SOUR MORNING

Masterfully peeled like a mellow fruit
I drop in submissive slices
Before the very blade
Cutting up you chin
While mocking
From the silver corner of your wretched
Undone mouth
My quilted chaos.
I squeeze my spongy lungs
Like hugging orange segments
Then cautiously pour myself
In shapeless drops
Within your glass
Souring your early whisper
So that you spit me
Among the sweetest disenchanting curses
And hymns of your fading devotion.

AT RANDOM

I happen often nowadays.
Or at least I try to
Like we all do
Caring less and less
To whom
More and more
To matter…
Because that’s something so rare
And I - so short a creature
Or simply creature
That wasn’t meant to last
In time
Because of space
Ouside and inside…
So I try my best
I put on my best smile
My counterfeit make-up
Like a wretched cloth
With no aesthetic purpose
Yet thick enough
To hide
An otherwise amphibian layer
Of violent caresses
And I start spreading myself
Feeding the birds of the desert
Impatient birds
Tired of waiting for the rain
Cause the seed is so little
And the desert so vast
And their hunger
So irrepressible.

Spre tarile calde...lasandu-si "puii" acasa

Statisticile sumbre ce caracterizează societatea românească şi-au tocit, probabil, capacitatea de a surprinde, smulgând cel mult un zâmbet amar, retoric, în colţul gurii, ca indiciu neconvingător al revoltei colective. Totuşi, situaţia copiilor cu părinţi plecaţi în străinătate (al căror număr s-a estimat ca fiind de ordinul sutelor de mii) rămâne un subiect delicat. Este doar unul dintre aspectele nefaste ale fenomenului de migraţie a populaţiei, ce a căpătat proporţii îngrijorătoare în ultimii 5-6 ani, când am asistat la o triplare a numărului de cazuri.
Analiza acestui fenomen din perspectivă strict materialistă, căci, în definitiv, accelerarea procesului are fundamente financiare, duce la nişte concluzii îmbucurătoare, având în vedere beneficiile evidente aduse economiei româneşti ca sursă secundă de finanţare externă, iar, la nivelul familiei, asupra copilului ale căror condiţii de trai se ameliorează semnificativ. Rămâne de văzut însă în ce măsură aceste avantaje materiale pot compensa lipsa afecţiunii familiale, în cazul în care calitatea de părinte este redusă la simpla funcţie de furnizor de venituri, eficientă de altfel, însă dureros de impersonală. Relevante în această privinţă ar fi cazurile tulburătoare de suicid infantil, care ne dezvăluie un deficit emoţional sever, impunându-se perceperea lor ca un violent semnal de alarmă.
Cum a răspuns statul la acest strigăt disperat de ajutor? Printre firavele măsuri se numără recurgerea la căminele de tip familial, biete instituţii locale care se străduiesc să reconstituie o atmosferă călduroasă, dar care, uneori, nu fac decât să stârnească şi mai multă confuzie în sufletul maleabil şi fragil al unui copil încă inexpert în a-şi gestiona afectele, ajungând să adreseze cuvinte precum “mama” si “tata” unor persoane bine intentionate, dar străine. E o initiativă totuşi lăudabilă, dacă e să luăm în considerare o categorie mult mai largă, poate cea mai vitregită, a copiilor care, copleşiţi de singurătate, îşi caută refugiul în instituţia şcolară, în vecini ca tutori cu jumătate de normă, în aşa-zişi prieteni (la fel de dezorientaţi sau, dimpotrivă, ghidaţi de intenţii ascunse), în orice fiinţă care pare să empatizeze într-o oarecare măsură cu ei. Şi atunci, întrebarea cea mai pertinenta ar fi: cum lucrează statul la cauzele acestui “abandon” forţat şi nu la efecte?

