Cezar BALTAG

The Jellyfish

There came a lazily waving bride,

a bodiless silk dress,

and the solitary swimmer unexpectantly

floundered about in her unseeable,

flouncing flesh

 

He perceives the world as before,

he cleaves through the waves alike

on the shore his sweetheart is still waving at him

yet the sky has grown burdensome

it’s but the curtly

shrieking bird

that saw him suddenly plunge

into the transparent hollow

 

When did you break open into myself

bell of weeping egg white

flouncing cave

of the eternal swimmers ?

 

Luminous umbrella

bodiless silk dress

inexistent bride

tell me, where was the silken veil

that thrust me into your invisible flesh

torn to shreds ?

 

I am the same I was a second ago.

The sea splashes me as before

it’s but the white bird that knows

there’s no turning back for me…

 

The Drought Admiral

I am the one and only

and there is no other

besides me.

I shall not stay widowed.

You are my bridegroom.

 

I am the thread spewed out

by you, my

silkworm ;

I am your cosmic

shroud

that you weave,

o, magical grandson

of a butterfly ;

I am your anchor into the primordial,

my twin,

interminable, younger

than myself ;

I am the greyish

woodpecker

that drills

the white trunk

of hazard ;

I am the whip

that drives you on

and embraces you

and arrests you from running away.

Why do you turn you face from me,

leopard

born of a woman,

what blizzard diverts

your gaze

away from me ?

 

My heart is hurt

and has withered

like a flower,

my bones part

with my flesh,

I cry out

for you

in the four winds

like the rattling snake in the sand,

like the whipping viper

of the pharaohs,

blind, deceptive,

senseless,

cross-eyed,

with a blotched diadem

with neck rings

and shy looks !

 

Send for the wavering

Eagle,

whose stretching shadow

enshrouds my days,

with the tide’s ckeek

and leopard blood,

the remote one, the ungrateful

serpent,

the one that dwells

the woman-bred desert

under the noise

of my heart,

the golden furious,

in whose right eye

a thousand years

fly like the smoke,

like yesterday

that died away.

 

Send for the inquiring

Butterfly,

send for the butterfly-souled

warrior,

the snow hero

who fears me

the one crying for help

from my palm,

the one whose eyes open

like the jelly fish,

spacious for a second

till they vanish

away.

 

Send for

the egg of fright,

my lair, my restlessness,

the God I trust,

my mud,

my honey,

my scorpion,

the dust I am predestined to love,

indeed, to love his

perishable dust.

Send for

the drought admiral,

send for the fire,

devouring me

long before the moment

of its birth,

leaning against me

as far back as the womb

of the first mother,

even from Eve’s thighs

he is my groom my groom.

English version by Gabriela PACHIA