Lord, how much life can reside in a tree?
I don’t even know his name, but then
I write down my poems every day
On pieces of paper made from his skin.

He has witnessed my winter tears
And I have enjoyed his blossoms when it’s warm
Even though my window, looking to the sky,
Doesn’t reach as far as his outstretched arms.

When I’m in pain, he
Sings my tribulations.
Even then, between us
There’s a silence so enormous
That it takes in everything
From madness to desperation:
Blasphemy, the miracle above,
Prayer and a cry of love.

Sometimes, after ages of this silence between
Us, a single leaf falls down. And then,
Without knowing why, or what the cost,
A grateful universe learns by heart
What it’s lost.

by Ana Blandiana, translated by Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea

You were so absent while washing
your face in the morning, you never saw
how the linden in the courtyard reached a limb
through the bathroom window and shook
sticky seeds into your hair. Your hair grayed
in this working class neighbourhood you’d heard
already as a child smelled like a ruined life.
The turrets of the little Russian church
once looked so fragile to you – you wanted
to feed them carrots from your hand
and croutons. Your heart was alive.
Your heart was like an iodine rain
over a crowd of crushed heads.

By Dan Sociu, from Sentimental and Naïve Poetry, translated
by Oana Sanziana Marian

You make it simple
You make it so so easy
To deprive myself of love
And hate everything about me

You make it minimal
You make it so so easy
To turn off my tears
And to hold it in fiercely

You make it innocent
You make it so so easy
To fall off my rocker
And lose sight of clarity

You make it quick
You make is so so easy
To hurl up my meals
And to punish my body

You make it humorous
You make it so so easy
To cut off every friend
And isolate reality

You make it effortless
You make it so so easy
To doubt everything I say
And to call myself crazy

When things seem easy
You don't tend to ask for help
But you make it a little too easy
To completely destroy myself

Maybe it adds up, the things we wish to ignore
And we see it set in all at once
The worst case scenario happens
and I knew it from the get go
I felt relief rushing in
That I didn't die as it happened
Like I can still breathe in
and find ways to sort the issue
It multiplies, the level of the next thing to come
I cannot believe how much this human
Is made to see in one lifetime
The limits to be taken further
One panic to other, one escalation to another
All it adds up to high blood pressure
And one day I will completely disappear
Without a care and no thought to spare.

time is circling its core like a villain
streets are running under my feet
is that the inflamed sky

call me your fortune teller, disaster, whatever
I condemn you to the bestiary of my clarity
you'd better make up  another camouflage or transparency,
a savage new name for devilry each day

you smile an unfiltered smile,
like a Sisyphus of tease and play

the rawness of things suspended in the air
an invisible hand pushes the hours through us into the compost and delight of memory
I don't have words for tomorrow, only your name today and warm tears.  I was born into a dead language so
I have this detector for the silence of windows, it sneaks in my lungs
pain is offline, the dark swallows itself
no wonder last night I dreamt a girl in a blue kimono
-you are my hiroshima, I breath like a prehistoric fish-
she was smiling to something only she could see.
love, this prehistoric wonder,
a fragile skin of this weary world

She dyed her hair pink & green.
Most people want her not to be heard or seen.
A girl too ignored to be a normal teen.
A syringe has collapsed the
creativity in her soul.
Everyone criticizes this rebel Queen.
Yet they all wonder why she can't behave.
They don't see her trying to be brave.
The taunting has made tradition seem foolish.

She shouldn't find peace in cutting.
God needs to heal the scars in her soul.
Everyone should pray for her and not
give her sour advice.
People give her warm stares that turn into ice.
This could freeze her dreams.
She stands in blue jeans with ripped up seams.
Hardships muffle her screams.
An Orphan needs a home without
moving boards or beams.
Everythings make believe in her
mind because no one ever takes the time.


Will God give someone the courage
to look at her ignored heart.
She doesnt want to be on a statistics chart.
Her appearance begs for filial love to start.
Change her but don't tear her apart.
Her creativity shouldn't be choked
like kudzu in a flower garden.
Tattooing is her preferred art.
She needs to learn to use it
in other ways besides tearing
out the car breaks.
Love turns into tragedy because
everyone leaves.


Shes been ignored.
Her feelings have been stored.
Tears have not been answered.
Smiles are forced.
Permanent homes are highly priced.
God needs to change their hearts.
Please don't judge her
by the rebal Facade.
Someday she will be loved because
theres more to her than just pink and
green dye.

Charming looks and honeyed words,
you had them easy and out always,
and to fall for that version of you,
was easy and many did come that way.

Got lost in our friendship and I too,
reached there, but so very differently;
slowly, mesmerized by your kindness,
imperfections and your childishness.

Felt a profound love, my first one, and,
you, never knew love was so deep.
For, though you had meant fooling,
our love had the power to transform us.

Easy to walk away you thought;
and you tried, but you just couldn't.
Though forever was not in the picture,
invisibly the hearts were connected .

Too late to make things right,
unwilling to leave, the heart stayed;
with no wants or needs whatsoever,
but love to give to each other.

there in the land of the wind
the grass would like to be as tall as you
the salt of the earth would be ringing,
resonant with the laughter of tears
perhaps everything we are
has to conceive a symbolic death
to deliver ourselves

in the embryo of words there is
such a gentleness, a true prophecy:
language would begin to forget itself
we meet in this language without words
like two beings from the end of the world

I wear my nails like a mischief
but I ask them deep questions
spring comes in the middle of winter without innuendo,
no twist of words just plain daylight
I smile at everything that smiles back at me
I listen to this ancient heart
I contemplate the transgressor in me
then I move on to stand up comedy
(life could be unbearable without laughter)
I conjure words to write themselves
especially when I feel there is too much of an I,
or like a snowdrop in January

We met once again,
In an instance
Outside of time.

You reminded me
You hadn't gone.
And, we caught up
On moments lost.

You explained,
It was just
A misunderstanding.

You had hid away,
To make us all
Realize
How much we loved you
When you were
Here.

The solace I felt
At your return
Filled me up.
Just like old times.

Until, you needed to go
Again;
Leaving me wondering,
When I'll see you again.

For, you had many
Loved ones to visit
That night;

And you were the
Shared connection
Between us all.

As I wiped the
Sleep from my eye,
I got ready for the day
Without you.

~

Yes, my friend, my heart has enough space to carry you a thousand times, back and forth from here to there. And, I know there will be a space for me in yours when I see you then.

Shrouded in this mystical darkness
The tenderness of fog a good company
The winter silence reinventing its language
The inception of tears suspended
How wonderful to love everything as it is
Like trees love the patience of earth