American Dream - Confessions of an Outsider

Crowded cities resemble abstract mosaics. No piece seems to fit, yet most of them submissively adjust to the requirements of a distant pattern... unconvincingly claiming their narrow still comfortable quilted niches that allow them to rebound in between the tongues of the clock, whose ticking is fragile and shy…so dissimilar to the ticking that you could hear on a starry night…nothing of the kind…as the stars have fallen for people to touch them with their soles and palms and feign divine attributes, while the mechanical lullaby is muffled by a broken thunder, a recurrent crash echoing the blinding flicker that crawls along the streets… chasing playful spectres.
There he was…a sort of spectre himself… climbing mountains with high rushing foreheads, never catching their rebellious commanding thoughts. Unwilling to play by the rules, he expected to find beyond the rocks the perfect grassy field you see in westerns, kneaded by steel wild horses heading towards the uncertain horizon …indeed he found studs leading nowhere in delirious gallop… eventually he felt comforted, even motivated, though aware of the futility of the race - as contradictory as it might seem - and started living in a sunless world, nourishing a vague remembrance of a child that used to hoist his blue and red kite like a flag that offered him domination over the clouds. He aligned those clouds horizontally and said: “Let there be dark”. And dark it was…and loneliness.
He died…then died again…then once more…but never enough. Sometimes we are annoyingly immortal…for no reason at all.
“Far, far away…I see a burning hand waving like a mobile lighthouse…I think maybe the woman - because she’s a woman…a beautiful woman with Roman features and marmoreal arms, emerging from the water and spreading her rays towards the seven corners of the world - I think maybe she needs help…all alone…but she’s alright. She’s just being friendly or simply polite. It’s just that… some people take it too personally and try rescuing her from her chains…not realizing it is them that need help…ask not what she can do for you, ask what you can do for her…or was it the other way around?… the mermaid starts humming…”Strangers in the night” or some other familiar tune… I come closer and start walking on the fluid surface the same way Jesus did, only backwards. The water is ice-cold, turning my feet purple… yet it eventually takes me to the shore…”
“What about the woman?”
“I now and then see her. She’s the same and that scares me…the kind that wouldn’t grow a single minute older lest she should break like a porcelain figurine…or, more accurately, like a plastic one with much too long legs. She’s changed and that disappoints me…because I know she’s always been this way…therefore she’s not the object of my disappointment. I sometimes like imagining her trapped inside a musical box, waiting for the chance to make a pirouette and pretend she’s alive.”
“Pretend? She’s dead then?”
“I didn’t say that…stop putting words into my mouth or thoughts into my head, that I refuse to keep in shelves…you should have known by now a coin is actually a sphere that we fail to understand completely,
fearing it might roll over and over again…eternally. Therefore we mark it, throw it in the air and make hasty naïve assumptions. Anyway…I reach the shore… I walk through the smooth sand… I notice people whispering to each other and I figure out...I am the topic of their not so subtle discussion. But their eyes seem sculpted…motionless…with carved irises that refuse to blossom towards me, for they’re dry like the desert. They’re jumping on these rocks the way cartoon characters innocently jump on crocodiles’ backs…all of regular shapes adapting to the form of their feet, to their color…glimmering as the people (only…without funny hats, short trousers or shiny gloves) touch them.
I’m taking small steps for a human being…and even smaller for mankind. I start searching for my own personalized smooth rocks. A voice tells me that finding them takes time…but there’s enough sand to count my patience. So much that some kind of megalomaniac child seems to have converted it into gigantic castles dwelled by long-legged monsters in shiny armors…”
“Aren’t they windmills…perhaps?”
“No, I’m still wearing my bleached jeans and my Jim Morrison T-shirt and my only weapon is a blunted pencil that I used to mark maps with…so not a chance they might be windmills….at least for the moment… and that’s all that matters after all, isn’t it? What I see is what I get…nothing less, nothing more... but unfortunately I can’t see anything clearly on this fog...or should I say fortunately? Among the haughty towers, two giant javelins thrust into the bleeding sky that breaths heavily from its crimson smoking wounds, leaning towards latent graves. Once the smoke gone, geraniums emerge from the rummaged soil. One would say that such fragile creatures are harmless, but I’ve seen them close enough to think differently…still, I’m not sure I can blame them. Indeed there was a time when they were…nomad seeds wandering from east to west, searching for a fertile soil to grow in.”
“In that case, what makes you see them differently?”
