Perpetuum Mobile

Between people's ideals and their fulfillment
There will always exist a difference in level,
Which surpasses the highest waterfall.

Nevertheless we can use rationally
This fall of expectations by building on it
Something like a hydroelectric power station.
With the energy obtained this way,
Even if we can't do more than light our cigarettes,
Still, this is quite something,
As while we smoke,
We can seriously
Think of even greater ideals.

poem by Marin Sorescu from The Youth of Don Quixote (1968), translated by Catalina Iliescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Accountancy

It comes a day
When we must draw under ourselves
A black line
And sum up.

Few moments when we were about to be happy.
Few moments when we were about to be beautiful.
Few moments when we were about to be brilliant.
Several times we met
Some mountains, trees and rivers
(Where might they be? And, are they still alive?)
All this sums up a shiny future
That we've already lived.

One woman we loved
Plus the same woman who didn't love us,
Make zero.

A quarter of your life of studies
Sums up some thousand million of fodder words,

[...] Read more

poem by Marin Sorescu, translated by Catalina Iliescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Group

They had been living long together,
And they had rather started to repeat themselves:

He was she,
And she was he.

She was she,
And he was she too.

Sometimes she either was, or she was not,
That's when he was one she, two shes, and many shes.
Such used to be life, more or less.

And above all, early each morning,
Till they would get at last to demarcate
Who was each one,
Where they did start and end
Why in this way and not the other one,
A lot of time was wasted,
As carried by a river time was flowing.

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poem by Marin Sorescu, translated by Catalina Iliescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
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The Scribe

I'm being visited more and more seldom
By respiration.
I can't breathe anymore -so I can't write therefore, I live no more.

And here I ask:
The portion of my air I did not breathe
(Since I was gone before the deadline)
Is it worth anything?
At least it could be given to the poor
(If this were possible)
But this is such an absurd parsimony
Of Nothingness.

And further on:
The thoughts I left unwritten
By whom will they be finished? Since grains of sand are not alike
How could a new pen different from mine
Resume the thread exactly from the point I ceased?

And I had just discovered

[...] Read more

poem by Marin Sorescu, translated by Catalina Iliescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Spanish | In Romanian