t believe in regeneration
a year ago they’ve cut off my tail
and it never grew back
mai2005

this house fighting against me
out of its sadness
dust and spots everywhere
hostile walls and carpets
dirty cups and forks
I clean and I clean
but I don’t seem to make a difference
rooms full of decay
furniture hiding the ugliest insects
I’ll go down with this house
it may be easier tiding up under waters

mai2005

please

I love to make lists
I have thousands of them
I’m very meticulous
even with my cooking
I like garden parties
out in the kiosk
the laughter of friends
the ice and the soda
making the thought of this summer
almost bearable
reading English novels
short furious rains
the smell of jasmine
in the evening
these are a few of my favourite things

you must come and see me
I’ve changed quite a lot
so that you would like me better this time

please

mai2005

living it all over again
each year in May
is a ritual
that invests time with a new quality
and brings you back to me
in circles
like a holiday
you appear
and in your dying day
I rejoice




iun2005

our hands meet on the back of the swinging plate
I see the bearded man spill the wine
and I feel sorry for understanding it all
if only I could be as stupid and silent
as the old wrinkled hags
who darken the church with their clothes


iun2005

the following day
I was sitting at the kitchen table
in Bucharest
drinking my coffee
and this was the moment I’ve realized
that I had got it all wrong
you hated death
you were unhappy

we were preparing for the one year commemoration
and everything seemed to go wrong
burnt up pies
cuts and bruises
so I thought for a moment
that you must really hate us

iun2005

Sit down daughter
I’ll teach you the names of the dead
Ileana Florentina Ileana
do you still want to be had?

Sit down daughter
I’ll teach you the names of the dead
Ileana Florentina Ileana
there is a cluster in space
waiting for you
but oh nothing
nothing is new
in death as in literature
everything has been said
tell me daughter
have you cleaned up the plate for your head?


iun2005

I came home after the exam
cooked the food
watched those tiny cookies
late in the night
as if it was your body I watched
for a second emptier time
on the third day I went to the church
seeing your funeral cake washed by wine
always makes me cry
we gave alms to old flower ladies
and mousy haired gypsies
your grave was nicely swept
and full of carnations
I don’t like them either
the marble monument bore a new name
I guess they’ll remove the wooden cross now
our goodbye cross
that I used to touch every time I was leaving
another station for me
such a long wake
then back at the reception
everybody congratulated me
for the food and for the good organization
I was proud but felt like breaking down
once more
and the clothes we gave to that woman
who looks just like you
I didn’t raise my eyes while cleaning the tables
but still in the kitchen
I wept
I’ve managed to catch the 5.49 train
in the evening
which was late for the first time in two years
so I had time to talk to your old friend for a while
and felt that strange alchemy
I had feared all my adolescence
I remember a scene from a movie or novel
there was nothing to be done with
the remains of that day
and I left that last but one station
went to the exam the next morning
where the teacher gave me an A


iun2005

I’ll hide you inside this poem
without much rhythm or rhyme
so you’ll have enough space
to unwhirl your grace
my donna angelicata
who passes love but no understanding

iun2005

to begin with

there are the poems you’ve read to me
during my first years of life
then the ones I’ve adorned my adolescence with
when I felt you couldn’t understand me
and these ones I’ve learnt by heart
in this last meaningless year

to begin with

you have put the poems inside
and their buds spring today
like a fragrant disease
through my ribs on my thighs

iun2005

music coming from an open window
in June
when the school’s almost over
and almond eyed girls
dream about trips in the north
and their true mother’s voice
saying YOU WILL BE FINE
when no one still believes it
you will marry next winter you know
you who have always hated this season
that burdens the graves
and kills the song of the swallows
your child won’t be much of a dreamer
will not wake up frightened at night
won’t come to your door will never be ill
will not need you
you’ll be useless
your life will bear no meaning
but oh it was all going to be so FINE
like music coming from an open window

iun2005

the last poem I’ve wrote
may be about me
or about my mother
I thought about none
but just look at the coincidences
they never surprise me
she once came to me
in the space of a faint
told me she’ll be alright
the poem is a door a gap
a sci-fi movie type of portal
but I am practical down-to-earth
when life curls I don’t wonder

iun2005

in my lyrical consciousness
(that’s how it shall be called)
you have always been dying
maybe I think too much
thanks god I write so little


iun2005

in the morning my back hurts
I have slept on my belly again
in the magazines they say you’re
the totally scared of everything type
you don’t trust anyone
think your back is a shield
protecting yourself from the world
you’ll never have a relation
this way
the magazines are right
who will ever date a scoliotic?



iun2005

rain bothers trouble minded women
they stop needle in hand for a moment
listen to the coarse lovemaking of waters
remember a childhood scene a boy lover
then resume
as it all grows quieter
night disembodies the one in the mirror.



