Lucian VASILIU   

Shadow and Temple/ Umbră Si Templu

If I rise,
It rises also

When it is sad
I am sad also

We symbolize together
God’s eye ball

If I come into the temple,
it stays outside,
of course

It awaits me obediently
on the steps ,
sitting cross-legged

   
Chips/ Aschii

Come along
so long as I am still able
to tear off
from my body
chips of Krupp

come along
so long as
my young
 blood
loses hope,

o, bayadere !


The Cart Loaded With Water Melons/ Căruta Cu Pepeni

Sometimes
the poem took the shape
of a cart loaded with water melons
which I drove
through the big towns

I parked it in the markets…
Come and buy water melons!
I’ve chosen them from under the fox fur,
they are fresh
as the girls with bottom drawers…

I was crying out
together with brother Omar Khayyam
   

A Small Treatise On The Good And Handsome Man
/ Mic Tratat Despre Omul Bun Si Frumos
(Kalokagathos)


II. Like You/ Ca Si Voi

Like you
I listen
to the song of the hurt nightingale

like you
the roof of my mouth is all over sores

like you I know meekness and fear,
ecstasy and joy

like you
I smoke the cigarettes of my dead brother

My mouth alone is
the mouth of the universal disorder


III. Mother/ Mama

Through the blood shades
advances
      Mother

They can hear
the choir
of the twelve blind men

It is night, one more night

Through our fingers
flows the Euphrates
with all its drowned people


The Paschal Lamb/ Pascaliană

The head of the beheaded lamb
I turn to the left and to the right:

I look into its eyes
it looks into my eyes
with the kind-heartedness of the dead young man

And no one
is seized with horror


V. The Ballerina/ Balerina

I drink the blood of imprudence
and go on  thinking of HER

It is dark
in her flesh

there I open my eyes
and weep
as if in my mother’s womb

This night
resembles the night
when I met Savonarola

(from Lucian Vasiliu, Atelier De Potcovit Inorogi.
Colectia „Dictatură si Scriitură”, Editura Junimea, Iasi, 2003)

   Traduceri de Olimpia IACOB