Poems by Sorin-Mihai Grad

translated by Stella Davis & Mădălina Moţ [MTTLC student]

Surrogate of the rain

no one is interested in politics anymore
the poem about it burnt in ‘89
so no, another theme

everybody writes about them, about love stories and affections,
dreaming and afterwards crying and cursing
and almost everyone gives up

nature has been praised and described in rhymes
to which no one can add anything
without happening on some classic

there are a lot of things which have to be made, we all know this
a lot have been told in cut phrases
and sold as poems

but I haven’t read one about the door which keeps me away
from the world, no one knows that without it anyone could see
if I tried to open it

Surrogate of life

it got into your head that it hurts and you thrust it out of the window
apparently to cry in the rain
without observing that your neighbour upstairs
is shaking out
the last drops of the extinct urination
horrible!- you shall say -but how else could it be?
you are so me that it makes me believe
that I am talking to myself
in fact I am writing to myself
you were happy so you damped your digression
with a grimace and a thought
evoking the eternal depression which protects you from the world
and from yourself
you considered yourself common and you wanted to reinvent yourself
through your favourite death
inside yourself
and the smoke you hear is not your burning brain
not even the burning world
it’s just the void you foster greedily
if only you knew how to…
but what would be the purpose of it?
you would even ask yourself this;
you are thinking of getting drunk, but you postpone it for tomorrow
you should buy yourself a mirror
so that there was someone who could see your pain
namely your idiocy
or your genius if you prefer

Surrogate of red

you have a mad friend
he saw his brother dying
he jumped down when the water
had just left
some cliffs
or something like that, you know it better
yes, you introduced him to me, yes, there was something strange
about him, yes, I wouldn’t recognize him
but you know that I have a mad friend, too
he must have jumped down several times
as I know he would do
but he had no scratch afterwards
he can take out of his head more than
blood and a bunch of damaged brains.

I’m talking about you

Hey, I make you famous, why would you get upset?

Surrogate of the future

everything is going to be all right
you will be happy
the sun will shine just for you
every you will be read as a plural
whenever you may wish this
with an inherent happiness
(all we have to do is multiply some copies
but this will be solved)
do not tell me about pollution
it will self-destruct
rain? Only over the crops
tv will offer you what you didn’t even imagine that you wanted
the alphabet will start from wherever you would like
out of the tap it will run whatever you would like at that moment
you will wake up when you desire
(the alarm clock cannot strike!)
in order for you to enjoy everything
and to contemplate this tomorrow
far more than perfect
which raises only one problem
it doesn’t come
let’s hope that this is just for now

#
from the poetry collection SUROGAT [Herg Benet Publishers, 2010]