on the day before his death
roses burlapped to their necks
in preparation for winter
blossomed

a woman hanging laundry
dusk shimmering
one star chalking an icy path onto the sky
 

A BREAST PRESSES...

a breast presses motherly
against my mouth against my soul
that round, milk-laden, cursed breast

its milk chokes me
films both eyes
a poisoned spring

a water mill
wheels in my head
since the world’s birth

milk
has been keeping
the mill churning
 

NOBODY’S HOUR

nobody’s hour
the hour
when ashes are swallowed
(the hour hemmed by
one hundred ton / deafening drawbridges)

I am a creature
squeezed within the rubber walls of the surreal
/ I haul the heavy sleigh of disquietude
over (the mind’s) grass blades
– as in an expedition to the Poles
I find myself
electrocuted by the sun of know-nothingness
by the unpredictability of storms in
the Elysian Fields
[the perfect curve of your breasts / like the Reaper’s scythe]

now
rain needles God’s scalp
 

THOUSANDS OF TREES...

thousands of trees heft their axes
they watch me in silence
 harass me
scare away my shadow
 swallow it

arching leaved branches
 the issue strict orders
horrendous / of defense and
attack
they scrape the earth
beneath its ashen / thorny skin

they never lose sight of me
they’ve already grown a branch
for these eighty kilos
of mine
 

AHAB

Ahab does not much care
that the ocean is endless
that the storm is endless
that the crew no longer listens
that his bowels are boiling
his spine his wooden leg paralyzed

as long as Moby Dick is alive
it doesn’t matter
that the entire ship is wailing
that the rats have leapt overboard
– ill omen –
that everyone’s gone crazy
that the supplies dwindle
that the rains remain indifferent
that his men grow ever more skeletal
 

THE RETURN OF THE FATHER

 1
Father is running
through swamps
the horse
far too heavy
for his back
he’s so old
it makes me laugh
through the huge swamp
alone he runs
decrepit and crippled
I-m nowhere around

shame on you
keep cheering and singing
enjoy yourselves brothers
while from the wasteland returns
your Father
whom I-ll slaughter
for the big feast

 2
my ailing father
 yellow and thorny
dragging his feet through shrubbery
he can’t understand me
  I can’t understand him
– night may have settled in
 but maybe it’s too soon to tell –

(Traduceri de Mihaela MoscaLiuc si Michael Waters)