Ion BARBU

 

THE DOGMATIC EGG

 

The Dogma: And the Spirit of God

Moved above the face of the waters

 

It's given to these gloomy folks

The sterile egg for daily meal,

But lively egg with seed on top

It's born in our sight as sunny seal!

 

As ancient world, in crystal time,

Is swimming in a thinly lime,

The new and pure egg – a gift

For wedding, a palace or a crypt.

 

Three sheets of silk coiled in a row,

The white sleeps in such bed of snow

So languid, and enclosed, serene,

Like loved-one tumbled in a dream.

The human seed?

From very high

From the plus pole of his own sky

Where lump of earth

Has never touched a bit.

He offers smoothly

His bursting kiss

So masculine

To the white

With its cold lips of hyaline.

 

 

***

 

Forgetful man, without return,

Behold the Holy Spirit how might turn

In forms cast just for you to see.

As in those times it's now – the same:

In every tiny world the dogma burns its flame.

 

Forgetful man, and dry,

I bring you this symbol-egg – a seed

To see the Holy Spirit in the sky

Watching live waters without reed.

 

And not an egg painted in red.

You obtuse men and full of greed,

I wish you now on Easter day

An egg inside with life, as gift:

 

Raise it against the sun and understand!

 

 

***

 

And mainly you should have a thrill

From that little yellow coin – a clock –

No mechanism to strike the time, and feel

How it alone ordains when egg and world

Come close to their death – a second that will devour,

Be thrilled by that yellow, necessary hour…

 

The breath of death is there all!

 

 

In yolk,

To gnaw the fertile white

Time will engrave in us a wheel

Exactly—it dogma will unlock.

 

***

 

And once again:

It is the Egg of sterile men the same,

Its content do not try to sip in vain.

Stop short its inner marriage meaning.

Don't put it either under any hen!

Be it in its own calm beginning.

 

Because with guilt is all that is already done

And holy only wedding, the uncreated one.

 

 

 

ISARLÎK

Imperial Danube's tear

It is chaining, to empower

Mast and Spear

Lifting all in Turkish flower”.

 

For a better appreciation

Of the special world of Anton Pann.

 

On the larger Danube, Turkish,

A tobacco faded plain,

Between Good and Evil's rain

To the sky unfolding stair,

It must open, it must flourish:

Whitish,

Righteous glare

Isarlîk!

 

Torn off fresh from sunny ribs!

Languid voice of greasy sips,

Reaches you with gentle steam

When a saintly muezzin

Chants in tower, high, a prayer

For the fleeting day in flare …

 

***

Isarlîk, my heart, my gown,

All in white, a Turkish town

On a day of plague and lime,

Nest of stone and veggie chime

– Heaven, stay, don't change in time.

 

Town of dreaded, humor style,

Balkan-like and half of isle…

 

On an aerial sea's bottom

Hot throat spins a flock of cotton

Around fourteen spindles, dearly,

Turkish towns;

and Turks, bur rarely.

 

Drunk she is in unique wine:

Fun of Hogea Nastratin.

***

There, with the wooden pails,

Donkeys with the fortress gales,

Hangmen, among virgin girls,

Bakers and sweet peppers' pearls,

Loafers, while Nastratin bids

Spicy dreams of garlic seeds

Kept in buckets he hounds tempers

And melts linen on white embers.

 

Dancing, he makes pails resound,

Odalisque in Moonlight bound.

 

***

Now, open largely, big gates!

I bring goods on golden plates,

On donkeys, to this special lagoon

I sell dust scraped from the moon,

Whereas varnishes now loom;

 

Gems are heavy, water-like,

Smart stitching and rings alike,

Peasant shoes in harem's cage,

– Isarlîk, open your stage!

 

I wish to be a happy bud

Among the leaves, to hear God

At times, when Kemal's boiling gore,

Across the sea down in Bosfor,

Is cutting heads on reddish bricks

Slaughtering in Asia the Greeks.

 

While we, the famous Turkish flower –

Static glory high in tower

 

From Isarlîk in outer spaces

We make faces!

 

 

A HIDDEN GAME

 

From time, abstracted the depth of this peaceful crest,

Gone through the mirror into redeemed azure

Engraving on the sinking flocks of rustic fest

Out of the water groups, a second game, more pure.

 

Latent Nadir! The poet elevates summation

Of spread out harps you lose in a reverted flight

And painfully distils a song: hidden, as only sea's cremation

Sways its Medusas under the greenish bells of light.

 

 

Translated by Liviu GEORGESCU