“I’ve already mentioned my reasons. Time. Proximity. They now have grown sharp teeth that bite violently while displaying the kindest and most seductive smile you have ever seen…you would think it’s counterfeit…but it’s so sincere that it makes you shiver, because there are so many ways of smiling…truly carnivorous plants they are. They bite. Some out of pure hunger, others out of pain…the rest – and probably the most numerous category – because they don’t know what else to do. They don’t have a choice so they borrow arguments.”
“Where from?”
“From whoever is willing to offer…but mainly from their roots… they have long insatiable roots. And pretty colors too. No wonder they like boasting about it so childishly, tearing each other’s petals and leaves one by one in need of certitude…until there’s nothing left but some naked wavy stems… apparently quite similar.”
“Apparently you say…?”
“Of course. They’ll never be the same and that’s precisely the beauty of it.”
Puppets came by turns in all shapes and sizes, hanging from the top of the large window, so large that it reached the ceiling and exposed their table and other two near it. As the wanderers were passing by the café, unaware of
their performance, he endeavored to sketch their faces on a napkin. He tried to close their wounds by stitching with the shadow of their lashes some rebellious slits, which eventually betrayed their nature through disappointing fringes…blown by a car horn or by the harsh voice of the waitress. Nonetheless he continued his work, while talking. He kept on sewing with a pen, guided by his memory, then by his imagination…then by an unexplainable longing with coffee flavor.
His left hand was holding the phone, nervously craving for the cigar although it had already been put out too late. He had smoked his past and injected reckless doses of the future….now he was trapped in between.
“Exactly…that’s the beauty of it. It allows me to see you from time to time. As a matter of fact…it happened a few minutes ago…I saw you and I forgot you’re miles away. It really slipped my mind. You were riding your rusty bike on Park Avenue, a large rucksack on your back and the same expression of calm indifference you display when you don’t want to be disturbed. By the way…you need to shave, man!”
“Actually, I’ve shaved this morning… (laughing)”
“Even now… I can see my mother. She’s standing in a corner of the room, attentively reading a fashion magazine, while noisily sipping from her coffee cup after having added two spoonfuls of sugar, even though she well knows it’s bad for her diabetes. It used to seem such a disturbing gesture! For some reason, it doesn’t anymore. On the contrary, I’m strangely enjoying it …I even get the chance to see Rita and Jenny and dad and my poor annoying neighbor from the second floor, that used to bring me the newspaper every morning. They’re all here…mixed with these strangers…doubled or tripled…it’s just that these beloved clones don’t notice me at all, as if I don’t exist.
It’s funny… the geraniums from this flower pot smell the same like the ones back home, for they allow the same rays to indulge them. And the people around them are as indifferent to their beauty as I used to be five years ago. Things might have changed meanwhile. I now observe them more insistently, because I want to see their silence, because - although I suppose I’m not shallow - I find their garments and jewels and cryptic tattoos as fascinating as their multi-colored skin. The tattered veil nourishes my imagination, revealing fragments of their intentions of individuality, of originality, clues of artless expectations… they have different ways of expressing themselves, but the message remains the same, clearly stated even in writing: they want to be happy, like pretty much every person with a healthy instinct of preservation.
They talk too much and in a loud voice, yet they’re so silent. I understand their silence and I respect it as far as the impudence of visual dissection allows me to. I sometimes grasp heavy glances, overwhelmed by the burden of their own interpretations…then eyes of embers that masterfully manage to burn all quiet analysis…and there’s another kind – unshakeable indifference, numbness…not the one that you feign, but a selfish type that transforms its’ fellows into meaningless elements, parts of the lifeless scenery. This is what normally happens to the ones that cannot stand disagreement…not even the constructive kind.
Intolerance paradoxically leads towards adhering to groups that fulfill all the requirements…or at least almost all of them, even though the criteria lack relevance most of the times: the number of rooms or floors of their
houses, the cars they drive more or less cautiously, their age or pseudo-age according to the quality of plastic surgeries, the clothes or the skin they wear over some indefinite souls, the form of their eyes, their noses, their mouths, the gods they pray to, the lips they kiss ardently…everything is minutely and severely evaluated…until people become numbers and relationships – equations…but that’s another story. I was telling you about my dream…“