iun2005

the picture is an old one
only the photographer’s eyes
remember the colours
the woman’s grey skin
must have been red
from the cold
but all we can get from looking at it
is the feeling of freezing


iun2005

women write with both hands
as if clinging to the walls






iun2005

come on we shall walk through this city
where you’ve been young and in love
now that I am a student here too
I’ll show you my favourite shopping places
we’ll go into a café
and talk about books and old lovers
you’ll speak loud and tell jokes
advice me to have more friends
and start wearing make-up
you’ll force me to buy a short skirt
I know I will never dare to dress with
this moment with us both happy
summer hats protecting our heads from the heat
pierces the sky
and then comes down like a fallen bird
its wings shadowing us
leaving behind a brown le petit Paris postcard


iun2005

since she’s gone
her name has become a taboo subject
we hardly ever mention it
nowadays we speak more and more
about my gynaecological problems
vesnica lor pomenire

iun2005

us drinking coffee in a crowded place
or is it my kitchen
you’re old and dressed accordingly
I am baking cakes for my husband
I am perfect a teacher write books
life’s only tenderness and fulfilment
your eyes and voice add to the full smell
of a mother’s kitchen
someone knocks at the door till it breaks
this image quietly withdraws into the subjunctive
a mood I am trying to learn

iun2005

I can see the long
round shaped
sour cherry coloured
fingernails
playing with a tiny
rose leaf
while my father is opening
the big gates
I watch them fascinated
you tell me it’s just
a thing you do
whenever you’re nervous
I hear the car’s engine
and immediately decide
to develop such tics
when I’m older


iun2005

the young gypsy woman
standing on the front steps of her house
shouting at her lover
she is so full and life drained
in the artificial light of the street
with her coarse voice and red coloured blouse
she seems an untrimmed garden
well-bred women who watch her
are cities that tend to collapse

iun2005

my loud Bucharest neighbours
their children
they just sit there watching
the twisting of voices like wet paint
their eyes bruised with understanding
until the sound echoes no more
then they bury their heads in the pillow
out of which dreams cease to grow
iul2005

mother
mother
mother
mother
I llllllllllllllllllllllluv you
So much


aug2005


Sometimes
You step out of these pages
And wander
Through the house
And the backyard
You populate them with fiction
With your own spectral eye
And your spectral eyelashes

Sometimes
In the poem catching season
You deliberately
Mismanage the traps
And set all the words free
But not your daughter

Your most humble narrator
Poet
And clown


aug2005


I am as cold
As a poem in Latin
But you
Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli

aug2005


A young girlish silhouette
As if raised from her own dandruff
She appears at my door in mid august
Wearing new shiny boots
And that whole nancy sinatra attitude
The pain fingers me like a lover
Who knows he’ll leave me tomorrow


nov2005

“I’ll never go to Australia
where my first husband’s ashes are scattered
at Fremantle near the ocean
ships float 2 inches above the sea level
not to touch them not to upset
someone speaks to me about plane tickets
and the taste of free spirits on the 12 hours flight
I take a deep breath it sets my nose bleeding
the waters are clinging to the second floor windows
like in the year when we first met.”



nov2005

I threw up a cinnamon baby
looked in his blue eyes as I was flushing
I’ll have to explain to his fathers
that I am no saint woman no riddle
my virginity is like time and necessity
a philosophical question a quest a non-loss
but still they won’t fuck me
however tasty her children may be
no man wants a wound for a woman.


nov2005


the woman who penetrated me with a cold
cold spoon was no witch but a doctor she’s
dead now and I wonder whether my first
lover that medical spoon still exists I’m
bleeding for you down down down I am
all an inflammation that waits for your gentle
touch that can fecundate or rip everything off whatever
you choose oh just stab me to the end of
LOVE


nov2005


everybody looks at me on the streets
in the subway
as if I had a see-through womb
decorated with winter
its intricate geography reveals a mappa mundi
I am an inferno myself
out of my virginity I do wait
by the Flecteon river inside
next to the sciapods and cynocephali
for this false bleeding to stop







2006
I am a fucked up girl
who thinks she’s a rebel
I write Romanian poems
in English
and that’s a statement I say
I get fat and lose weight almost daily
And it’s all moons and hormones with me
I Elizabeth the 1st queen of Damnme
am no vestal
there’s no bloody(less) sacrifice that I make
limbs and tissues appendix colecist liver
in my poems there’s no room for love
me me me



2006


January doesn’t end can’t be buried
no sun no sun I feel empty
and lonely
like the last haemorrhoid on this
arse-shaped earth that I loathe
oh bring me the peace the death
of anniversary
September


2006


Now I think without words
in my mind there are only spaces
waiting to swell
with pieces of Italian
English Romanian French imperfect
as they may be
in trains
people surely think that I’m crazy
turning back and forward the pages
waiting for my mind to be cloaked in
the liquid glow of a book
like hot lemon syrup
on a frosted tea cake