Constantin Preda
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To bend Light

I tried to strain the light,
like Ulysses his bow, in the stone 
chamber of suitors.

I tried to bend the light
like a branch whose only leaf
was the sun.

But the light, coldly vibrating, tore off
my arms
and they would sometimes grow back
other times, not.

I tried to stoop the light,
to break it on my knee, like a sword
but it’s edge would flee my hand
severing my fingers.

Oh, they would fall down to the earth,
pattering,
like a debauched spring rain, or 
they would drum like ominous drums.
I laid there waiting
and sometimes the fingers
would grow back
other times, not

I would take light in my arms
like the trunk of a tree,
trying to coax it to be bend
by me,

but it would nudge only
in order to throw my temple into the rocks
and my legs fluttering towards the stars
like fierce banners, roaring
to a helmet fallen in battle

II

I tried to bend the light,
I hung on with both hands,
and every nightfall,
I fell with my temple against the rocks, 
coruscating. 

The black and heavy oil of night time dreams
gushed out instead of blood
from the cleaved forehead
and it spread around it like a stain, 
like an accumulating lake
with only one shore –
the bone of my forehead

Everything became far
like the heart before death
Everything was closer to me
than the retina wounded by light

I laid by the shore of a black lake
With a single shore –
(the bone of my forehead)
And I looked through like through 
a magnifying glass 

III

I looked through the black lens
of night time dreams
in the deep of the earth
where the sun would fluttering fall

Linden trees would fall on top of their shadows

My hands would fall next to the smooth rocks
half in light, half in darkness

My eyelids would close
crossed by skies ancient, unseen

(A sight would tear from the outside
and solitarily floating it would fall)

Light would fall in round hollows
dishevelled into shivers and ripples
it would hit the edges and unheard

sound would blacken the breeze

IV

But the depth of the earth is full of dead
And there is no place, no place no place
For questions

The bones of the dead like roots
clutch the core of the earth,  and wring
they wring out the lava
until it relents

There is no place here, no space, no space
Even time goes into time
Like parallel mirrors
Even memories go into memories
And the face of my childhood
Has ten eyes huddled into each other
Ready to throw back all the images
Into a deadly torrent

I looked on dazed, I looked into the core of the earth
Hanging a body on every age

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  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Days of Red
    • A Veteran
    • Why are they laughing
    • A drink with Tom about old masters and young mistresses
    • Antwerp Scene
    • Suddenly, early
    • Metonymy
    • The Sauntering Step
    • On Second Thought
    • Listening to November
    • Apprenticeship
  • Poetry in Translation
    • Nichita Stanescu >
      • To bend light
      • Song
      • Old song for new moon
      • Sad Love Song
      • Love, young lioness
      • *** (to Laura)
      • Through the orange tunnel
    • Mircea Cartarescu >
      • When You Need Love
      • The Collision
      • Adieu! In Buharest
      • The West
  • Articles
  • Biography
  • Contact