A child stopped for a while on the sidewalk in front of the mirroring window to admire his darker reflection, pretending or sincerely ignoring the possibility of being seen from inside the café. He began imitating the man, making funny faces in an clear attitude of mockery…or was the man the one imitating him from within his narrow aquarium?
“Indeed you were. It must have been really inspiring, judging by the digressions…”
“I don’t know whether inspiring is the right word or not. In fact, I’m not even sure if it was truly a dream, as I can’t remember neither going to bed nor waking up. Where was I?”
“The geraniums…”
“Oh, right. I remember…the geraniums. I tried picking them, but they were awfully stubborn and refused to detach from the cosy brittle mantle that covered their roots so comfortably. Then the woman (remember the woman waving?), who was now wearing a splendid white attire…well, she did the same …and she was more successful than me. She adorned her bohemian hair with the withered petals…then she made a bouquet of the rest and threw it like a bride over her shoulders. The ocean raised its’ trembling arms to receive the sacrifice, then …
“And you didn’t do anything?”
“What could I have done?”
“Try to catch them”
“I did try. But the waves sent me back to shore over and over again in spite of my struggles. I wasn’t going to play the role of the hero for voluntary victims…it didn’t suit me, no matter how much I craved to have a role sometimes, somewhere. This mask is too difficult to handle for such a clumsy actor, who doesn’t even know the language of the play properly…besides, I wasn’t sure if they really were victims…as the bouquet unraveled and the knitted plants formed a sort of net - a floating island - spreading like ivy on the balancing surface. And like ivy, they needed places to crawl on up in the air…the wrecked sailing boats wouldn’t float…so they decided to reinvent those places from their memory…”
“They had memories?”
“Everything has memories. You don’t need brains or articulate language for that. We don’t relate our memories. It is our memories that relate us. As I was saying, they started climbing along their own imaginary castles of leaves…mimicking a variety of constructions…floral architecture watered from within…and rising abundantly as if praying to some strange anonymous god, thus erecting an altar, a luxurious savage garden…towers were flourishing…some of them subtly leaning to one side, others counting the seconds or making an entrance arch to the world’s fair…all equally majestic… bridges stretching like accordions revealing
sublime counterpoint techniques…or simple houses breathing from their stovepipes concentric vapors like mysterious messages from another dimension . You might laugh, but it somehow resembles this café…”
“I don’t see how that is possible…”
“Still, it is…the music is made of different voices, various accents this time, sometimes taking turns like in some jazz performance…or just harmoniously merging with the general sound…so comforting that it makes you think of the lullaby your mother used to sing to you as a child.
Then again, the room has more than four corners. It has some tables near the fountain to remind them the purling of some mountain spring in the Alps, some near the window to let the Mediteranean rays caress their countenances and dry their thirsty lips, one watched by dreamy painted eyes aspiring to dwell the Louvre or to meet their original version, then a long row of tables with silk clothes, a man and a woman eating with some sticks, while looking in each other’s almond eyes, a beautiful young girl with blushing cheeks, wearing an embroidered blouse.
You can almost start building the rest of the scenery around them… the narrow streets, the smoking houses, the lofty monuments…expand time and place ignoring the enclosure…yes, that’s the exact sensation…escaping the enclosure, a feeling that germinated more than a couple of centuries ago, yet it still makes them passionately bustle, for they know nothing similar or more elevating…and they keep on falling in love, every generation in turn tackling this sentiment differently, as the perspective alters in spite of their collective memory…nonetheless, it’s touching to see how they continue acting like inexpert adolescents with stars in their eyes and restless butterflies in their stomachs, not caring about a destination as long as they can continue the journey and write something exciting in their diaries every evening before going to bed…or not necessarily exciting, just something new…like a description of the various lands they can explore in an apparently insignificant place like this…and what means do they have to reach those distant lands? the touch of a hand… the expressive glances that wear their visual experiences like precious souvenirs… the awkward voices that fail to adapt perfectly to the phonetic standards, yet manage to transmit the same universal message without even deciphering clearly its’ meaning… ”
Suddenly he was interrupted by an annoying beep…then a flowered fragrance dispersed into the air, making him smile. The waitress came near, carrying her tiny scribbled notebook in one hand and the blunted pencil in the other. It was time to leave now.
“It’s 5$... Excuse me, but I couldn’t help hearing some bits of the conversation. Are you a tourist?”
“Aren’t we all?”

