POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE

Nichita STĂNESCU
Sleep with Saws Within

The sleep with saws within
chops the horses’ heads
and the horses gallop neighing blood,
like red tables, fled into the streets,
to shun the Last Supper.
And the horses gallop, shaking shadows,
in the red steams. Phantoms in saddles.
Leaves stick to their necks
or simply fall into them
like tree shadows collapsing into wells.

Fetch buckets, fetch big glass jugs,
fetch mugs and glasses.
Fetch the old helmets left from the war,
fetch all those bereft of an eye,
those harbouring, instead of their arm, a bare spot
which allows filling.

The blood of the beheaded horses
freely flows everywhere,
and I, who have witnessed this
the first,
inform you I’ve already drunk from it…

in Cosmic Objects / Alpha, 1967

For the Peace of My Sleep

I’m getting ready for sleep
as if for a leisurely departure.

Firstly,
I’m sending my thoughts to you, mother,
over the trains.
Oh, through the open window I grasp
the locomotive steam whistle shooting
parallel arrows.

I’ll take with me the scaffolding and the red
walls to further bring them up, in my dreams,
and the entrance gate lime tree – to besiege me
with its scented shadows –
and the cigarettes.

And your elongated face, my sweetheart,
its locks running wild among books,
and a carrier pigeon will I take
to fetch me – as an olive branch –
the streak of daybreak
and to gently strike it against my temple.

in The Meaning of Love, 1960
The Sleep

What if stones were
slumbering birds,
from alien air,
sleeping long?...
What if trees were
slumbering soldiers,
from an alien fortress,
slumbering after battle?...
What if I were a dream
and somebody woke me up,
telling me:
you exist; shield me and be alive.

in The Imperfect Works, 1979
Knot 25

When I awoke,
A rounded, spherical, great pain
was chiselling my knee.
Another chisel was carving
my beginnings
like a much greater shadow.
What are you shaping out of me, masons?
I yelled bleeding.
We’re carving a coffin from sycamores
and sniffing,
we’re turning you into a coffin for the one
who loves you and we’ll set it on wheels
carved from four thieves,
with spokes of highwaymen
to carry you into inflexibility.

in Knots and Signs, 1982
Translations by Gabriela PACHIA