Mircea Dinescu

Discourse upon Europe’s reception of an eastern country

In church

the thief, ashamed, hides his hands in the bishop’s pocket

so good Lord shouldn’t see them.

The peasant shouts at his big-hoofed son

to put away the boots he left by the shed

for guests are coming

and, what the hell, we’ve got our national pride,

Japanese tourists are on the way 

with their tiny sparrow-like feet

pitter-patter, pitter-patter

to peck at wheat, sunflowers, Van Gogh’s eyes.

Suddenly

it’s tenderness hour in the municipal hospital

and the drunk admitted for drying out

fondles the medicinal spirits the nurse forgot on the nightstand

calling it ‘violet courage’,

‘creeping death’, ‘corpse reviver’,

then he throws a window open wide and screams,

‘Welcome, consumer society,

come, kill us too

like all the rest,

polish our kidney stones into lucky dice.

From now on, we won’t call the arse comrade but sir,

starting tomorrow it’s going to be harder to get me out of the pub

than to get Shakespeare out of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.’

*

Right to free circulation

Just as Shakespeare can take the liberty

to blow his nose in Desdemona’s handkerchief,

I want to play toreador to the bull that ravished Europa,

to slay it by jabbing my pen with invisible ink

between its horns

so I may marry the girl for convenience,

so I may be granted French citizenship, Belgian or German

like the bum I met twenty years ago

on the Novosibirsk train

who dreamt he’d flee from the wild East to Israel,

marry an old Jewish woman,

considering her not a luxury but a means of transportation,

without any Christian complexes,

since, ultimately

Jesus is the fruit of a ménage à trois.

*

The barbarians’ return

In the evening

when the Barbarians return from the West mounted on concepts,

sent as emissaries of huge salami factories,

don’t ask about their horses,

put out the fire

stuff your mouth with embers

fill your memory with ashes

and head for the Himalayas with your trumpet 

cultivate avalanches

change your sex, name or Linnaean kingdom

mingle with a gaggle of geese

go honk-honk and seize

the moment – be an Eskimo

when the green ice-nerve in Antarctica

slowly relaxes

propose to the plump lascivious seal

lick honey from the federal administrator’s fingers

or simply stand meekly and listen to

the howl of the crude oil of the locomotive 

giving birth in the middle of the field without a midwife

to a procession of tiny luminous creatures.

*

Nature’s democracy

In March dustbins explode

splattering the neorealist darkness

with flame-red cats.

The town boils below their greedy phosphorus

a kiss smelling saccharine like brimstone,

pregnant women might suddenly flow into the room

but for the heavy sandbags

grumbling in front of the TV

blowing into the eternal soup.

Swarms of butterflies slip under girls’ skirts

and my hand falls heavy with pollen.

A tiny thermoelectric generator installed in fools’ mouths

now reaches full productivity

(poor and lazy, I’m not the least afraid).

A child pisses on the church steeple

and God welcomes the warm jet

like a rheumatic heel that needs soothing.

A rotten potato tossed on the empty plot of ground

shows its little green penis

like a sign of nature’s democracy.

*

Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach, aren’t you tired of carrying on your back

for three hundred years

the corpse of the polyphonic ox from the lofty organ?

On our children’s bread

you spread church honey, steeple honey.

Aren’t you tired of believing that the angel’s to come

with his angelic toolkit and repair our sins?

Because of you spring’s steward got drunk

and lost his keys.

Never mind. The groves must remain unlocked

and plum blossoms eternally rain down upon us.

9 A nutshell biography, by the poet himself

13 Discourse upon Europe’s reception of an eastern country

14 The fiancé’s hesitation

15 Letter to Vaclav Havel, thrown into the wastepaper basket

17 Right to free circulation

18 Pest control

19 The barbarians’ return

20 Drunk with Marx

21 Interview

22 Epistle about accepting reality with a somewhat metaphysical postscript

23 Short ceremony at the interment of a submarine from between the two world wars

24 Autumn show

25 Futile attempt to make a dinosaur move

26 Hens

27 Fictionalised story of a failed suicide

28 Autopsy of an angel

29 Nature’s democracy

30 Strolling player

31 One factory summons another

32 The avalanche

33 Winter indulgence

34 The hypocritical dead

35 A day without a sandwich

36 The sad hijacking of the suicide

37 A tune by Armstrong

38 Short extract from the secret files of the 100 Years’ War

39 Common cheek

40 Bach

41 Winter diary at the Pontus Euxinus

42 The death of Sunday

43 Jericho waltz

44 Birth of a definition

45 The prayer of the child fallen into a bull

46 Guernica

47 Is it guilt you want to know about?

48 Musical soirée

49 Death climbed to the roof of our house

50 Don’t worry

51 Give the kitchen table a chance

52 Pocket song

53 Meekly

54 Let me tell you: the scoundrel’s lost his sense of honour

56 The age of gods

57 Speech against revolt

58 Lord, who are they?

59 The discovery of America

60 Ship’s log

61 Seven drawers

62 Titanic waltz

63 Walls

64 Manuscript found in a lamp chimney

65 Brief report in support of Romanian language teachers who need more classes each week

66 Endless Sunday

67 The artist’s blessed sleep 

68 The terror of common sense

69 How the natives on the reservation were deprived of the right to travel

70 The door

71 Doctor’s advice

72 At your disposal

73 Nirvana

74 Conversation

75 Myopic painter

76 Inventory of the fourth world

77 Evolution of a dream

78 The prodigal son’s prayer

79 Village with commuters

80 Apotheosis of the blind

81 Night prayer

82 Fiesta

83 Fish

84 One day our great pity

85 Chinoiserie

86 Artist’s life

87 Tea

88 Cows

89 Cats of the Vatican

90 Message from a shipwrecked sailor

91 Letter to my mother

92 Rented sun

93 Good evening 

94 Screws

95 Between imagination and humility

96 So?!

97 Absurd chess

98 Monologue with a mouse

99 Bulldozer

100 Hypothetical transhumance

101 Sign hunter

102 Impoverished biography

103 The moles

104 Death and the cat

105 The disappearance of the mountain

106 House search

107 Trip

109 Poet’s confession

110 Artist left out in the rain

112 The translators