POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE

Ioanid ROMANESCU

 

Please, Reconsider My Status as a Poet !

 

Since my speech can be the wind that sharpens the stars

since I don’t claim to live anything for myself

since on the map of your soul I represent a blockhouse

for flowers and candour

since anybody else in my place would have died long ago

since I was born in the twentieth century

since I’ve not published all my poems yet

since I often think like someone older than myself

since I draw my personality from your originality

since I don’t show up in disguise and since my stage

is outside the theatre

since my witnesses will be born later

since my work will be complete in accordance with

the future it comprises

since instead of re-editing a noisy death

I prefer leading an ordinary life

Since I’m not going to be present again at the bullet’s

dialogue with my heart

since I belong to a people of visionaries very realistic

in the face of violence

since while I’m delivering this speech

one of the visionaries I was talking about might become

a great poet

since there still exist politicians who while plotting some wars

accuse the artists of being absurd

since in the world’s metropolises duck-gaited soldiers

and powder-bottomed generals are still compromising

Wagner’s music

since nowadays the Earth has children who no longer wish

to follow on their knees

in their parents’ footsteps

since you know exactly what I was thinking of when saying these

please, reconsider my status as a poet !

 

(English version: Gabriela PACHIA)