DRAFT

THERE’S A KEY
STAGGERED IN ME.
IT TAKES SOME TIME TO OPEN…
SURPRISE!!!
NO FURNITURE
JUST DEAD FLOWER POTS
I NO LONGER WEEP ON...
WITH LOVE
BUT HATE…ACID HATE
POURING BACKWARDS.
FORGET YOU  FORGET MYSELF
AND NOW – VOID.
MEANINGLESS WORDS
DISMEMBERED
TRICKLING - ABRUPTLY
- COLDLY.
“ “IN VAIN I HAVE STRUGGLED “ ”
TO REMEMBER.
WEAK.
SHALLOW.
YET ABSURDLY TORTURING.
EITHER WAY:
REMEMBER SLASH FORGET –> PAIN
CRAVING
FOR YOU SLASH FOR ME –
FOR WHAT IT TAKES
PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING.
THE SAME BODY
SWALLOWED VORACEOUSLY
BY A M-O-N-S-T-E-R
I MYSELF CREATED.
I DON’T CARE
AS BLOODY MUCH AS I WOULD HATE TO CARE…
AND IT HURTS LESS
AND NOT IN
THE SAME PLACE…
THE SAME MOMENT…
I MADE A WORD OUT OF YOU
I LOST MY HEART
AND BY LOSING IT
THE WORD GOT NUMB…
USELESSLY SHAKEN…
IT WON’T MEAN ANYTHING
NOT NOW…
NOT ANYMORE.
WHAT ARE YOU TO BECOME?
WHAT SHOULD I MAKE FROM A FACE
SO BLURRED,
FLYING SOME TIME AND LESS (IF ONLY) SOMEWHERE?
HOW SHOULD I FIND YOU
IN A DIFFERENT HOUR
WHEN THOSE TONGUES TURN SO FAST
FAKING AN ABSENT KISS
FOR YOU
FOR ME
AND I’M HANGING IN BETWEEN
MOTIONLESS ./?
GOODBYE, MY LOVER.
GOODBYE, MY ENEMY.
YOU WEREN’T THE ONE.
NOT IN A CARDINAL WAY AT LEAST…
STILL
I SHAMELESSLY
STILL TERRIFIED
STILL
WAIT FOR ANOTHER
BUT THE SAME.
IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
IT NEVER WAS ANYWAY.

SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM
I’VE LOST MY COHERENT SELF
I ONLY BABBLE IN A LOUD LOUD VOICE
NO SENSE
JUST STERILE SENSIBILITY
PICKING LETTERS AND SOUNDS
AS THEY COME
BLACK AND HARSH
SPITTING VENOM
FLOURISHING FOAM
TRICKLING
LIKE THE FLUID THOUGHTS
THOUGHTLESS THOUGHTS
FILTHERED THROUGH NARROW PORES
FORGETFUL TO BREATHE
BOHEMIAN BALLAD
OF AN INSANE
BORED POET…
DEPRIVED OF HER GIFT…
AMONG STRANGE WORDS
ALLIGNING SO BEAUTIFULLY
ON RUMMAGED PAGES.
STOP.
DROP THE ADJECTIVES.
THEY DON’T CHANGE A THING
THAT SMELLS SWEET BY ITSELF.
DON’T EVEN FAKE DESCRIPTION
BE HONEST!
NOUNS ARE PALE ENOUGH.
VERBALIZE THEM
UNTIL THEY START SPINNING
AROUND THAT NUCLEUS
OF YOUR BEING
THAT YOU TRY SO HARD TO GRASP
NO PERIOD
IT DOESN’T END THIS WAY
IT NEVER ENDS
IT JUST BECOMES INVISIBLE
TO THOSE THAT ONLY READ
DON’T READ
IT’S A BAD HABIT
THAT SHATTERS YOUR WINDOWS
AND MAKES YOU AS COLD AS ONLY
HEAVEN CAN FEEL
OR MORE PRECISELY
THE SERPENTINE TOWARDS IT
NEVER SPACE ENDING SERPENT-INE
PAVED WITH ROCKS
THEY THROW FOR YOU
TO CRACK
AND SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM

Idol textil

Chipul adorat e facut din carpe…vagi carpe verzi si rosii si negre si amarnic de albe. Misuna la fiecare colt de strada si-mi tresar pasul somnambul ca paiata pradatoare o pasare infrigurata. Se-agata de trecatori pansandu-le ranile…cusand din umbra genelor crapaturi rebele ce-apoi se tradeaza in franjuri…adiate de claxonul vreunui automobil. Si il cos din nou asa stangace, din memorie…apoi din imaginatie…apoi din dor amnezic…din fire de timp incretite, naravase ce-alearga-n galop pe marginea somnoroasa a urechii stangi cu cercel instelat. Doi nasturi crucificati s-au desprins, rostogolindu-se unul la nord si unui la sud….altul la vest si altul la est, ratacindu-si numarul si sotul.

Ascendent

Mi-e cugetul dospit din pulberi de fluturi,
Descantec framantand in dans sfios, psihotic
Aluatul gubav din care-mi plamadisem templul gotic
Cu limbi mordace ce strapung firave scuturi.

Faramitandu-se adiate sub stresini cazatoare
Cu colti brodati ca guler aprig neregulat,
Sorbind cu voluptate din farul clatinat
Ravnind sa il prefaca in sulita-arzatoare.