Self-portrait

I am nothing else
but a blood stain
that speaks.

(Nichita Stanescu)

The right to time

You have a kind of paradise, all yours
where no words are uttered.
Sometimes it moves from one arm
and leafs fall in front of you.
With the oval of the face one bends
towards a light coming from one side
with much yellow in it and much laziness,
with a boost for jumpers in death.
You have your own serene way
of raising cities like clouds
and of incessantly moving seconds
on the South side of the hour,
when the air becomes violet and cold
and the map of time has no edges,
and I can barely stay alive
still breathing, with long eyes, images.

(Nichita Stanescu)

Sign 12

Serena reminded me about Nichita Stanescu, and because I think Nichita is so great, and so few of his poems are translated in English, I will translate some of my favorite poems, trying to keep close to the sense and partially the rhythm.

Sign 12
She was slowly becoming word,
clusters of wind soul,
dolphin in the claws of my eyebrows,
stone raising water into circles,
star inside my knee,
sky inside my shoulder,
me inside me.

(Nichita Stanescu)