Marian RUSCU
AN OUNCE OF LIGHT
you had chosen for me, God,
when you sent me into the world
to bear a burning flame
instead of soul,
and a bell that keeps tolling
instead of heart.
so within me
since my birth there has been an endless fight
between war and peace.
I pray to you,God,
when the reconciliation is to come,
at the mysterious hour appointed by You,
through the foliage with its blinds rolled down,
through the boundless and cold silence
slip an ounce of light for me.
only an ounce of light.
I wish I could meet friends and relatives,
to touch their thoughts, their souls,
join their destinies,
and share all with them.
I wish I could understand
how dreams adorn,
how the masks worn melt
In the carnival of life at its height.
Do not ask me if I await the future.
no, definitely I don’t await it.
it comes for sure and alone.
and alone and for sure it goes away.
God knows where.
I await the present to turn into the past.
to one hundred and eighty degrees.
and stop there forever
and be able to say:
“move on, if you wish, I for one stay!”
I AND MY WOUND HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT
I and my wound have reached an agreement.
I do not hollow it out,
nor do I salt it,
nor do I rub it in,
nor do I put it to trouble,
nor do I touch it with my finger, either.
despite all the crucifixions, all the temptations
that keep walking round me,
as though allergic rottenness.
and it stays closed.
the agreement has never been broken
and, consequently, we, I and my wound,
are still on good terms.
UNTIL LIFE NO LONGER HAPPENS
you live in every cell of my body
vibrating up to your tit.
I bear you beneath my brow,
picture by picture
and I grope in my dull blood
the swelling that bites the spot woven with care,
drop by drop.
you will live in every nerve of my body
until life no longer happens.
A defeated world
hoping for a second life
washes both time and the earth
stuffed with
rotten illusions in the fog
a defeated world treading non-existently
sorrows, duties
looking for its grave
is altogether beyond the present
a lifeless world around me
for a while I was a hero
decorated with kisses and strokes
on the scars of fresh hot embers
good-looking, passionate and living.
until yesterday but an echo,
between boundaries of times
strewn with fulfilments and renunciations
now a middle-aged man
living between having been
and what is to be
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