a poet died this morning
in my town where the walls of all the buildings have been renovated
for the new generation of children to declare their love on them
they're tender
I have long legs that carry me all over the neighborhood
when I run out of money I run from people and hide behind buildings
like a dog being hunted by everyone
I take one more step I feel light and
I do cartwheels all over the neighborhood
I high five the power line and I can name 5 other stupid things that provoke much more addiction
I trip over the pay phone booth with the broken receiver and a tree growing out of it
One day Andri will grow so tall you won't be able to wrap your eyes around him
the stem will stay as small
but the branches will break the glass and
wrap around the booth the way grandma used to put her hands on her head
in the portrait in her room she wasn't holding her head
she only had one child, beads and 3 years of college
we don't all die with equal chances
we cry bitterly when our pet gets sick
but no one is impressed by people anymore
we forgot that as long as your heart beats you live
or so my grandfather used to say, alzheimer
when have you ever thought of a poet as a human?
makes his own food and burns the frying pan?
doesn't have a pen when he needs a pen?
he like gummy bears made out of polenta and cheese?
how late is he and which side does he sleep on?
if he were to get it, would that come with everything he has to hide?
Doesn't anyone buy him clothes thinking he doesn't know how to wear them?
this morning another poet died
here in my town
where rest those who loved the one who was to be nobody in the world
my mother called me
but I can't reach the signal on my mattress surrounded like a deserted island of broken pieces, cigarette butts and all sorts of stains from the floor of the matchbox I sit in
always when I meet the cats from the neighborhood they ask me about you, mom
if my mattress’ society failed
Do you think the cats in my neighborhood would cause mass allergies
until they could take over the power for good?
dissidents would stay locked in their houses with red eyes and runny noses
then they would live their best life
only then would they be well
I'm talking nonsense I haven't eaten in a week I'm
the anarchist of my own mattress and I don't think
I don't think you know better than me what it's like to feel emptied
like a truck at midnight
what do you see?
poetry sings its love because it lacks matter
what kind of love of people is that?
to be the only one awake and smell other people's sleep until they find me dry in a jar and I'm as tiny as a seed from which nothing grows.
god didn't make stoppers for time
but he made the hands - the most powerful weapons we've ever had as a species
the government has already hired executioners who cut off finger by finger the hands that write history
from hands all evil starts
everyone with hands is guilty
and will continue to give out the blame from hand to hand
until the end of time
the only innocent one is
my grandfather who from his fingers
showed me the shadows of some cheetahs
running after jars of fruit juice
if Jesus had hands like his he would have stayed alive
next year on international day of poetry
at least two books start-to-end will have to be read per person
otherwise all poems in Romanian will be given to be melted down
poetry is underground anyway
it's in underground parking lots, in the middle of the night on the porch, on garages with roofs ready to fall in and at every step
now we have poets' nights, disappointment and lamentation soaked in cocktails and shots
poetry is not in cenacles
enough existential angst
let's talk about how that one sat naked on the balcony of the cabin at a creative camp and afterwards he pulled his suit on and went to teach about poetry from the 2000s to a generation of young poets
that one is drunk, that one is fried from drugs,
that one got not future,
that one gets his pieces written by others,
that one burned other people's money and women,
that one won't get another year by his looks,
that one censors others
. ..
everything happens under the tables
poetry is underground because we buried it like a treasure that belongs only to us
clearly excluded to be found by someone else
I am Ulrich, your mountain of lost potential
I'm glad
I wanted to write this poem but I realized I had nothing more to offer
poems can't be finished, only laid to rest
everything I could imagine is less than the word
keeps itself company in the most unexpected places
so unfinished unwritten and unloved
just because I tried to convince myself that there is beauty
and we took our dreams and made sulfur shampoo out of them
since we stopped playing barbut at the town dump
not even the dice think about appearing
the dice come out of hiding when nobody needs them anymore
they walk into the bar
the dice order a whiskey neat
years have passed and I'm still the same
I look into my parents' eyes and I can't help but see the regret that I couldn't be a football player
that's all I have at the moment
from 20 years of life
and all of this for a notebook set on fire at 13
how many ways of saying things you never said
you've avoided to keep to yourself?
only what I haven't shown is truly honest.
I think of the people I've written about
and I'm more sorry that I didn't write better verses about them than that we drifted apart.
I saw how the bricks clumsily put together made a fickle wall.
The rays interfered with a soul of stained blackness
the yellow layer of pus, the strangle of reality, the stillness of empty bottles, temporarly I am.
Dedicated to all regrets as I've seen them through my friends
