MOODS & WOMEN & MEN & ONCE AGAIN MOODS

An Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Erotic Poetry

Selector and Hobbyist: Ruxandra Cesereanu

Branching-out Foreword: MARGENTO

Tracus Arte, 2014

RUXANDRA CESEREANU

DELIRIUM

his sex i hold between my thighs as an instrument of torture his head i have between my thighs like a squashed ball

i play soccer with the man i’m naked playing soccer with the man my hair i trample after i cut it with blunt scissors

a dust cloth over god’s long face

from my hair i make witchcraft dolls

from my hair i make a hair-icon so I can clean god’s face i can wash paralytics’ feet with the same cut hair

i can also make a soft-coarse burlap robe

but i’m a failed nun an anguished sex machine a teddy bear lacking teeth made of bone

living prison bars that cannot penetrate flesh a swollen nail frayed by the dim moon

the purple tongue of a hanged corpse i’m naked playing soccer with the man i’m a woman i’m scared i’m terrified

an instrument of torture the hair cut off.

(Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Carmen Borbély)

 

 

LIVIU ANTONESEI

ON THE ANNIVERSARY

She appears every night

with steaming arms and flaming lips the sound of the world’s bell, blue each night

as we spread out soberly on the grass.

Night fills the golden skin cool night

in my flaming arms she’s shaken

a thousand barbarian kisses shut tight and I feel out of my mind again.

In her ravine a spasmodic throbbing beneath my never-ending touch a scar— an infinite rhythm, queer

and melodic

conducted by love’s single star.

She appears every morning

with sweet eyes like a flaming beacon while I am swallowed gently

recoiling

I tremble all over, hear my teeth chattering.

She is more beautiful than death and her song has no end—

we sink deeply, luminescent is the night’s breadth

as time ceaselessly and forever stopped.

 

(Translated by MARGENTO and Martin Woodside)

 

 

 

MIHAIL VAKULOVSKI

I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU STOP BUGGING ME

the fun we had, the names I called you, honey

between the wooden attic

and the wash basin you went to early in the morning

the stairs as steep as a sea cliff on that day of July 13th 2000 and the stool on the balcony where

since you were no longer passing by the small window

I found you just as before

with your happy dead like colorless lips which really got on my nerves

as it happened with my father when I was a child and came back home walking alongside my bike in a daze after falling off it and on my head

along with the sprinkler

I was carrying to grandpa

I didn’t take a swipe at you

the way I used to when we were kids

I gave you a spiteful kiss...

o how I wished I gave you one... if only you could ride a bike

or swim

baby, the names I’d call you, hon, honey you: You said it, there you said it!

the earth is round like

your tits two oranges from the green continent

your soft butt like the steam of the coffee you would make waiting for me after

telling him I’d break his legs and stick them up his ass wherever I run into him

even on the Fiji Islands

and we loved each other

I loved you even when you were late for the show and shortly after

you’d tell me you had to go to study all night

about your PC

or that you had to make a long distance call home at midnight etcetera

and I loved you

for welcoming me with a cup

of hot (make sure it’s Chinese) tea every morning and two rum babas with whipped cream

or that box of white and pink meringues or sometimes we met in the park

and did it there before school we were always in love

we were in love we were in love

and I loved you

I loved you when you ran away to the disco

I’d catch you later and make love to you

on the corridor or by the window or in the kitchen

(hostel)

after teasing all your roommates horny and mad after freaking all your neighbors out

you made love to me and your voice trembled in the corridors

no longer running away

but loving me the right way

we loved each other

your tits like three stupid hedgehogs when you said

but I don’t love you

it sounded really weird much like the Amore more ore re line on that soldier’s

lips

and we left for Belgrade left for Bagdad left for Stalingrad