poems by Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

The Watchmaker’s Song

 

I. The first dream and the first chant of the young watchmaker

It is only this wind’s chant

Steeping deep in my ears

The enchanting flowers blooming far away

The chant of the virgins from the sapphire kingdom,

The chant of old clocks with gold wheels,

The chant of old bristlecone pine trees, cypresses, and Sequoia,

Like the mother-goddess and the father-god.

Only this wind guides me

With his velvet-dragon eyes

Till the sea of seas,

The dawn of dawns,

Up till the girl in the clouds who lies up there

And here too, somewhere in the night inside of me.

II. The encyclopedic dream of the watchmaker

It is possible to construct a square with an area arbitrarily

close to that of a given circle. If a rational number is used

as an approximation of π, then squaring the circle becomes

possible, depending on the values chosen. However, this is

only an approximation and does not meet the constraints

of the ancient rules for solving the problem. The transcendence

of π implies the impossibility of exactly “circling” the square,

as well as of squaring the circle. (Wikipedia, 2018)

III. His notations on the edge of geometrical abstractions

Therefore Eve is imperfectly or dually constructed,

And Adam misses a rib,

That is a chain of mountains and valleys,

Like the violin body of a woman and like the whole body of the earth,

With ups and downs,

Because like our Father there cannot be

The being or the breathing of the woman,

And like His Son, there cannot be one Spirit

To keep each thing and every one of us in a sheath of sunrays,

On this kind of star named earth,

One day cold, another day warm is our heart,

Either close, either far are our eyes,

Blinded by the light, we think that our horizon is

A night lighted by the sparks of human minds,

Little is our thought, little is our love,

And our deed, it too seems little,

Like the tiniest clock in the world,

Like dandelion fluff is blown away in a whiff…

IV. The old watchmaker’s chant

The woman is not what it seems, the woman is always the same,

Either she’s a queen or a gypsy house painter,

Either she’s alone or an acclaimed actress,

Either she’s young like the unripe wheat, or old like the gnarled oak,

She is a woman

And her pure eyes are clean until the man brings in rust

And stops for some time

Between the small clock wheels in her mind.

 

Willow

More beautiful than this is impossible, I hear you say to me,

when the piano song leaves for afar from my ears.

I too cry, don’t you see, it is not only you crying,

the silvery-green rain weaves for me a dress and the unskilled sun

seams it with untrodden grass.

My fingertips are only a shadow, I don’t want

to kill myself as long as I am alive,

there is a delta for everything,

for all the crying of those who have souls,

like sunrises for the wings of thin and long water birds,

who take flight below

closer to the river’s reflection of the sky.

Today I love myself

and I am lonelier than yesterday and maybe

I am in love with all the lovers in this world,

I value their full moments after they take a share of everything,

form every mirror of this world

where they see themselves,

I can’t, I simply cannot breathe any longer, because I am happy.

I am fifteen years old and my name is woman or maybe willow.

 

Useless

 

I never loved anything else as much

as my red deflated ball.

Egoistic,

I never let other children touch it,

keeping its scent from within on the palms of my hands.

I threw it:

one, two, three, to the wall, stay put!

It stopped shortly

and I picked it from the ground.

This had been my life.

 

The prayer of the heart

 

I pick up the phone to talk for free on Sundays/ on the other end of the line there are no other words/I skim through my phone numbers agenda/ people I forgot about because they did not want me/ my love for the farther and departed ones/ the biblical kin queuing at the same feast/ sharing and multiplying home bread and onions/ and the man paid to soak the sponge in vinegar

it’s a very quiet day it rains as if in empty honeycombs

people come back from the white church with low spires

sharing their umbrellas

I stick my fingertips to the soil from the pot with a green plant/I disconnect myself/I discharge my electricity/I try to fix the soles of my feet on the floor/ to equilibrate my soul between the two lungs/ this is an exercise without mantras feng shui or ikebana

only a sunflower stays close to the wall like virgin mary in her prayers

 

Rupestrian

my happiness ends here / on a Sunday’s evening

after the cross atop the church’s steeple becomes cooler

after this bright red sunset

there will be no more painless/ careless/ fearless moments

the asphalt is empty and dull for my soles/ its echoes are lost

no better things to do than strolling these streets/ almost losing ground

then staring at people right into the whole/ the full of them

without any thought on my mind

only the shadow of my elbow is touched by other shadows

en passant

silhouette after silhouette

Modigliani’s women/ Brâncuşi’s magic birds

la dolce morte della luce

everything flows into thoughts/ thoughts into other thoughts

even Charon’s boat disappears

and right now my lips paralyzed to prevent me from proving the truth

poems by Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

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