{"id":7359,"date":"2011-08-05T14:56:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T12:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=7359"},"modified":"2011-08-05T18:37:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T16:37:55","slug":"poems-by-sorin-mihai-grad-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=7359","title":{"rendered":"Poems by Sorin-Mihai Grad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surrogate Memory <\/strong><\/p>\n

translated by Nigel Walker & Alexandra S\u00e2rbu [MTTLC student]<\/p>\n

light was falling and breaking on the ground<\/p>\n

where I had spread grass and maize-flour rolls<\/p>\n

we were listening to rammstein <\/em>on the quiet<\/p>\n

drinking from half grapefruits<\/p>\n

what we had squeezed out of them<\/p>\n

and debating the price of vegetables<\/p>\n

turnips are more expensive than onions<\/p>\n

you told me<\/p>\n

I replied something incoherent about the cabbage and the eggplant<\/p>\n

strangely, I wasn\u2019t hungry, you went on<\/p>\n

about pods which only matter in a group<\/p>\n

and then throw them in the soup as fast as you can<\/p>\n

and the potato, oh the potato<\/p>\n

not stuffed is just an ordinary tuber<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want a rabbit, I don\u2019t remember whether I\u2019ve told you<\/p>\n

or I\u2019ve only imagined it<\/p>\n

you knew about it anyway<\/p>\n

you hadn\u2019t read Tom Thumb <\/em>and I didn\u2019t want<\/p>\n

to listen to you anymore<\/p>\n

I was hunting pieces of light with my eyes<\/p>\n

spiel ein Spiel, mit mir<\/em><\/p>\n

but you saved yourself with whipper snapper <\/em><\/p>\n

you began to deserve a seal<\/p>\n

well, I hit you with that<\/p>\n

a thousand years of peace and still for nothing<\/p>\n

why not a zebra or a crayon?<\/p>\n

had you asked, you were doomed<\/p>\n

I would have told you to you and stirred<\/p>\n

other useless words in whatever fell around us<\/p>\n

you baptised me with leaves<\/p>\n

and I switched to parsley again<\/p>\n

how many sheets can you get for a bundle?<\/p>\n

on them you should write \u201cthink you\u2019ll get away with it?\u201d and randomly deliver them<\/p>\n

through mailboxes<\/p>\n

it would mean something and<\/p>\n

do you to remember the figure-of-eight pretzels we used to eat at school during breaks?<\/p>\n

you were the one saying you could eat countless\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

this is how I think you would have told me about that day<\/p>\n

if you hadn\u2019t tried to break nuts with the grenade<\/p>\n

we had found in the garden under the radishes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surrogate of a Surrogate <\/strong><\/p>\n

translated by Nigel Walker & Alexandra S\u00e2rbu [MTTLC student]<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what poems are good for<\/p>\n

whom and from what my surrogates will save<\/p>\n

whether they will brighten days lives nights<\/p>\n

inspire tortures and sects<\/p>\n

ignore or invade the minds that mess with them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but I\u2019ve understood that<\/p>\n

no matter how long you avoid a path<\/p>\n

that is intended for you to step on<\/p>\n

it will take you by the ears<\/p>\n

and will scream or whisper something in them<\/p>\n

commanding your feet to move<\/p>\n

one step another one<\/p>\n

you don\u2019t want wheels go on foot<\/p>\n

whoever is attentive doesn\u2019t get bored<\/p>\n

no matter how slow you may go<\/p>\n

it watches over you and throws you a spark<\/p>\n

or a word<\/p>\n

when you feel lost<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

today I can\u2019t write surrogate of indifference<\/em><\/p>\n

yesterday didn\u2019t know the most fictional<\/em><\/p>\n

alphaandomega of a path that had sneaked through me<\/p>\n

through what I was and what I also was<\/p>\n

supposed to do<\/p>\n

seven years of rummaging for<\/p>\n

no kind of tibet<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A slightly misanthropic Surrogate<\/strong><\/p>\n

translated by Stella Davis & M\u0103d\u0103lina Mo\u0163 [MTTLC student]<\/p>\n

what do you expect to discover now <\/p>\n

about me and inside me?<\/p>\n

with every word I masquerade<\/p>\n

or I mutilate- depending on the case-<\/p>\n

an emotion<\/p>\n

which I can barely remember<\/p>\n

these lines are in fact stories<\/p>\n

you will be able to decode<\/p>\n

starting with the third reading<\/p>\n

you cannot believe that the love and pain<\/p>\n

which appear hereabout<\/p>\n

did not exist through me<\/p>\n

just for you<\/p>\n

or that I am not joking when I ask you to decide<\/p>\n

which of the perfume seller and the little match seller<\/p>\n

will be abducted in the morning by the aliens<\/p>\n

or by cannibals if you prefer them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I dedicate this poem to you<\/p>\n

if you admit that you cannot understand<\/p>\n

what\u2019s the use of my sending you<\/p>\n

to hitchhike<\/p>\n

with a skull in your hand<\/p>\n

on the bridge between yesterday and tomorrow<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surrogate on false pretences<\/strong><\/p>\n

translated by Stella Davis & M\u0103d\u0103lina Mo\u0163 [MTTLC student]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in a garden<\/p>\n

I plant ash trees with broken wings<\/p>\n

and I urge them to die in a stupid war<\/p>\n

with the stereotypes of the night<\/p>\n

while waiting for them to die I line up my words<\/p>\n

in illiterate patrols within the clamour of ideas<\/p>\n

which would kill themselves through me<\/p>\n

their burning, which is not even cruel, sings at the other chords<\/p>\n

with a cloth voice<\/p>\n

with no trace of sense or inertia<\/p>\n

if some poet reads me he should kill himself<\/p>\n

now while he still has time, while he still has veins<\/p>\n

the garden begins to consider itself a vice and a drummer<\/p>\n

in the same time<\/p>\n

I have felt dead for a long time now<\/p>\n

and my traces stink like a rank carcass<\/p>\n

even among roses or other flavoured metaphors<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a limestone angel<\/p>\n

with concentric stripes<\/p>\n

watching over the insulation of an onion devil<\/p>\n

revolted and passive<\/p>\n

#
\nthe original versions of these poems, in Romanian, can be read in the author\u2019s recent book SUROGAT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surrogate Memory translated by Nigel Walker & Alexandra S\u00e2rbu [MTTLC student] light was falling and breaking on the ground where I had spread grass and maize-flour rolls we were listening to rammstein on the quiet drinking from half grapefruits what we had squeezed out of them and debating the price of vegetables<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,77],"tags":[629,1153,1123,628,403,580,116,627,312],"class_list":["post-7359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-32","category-english","tag-alexandra-sarbu","tag-egophobia-32","tag-english","tag-madalina-mot","tag-mttlc","tag-nigel-walker","tag-sorin-mihai-grad","tag-stella-davis","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-1UH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7359"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7376,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7359\/revisions\/7376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}