În aprilie 2008 a aparut la editura americana (suprarealista) Black Widow Press - volumul de poeme (o antologie de 123 pagini) Crusader-Woman de Ruxandra Cesereanu, cu prefata lui Andrei Codrescu, postfata lui Calin-Andrei Mihailescu; recomandarea de pe coperta IV fiind scrisa de poeta Alice Notley. Traducerea ii apartine lui Adam J. Sorkin, alaturi de Madalina Mudure si Claudia Litvinchievici. Antologia cuprinde amplul poem (de 30 de pagini) scris de autoare direct in engleza - Letter to American Poets, apoi o selectie de poeme din Zona vie, o alta din Oceanul Schizoidian, un singur poem din volumul Kore Persefona si, fireste, poemul narativ Femeia-cruciat, care da si titlul cartii. La aceeasi editura va aparea in 2009 si Submarinul iertat, scris de Ruxandra Cesereanu impreuna cu Andrei Codrescu, in traducerea lui Andrei Codrescu.
The Fool of Delights
My little concubine,
you have paranoid thighs
and heirloom breasts.
My feet in dainty felt slippers,
I climb on your sweet and delicate bed,
the bed of a desperate doll,
her eyes plucked out, her hair torn loose.
You heehaw like a donkey,
bray with parted lips rouged blood-red,
and you want me write your biography.
You’ve planted your violet fingernails in the wall
like hothouse amethysts,
your manikin soul rockets above the sky,
shattering the roof, slamming into the sun.
Hands in my pockets, I watch for
your descent embodied as a gray sparrow,
when my heart will stop beating like a tuneless bell,
clang . . . clang.
Your lotus-white skin frightens me.
I’ve brought you a marsupium
so you won’t continue to be half of a girl-angel
with wretched, blunt wings,
so for you too there will be a house of salvation,
the cage of spring
where you can isolate yourself as deep as the blood
and cry out in crystalline cries.
Your bathroom is well stocked
with blades for the veins, nooses for the neck.
My hands sweat when I touch them,
when I stroke the golden gleam
so as to consummate an early death.
Cherubim buzz around you and stink,
lead soldiers stand in sullen silence,
the night watchman sees
billowing over the city
the shameless smog of death.
Oh, your pillow is perfumed with Emma Bovary,
with St. Augustine
when he was a dust-covered sinner.
The buttons of your nightgown
are like breasts babbling loudly.
Sleepily they slap my face
to drive me away.
Truly I tell you:
boredom has grown on your forehead
like a leech.
You commit suicide in chiaroscuro.
A jet of holy blood
sets me ablaze from head to foot.
Astonished little fish swim through the fire,
their eyelashes blinking in giddy puzzlement
at the grave in your veins.
I don’t want the Greedy Lady to snatch you
with her cracking phalanges,
her dry eyes to spy you
whistling,
I don’t want for you to spend winter in the madhouse,
where injections tear you to tatters
and a knife glides softly into your blood.
The violet girl sits alone in the room with bars.
For you I festooned myself with this straitjacket,
I go barefoot,
and my guardian angel
has had his wings handcuffed.
My bones knock themselves against the north,
oh, so many owls shut their bulging eyes!
Terrible is the fog creeping over the dead
like a gigantic slug
that in your anger you want to crush.
It slides along the passage,
slithers through the frozen blood,
licks the slick, sliced veins
like a delicate hangman
who wears a tiny cross around his neck.
I’m writing a biography of you as a hermit.
Your phosphorescent heart sizzles,
your flour-white face gleams madly,
the fragile head I’m afraid to caress.
And the soul with its little milk teeth
nibbles death, crunches death,
beheading the angels who flutter drunkenly,
come to herald your coming.
Traducere de Adam J. Sorkin si Claudia Litvinchievici
Ruxandra Cesereanu |
