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Psalm for Longing
On my knees
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals
Words ache
Longing digs in me longing
Bring fountain to the spring
Water resurrects from death
Like from death I start to fly
Wingless, by only longing
Longing attempts me to rise
Rise wingless
My sky to remain ersatz
In the cup with enameled stars
I fly like detached leaves
Fly like snowy peaks
Fly lime me towards thee
Fly like you without me
On my knees
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals
Lost, not to be found
I pass in hurried landscape
As they built Ana
I feel un-died poem
Un-died and it died
Only silence between us
Longing for longing and longing for thee
Sometimes I do feel like
On my knees
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals fall
My Lord,
You made me outcast
You locked me in words
Escaping only in my dreams
Of the eye open remained
In thy unwritten poem
I woke up already killed
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals
Longing digs in me longing
Bring fountain to the spring
Water resurrects from death
Like from death I start to fly
Wingless, by only longing
Rise wingless
My sky to remain ersatz
In the cup with enameled stars
Fly like snowy peaks
Fly lime me towards thee
Fly like you without me
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals
I pass in hurried landscape
As they built Ana
I feel un-died poem
Un-died and it died
Only silence between us
Sometimes I do feel like
On my knees
Lime flower
In eyes open
Apricot petals fall
You made me outcast
You locked me in words
Escaping only in my dreams
Of the eye open remained
In thy unwritten poem
I woke up already killed
Psalm on Fire
Hardly can I wait to write Thee again
When I see my unopened letters
Remain unopened
How my letters return to me as if Thee
Responded with my handwriting
Challenging me to an answer
And punishment
I refuse to write any more
As I refuse to kneel down to for Thee to do
A billet doux
of humiliation and of confession
I no longer have got so firm a belief
That I be able
To pass over lands and seas
Crawling in mud on my knees
Up to Thee
Even only for you are everywhere
And never where I try to find Thee
Where I guess I have got
Even though I do not find me
And meet me
As if I had disappeared long ago
(Though my name clandestinely travels
Looking for Thee like for a headless fly
Since then
Since my guillotine has parted us
For heresy in me
Caught uncovered
During severe camouflage
When any glittering was considered a blasphemy
Only blade glittering
Had the right to enlighten the night
The same night in which
I lighted my cigarette
From Thy Psalm on confessor sacrifice
When I see my unopened letters
Remain unopened
How my letters return to me as if Thee
Responded with my handwriting
Challenging me to an answer
And punishment
I refuse to write any more
As I refuse to kneel down to for Thee to do
A billet doux
of humiliation and of confession
That I be able
To pass over lands and seas
Crawling in mud on my knees
Up to Thee
And never where I try to find Thee
Even though I do not find me
And meet me
As if I had disappeared long ago
(Though my name clandestinely travels
Looking for Thee like for a headless fly
Since then
Since my guillotine has parted us
For heresy in me
Caught uncovered
During severe camouflage
When any glittering was considered a blasphemy
Had the right to enlighten the night
The same night in which
I lighted my cigarette
From Thy Psalm on confessor sacrifice
Psalm for Quarreling
If they come at penalties
I’m prepared to carry my cross
But not to save my people
Nor for my rising
To immortality
I am prepared to give account
For my words
Lined
Like only armies still know how to do it
Prepared for sacrifice
Of dying for homeland
My homeland is the poem I die for several
times everyday
And each time I resurrect
For next ultimate sacrifice
I resurrect through the line in which my honey
Announces her hair disheveling
And her body undressing
On her breast heights I am reborn
When she rise the flags
Under the form of her teats
Give me, my Lord a Reserve God
So that I won’t lose
Moment when her arms will embrace me
And I to think that it’s about a scaffold
To run and lose love night
The last train, the phone number
He line for milk
Or this poem by which I attempted
To quarrel with you
That you are not you
A God made for me
A God on order
Like in summer I ordered
My black, simple suit
Surely to say “yes”
Irrespective of question
Coming from Thee
Or from her.
(English version of
Alexandru Ioan Pascu)
I’m prepared to carry my cross
But not to save my people
Nor for my rising
To immortality
For my words
Lined
Like only armies still know how to do it
Prepared for sacrifice
Of dying for homeland
And each time I resurrect
For next ultimate sacrifice
Announces her hair disheveling
And her body undressing
When she rise the flags
Under the form of her teats
So that I won’t lose
Moment when her arms will embrace me
And I to think that it’s about a scaffold
To run and lose love night
The last train, the phone number
He line for milk
Or this poem by which I attempted
To quarrel with you
That you are not you
A God made for me
A God on order
Like in summer I ordered
My black, simple suit
Surely to say “yes”
Irrespective of question
Coming from Thee
Or from her.
*Adi Cristi born on 27 April 1954, Bacau, Romania, real name Rosentzveig Adrian. Debut in Cronica, 1976. Editorial debut: Feelings after, By feeling, 1979. Graduate of Technical University “Gh. Asachi” of Iasi, Faculty of Engineering, class of 1979 and the Faculty of Political Science, University "Petre Andrei" of Iasi, 2006. Journalist, general manager of News Group 24: HOURS, Adi Cristi is the Director of International Festival "Poetry in Iasi". Member of the Writers Union in 1990. Member of the Union of Professional Journalists in 1990. Author of 70 books of poetry, prose, journalism.