Ion PACHIA-TATOMIRESCU

On the Anxiety Concerning the “Copyright”…

 

Jesus Christ created the Constellation Lyra :

what is His “copyright value”,

Mr Prime-Minister-of-the-Scythe ?

 

The Holy Spirit made the amethyst vault of the Heavens,

from whence the wolfram networks

of the stars hang :

what is His “copyright value”,

Mr Prime-Minister-of-the-Anvil ?

 

God Almighty also created swarms of galaxies

besides the Milky Way :

will you ever know His “copyright value”,

Mr Prime-Minister-of-the-Flint-Hammer ?

 

You’ve devised the most recent virus ā āch wŭn ĕn wŭn

against Sciences and Arts :

what is your “copyright value”,

Mr Prime-Minister-of-the-Abysmal-Relief ?

 

Due to your lack of work, the grass of anticreation

will be your pastureland, Mr Prime-Minister-of-the-Scythe,

and, therefore, it’s dreadfully easy for you

to pronounce yourself on the “copyright value”… !

 

 

The Poem Steps Out of the Sarcophagus and Bewilderedly Walks Through the Aftergrass…

 

If you lay the bones of your vowels and consonants,

in the fertile soil of the ninth Heaven, you may dwell the great hopes

of being revived even in two millennia’s time, depending on the quality,

depending on the compressive strength of your incandescent, gold-lettered tin,

at exact intervals, as on the icicled eaves horologe

of grandmother Floria…

 

If you lay the bones of your vowels and consonants,

in the soil of fertile glass of the Internet-Sky,

you may dwell the certainty of being delivered to the nonbeing

faster than the lightning on the golden face of Tutankhamun’s mummy…

Regardless of your lifetime brilliance, the poem alone

will step out of the sarcophagus to bewilderedly walks through the aftergrass…

 

Since in the urban cemetery there is no striking of the lyrical hours,

since in the rustic cemetery there is no radio broadcasting

of the sacred weather forecast, dear Pure-Pilgrim-Poets,

it is unbecoming to you to entangle your flu-stricken, cough-and-spitting,

cupped between the shoulder blades syndicates,

in another warning or general strike… !

 

 

Greater Burdock

 

Over the narrow beach, by my rockily senescent precipe,

the greater burdock is lavishly spreading its all-embracing shadow ―

long ago, its leaf would underlie the newly-harvested wheaten bread on the wooden peel,

long ago, you would cover the crown of your head, my Sweetheart,

with its leaf ― as large as an umbrella ― to protect yourself

against sunburn, or against the rain’s pitter-patter: look, the cute tree frog

seeks and croaks its coolness, bewaring merely

of the beads in the snake’s eyes… !

Inasmuch as I know you, my cutesy lazurite tree frog,

whom should you be afraid of, while emerging from the waves,

from the sea foam, croak-and-seeking

my shadow as a youthful greater burdock… ?!

 

During the Jurassic, should you have been an Archaeopteryx

flying after me, chasing me to my cave, frightened to death,

through most of Lord’s Forest, swerving around elm and oak trees,

performing your loopings, myself ― shunning the millenary Larix decidua ―

since I would not have given in, but, from the Threshold to Paradise,

with my serrated broadsword, notching your left wing, arrowing

your leg with Prince Charming celerity, pulling out your right eye

with my spear, I don’t see how you could look at me in a natural way,

to the end of it, with your only safe and sound lazuline eye.

 

Today is Freyja’s day and I have to take her to the dentist

although it is torrentially downpouring over the extraflat pyramid ―

that’s what my city looks like ―, even though the cats

are caterwauling on the roof of the nearby inn,

although the tram is screeching horrendously loud

at the intersection, unlike yesterday evening, when, gracefully,

at the left of an innocuous cumulus,

the horned crescent moon was waltzing and the quicksilver of her sweat

was rolling its beads along the valley of your vertebrae…

Over the narrow beach, by my rockily senescent precipe, the greater burdock

is lavishly spreading again the thriving shadow

of the newly-born generation of leaves…

 

English version by Gabriela PACHIA