FLORENTINA LOREDANA DALIAN

 

 

FLORENTINA LOREDANA DALIAN

 

 

Like In A Tchaikovsky Ballet

 

There are days when life is sadder

than a theatre hall after the spectators had left.

Curtain falls heavy over dreams,

over delusions, over all them fancies.

The lights go on

but you see only the dust

rising up grain by grain

cramming full the void

in the life of so many mortals,

the void of so many lonelinesses,

this void so full

of nothing and dust.

The actors shed the characters

up to the following show

with so fine a performance.

Some keep on wearing their makeup –

An extension of the fantasy

of them still being those that are no more,

those that hadn’t been and would never be.

Here it is the Mother – Queen,

she slipped off her gown

smoking, attired in crinoline.

Someone knocks at the door – some flowers.

Oh, the flowers!

The fag burned to the filter,

falls down, forgotten, in the ashtray,

the crinoline falls too, everything is fallen down…

Cut it off! Back to your walls!

For two hours you’d been the Mother – Queen

now the plates are waiting for you in the sink

(genuine poetry!), the lying mirrors

and the silence boring through your eardrums.

You look at the clock, the clock looks at you,

you look at the time, it looks away from you.

Not long ago you were playing Ofelia –

the innocent Ofelia, so blonde

and with so unfairly green eyes, the gorgeous green eyes,

with long, black, turned back, made up eye lashes.

You are a hag, cease deluding yourself!

And the role of Ofelia you’ll be never given back!

The seconds are twirling,

Look how nicely they are leaving

one by one

like in a Tchaikovsky ballet.

 

Lights Out

 

I watch myself like watching TV

black and white

I see people fleeting through my life

leaving me without turning their heads back.

Right so my dear ones, hurry up,

rush to the end of the world!

Where the dickens are you all going

and how far off this heart you think you’ll make it?

 

Make sure you won’t forget the hat,

the gloves, the vices, the umbrella…

and without fail wrap two comforters around your neck!

You, the bundled up ones!

You, the tinseled ones!

if you’re going away for good, make it happen faster, more credible, more… irreversible!

Tear off more dashingly with the red hot pincers

everything due to you

take away the corner of your own heart!

Close the gate!

Slam shut it loudly, confidently.

If you’re going away for good, make it happen soundly and irrevocably

don’t leave behind corny regrets, longings, promises

of seeing each other again when pigs fly,

take your life small change from the pockets, and good riddance!

 

What’s the matter with you? Why are you faltering?

Hurry up, the lights go out

over second hand feelings.

Who needs your halves of love,

your halves of betrayal?

Beat it, when I say!

 

I still linger on in this tedious November

to count your heavy footfalls on the heart.

Do not write to me!

All the words of mankind are worth less

than a single departure.

 

Long Before

 

Long before there was that rain

falling on the back streets of Paris

at Sacre Coeur you had shown me the outer masonry;

I was asking: where’s the heart?

while the spiteful October wind

was laying bare your forehead.

"Sculptors are heartless," you told me.

You looked tired with so much autumn,

I had barely begun to learn what summer was.

"Seasons do not meet, Joretta!"

But I hated postulates 

and never understood why they have not to be demonstrated.

Life cannot be forced within mathematical formulas

nor is it lived by Euclidean principles.

You were laughing at the nonsense coming out from beneath the umbrella

your laugh chimed like evening bells,

and your kiss tasted of bitter cherries.

I saw myself as a woman.

"What kid you are!" you told me,

setting the seasons between us…

 

English Translation By Horia Cocos

 

FLORENTINA LOREDANA DALIAN

 

FLORENTINA LOREDANA DALIAN, born on March 29, 1968 in Bucharest, is a Romanian writer whose main profession is chemical engineer. She is also a member of the Professional Journalists Union from Romania and other Cultural Associations. She writes prose, poetry and plays and is published in different literary magazines. She has published eleven books: seven of short prose, two novels and two of poetry – ‘Miss Nobody’ and ‘Isle’.