[Five Poems from Corpses in the Void]
translated from Romanian by Ștefan Bolea
Prophetic Anatomy
There isn’t any poison left
only some pale fluids
the sunburnt tongue cries in agony
and the canines have gone smaller, while the nothing
is sealing the words.
Statues will be erected
for the ones who have not been, those who are
will be consecrated with a Nay – and the falling
adjectives will adorn
the pithecanthrope’s forehead. Only the vertebra
will go on smiling
and they shall dance, dance, dance,
creeping into the cracks
of history and geography.
Hallelujah
Lord of dreams, there’s no more
venom in my blood – the guillotine
decapitates corpses.
a NO, perhaps a NO
should be the last word
in this empty church
where a tape recorder
delivers an endless sermon.
Coat of Arms
The rabid dog has died,
the old horse was stabbed,
the wind took their skins away
and went to feed its orphans.
Feverishly the old fortress is extinguished,
the snake has fallen after drinking poison,
the bloodstained evening abdicates over the hills
selling her dead body.
Only the assassin is immortal
grinning when stars are falling –
the victim’s ghosts
at his feet.
Infectious Invocation
Seven fat hyenas and seven thin hyenas – absurd clepsydra
went out of the river, oh, how many corpses do we need, how many horse carcasses,
how many stiffs… but horses had been long dead, and cars are sleeping
in the night, and corpses have only two legs, and everyone
produces a SINGULAR corpse! Oh, god of hyenas, give us the new law,
always have mercy on our stars, let your reeking ghost
descend upon us! Give to each one
many, many
COUNTLESS
corpses!
Corpses in the Void
Void, void, void –
too much void in history
the only lessons learned
dread and blind submission.
Wine and stars
Can no longer cheat us.
Byproducts of chance,
woe to the crownless kings!
The slaves are dead
and their corpses
Rot in the galley.