Poems and Tales from Romania, by Simona Sumanaru and Michael Hart
S >>
Simona Sumanaru and Michael Hart >> Poems and Tales from Romania, by Simona Sumanaru and Michael Hart
Poem #1
Broken Flights
The broken wing
Has become a tear,
As a home
It finds refuge
Under one eye. . .
The broken wings
Have become tears
As a home
They have found refuge
Under both eyes. . . .
Flights, flights,
Broken flights
Now become refugees
Under tear filled eyes. . .
There is nothing
Left of sight.
***
Story #1
BEDTIME WORRIES
*
The Story
I was born and raised in an orchard known by the name of Eden,
16th orange tree on the left, and all my future hopes had been
Left there with the Ultimate Orange.
From what I can tell now, in this position of a painter detached
from his painting, there was nothing that you have not already
seen or built yourself about the way the orchard was structured,
ruled or taken care of. It was just a world, though I recollect
within the Garden there was a center of energetic emanation, in
the shape of a circle of a small diameter, having the made-up
features of a human Fun Fair and which they called, given its
conceptual schema, the Wheel of Fortune. It had been designed
long before I was born, and before most of the people I know of
or inherited something from were born as well. Seen from the
outside, the whole gizmo was looking like the clearing of a
forest or like a woman's heart, at once shiny and shadowy, open
and hidden behind her instinctual veils. Surrounded by a range
of tall grown apple-trees, the Park was the Big Attraction for
each of us, Eden inhabitants.
By the time I learned how to walk, so you can guess my steps
were being haltingly taken my mind and my feet always tended to
go towards the apple trees, green and inviting as they were,
projecting their leafy silhouettes on the frowned face of the
fall sky. I say "frowned face" because the sky was crying a lot
that specific fall, and I could see its eyebrows of clouds
turning purple or maybe violet, and then dark blue. But who
could tell exactly how an angry face changes color, name the
boundaries between serenity and gloom, since all you distinctly
perceive with your inner eye is the anger...?
The majestic apple-trees were unanimously loved, much more loved
than the nut-trees for instance, because people didn't have the
required patience to crack the nutshells open and taste the
fruit. Only the crows knew how to do that artistically with a
dance of their beaks, but what a pity, they were designed to be
birds. Dark birds. Therefore, the people of Eden always went for
the apples with their mysterious perfume and shiny skin,
beautifully polished by the autumn rain. Usually at sunset,
while the sleepy birds were having their mystical ritual of
initiation in Phoenix's art of rebirth, the Garden's human
inhabitants -less artistic but more hungry than the dark crows
themselves were silently heading for the circle of apple-trees,
perfectly rendered on the canvas of the twilight, their leafy
crowns in the shape of an arch. Any resemblance with a circus
bolt could be significant.
The inhabitants of Eden, as highly ambitious and responsible
persons, were constantly looking for shadows, willing to give it
a shot in finding their shattered dreams abandoned somehow in
the games of the past and now supposed to dwell in the merry-go-
round, the Wheel of Fortune, the Circus. They were doing it, to
quote them: "Just for fun in our world's Fun Fair, like a bedtime
loisir."
Beneath the dark and orange shadows which can be somehow
reproduced by the color range of the fireworks you bathe in today
the earth was utterly alive and breathing. The numerous families
of ants, known as hardworking and also, in situations of
necessity, fellow-devouring creatures were putting their young
to sleep with a prayer for grains and shiny days. Some wonder
nowadays who on earth or in the skies could listen to the
minuscule prayers of an ant. I let them wonder.
The life of the Garden in its small size was not at all
minimized for people with binocular vision. These endowed people
managed to understand that the same earth who had once breathed
us out through its lungs had also breathed ants through its
pores. Thus we got to count small hearts and big hearts, small
hopes and big hopes and people that were in between, insectlike
molded instinctual to paroxysm in situations of necessity
therefore half human. The scientists of Eden called them the-
half-blind-half-awake-half-hearted-half-humans, a made-up
qualificative and pretty hard to memorize since no name has been
invented yet for things that were struggling in the middle of
what we held as the Being Humane Scale. Statisticians, in their
turn, noted down in their papers the unprecedented discovery of
an astonishingly complete population of the above-mentioned
category.
Life went through its normal range of heart-perceived phases in
the Garden where I was born. The full meaning of the cycle
light-darkness was heard echoing even in the pulsations of the
fungi attached to the trunks of the trees. And yes, there were
parasites, the concept of parasitism (or there was symbiosis, if
you wish) in the Garden of Eden. As for me, I was always lonely,
never found a friend because friends showed up when I wasn't
looking and disappeared quickly when I turned around. All by
myself night and day, I found these petty pleasures which were my
major concerns and top 10 on my personal Being Humane Scale. Thus
I loved to watch the ritual of metamorphosing our reality into
the reality of dreams overnight, and having read some Freud, I
was always wondering who fell asleep first, the tree or the
fungus, the host or the ghost. I loved to watch the world change
coordinates with the Silent Heaven of the Angels, in the sense
that nothing mean could be said while people's minds were half-
alive, that is deeply asleep to the eyes of this world.
Most of the women who inhabited the Garden of Eden were getting
pregnant in fall, because they were taught the earth was
gestating with fruits and their womb was like the earth. This
way the population increased rapidly and the hunger grew with
the same speed. The earthy hunger, that is, a disease much more
dangerous and mind-attacking than the learned doctors could even
dare to predict. Yet the Garden was ignorantly sleeping every
night and the women's wombs, like the earth, grew heavy with
fruits, gestating full-season.
Beneath the branches rich with green unearthy smell, in their yet
earthy beds of grass from where the snakes of sin were lurking,
the young boys of the Eden's mothers were growing to become Abel
and Cain, or only Abel, or only Cain. A matter to be decided
upon at midnight, by Eve, the wanderer and the mistress of
heart-dictated directions.
Eve was a beautiful young woman by then. An all-loving mother of
all the wombs and all their fruits. One time I saw her in the
distance, wandering in the Park. That's when she became part of
my painting. She looked so unprotectedly naked and so shiny
beneath the apple trees' arch, yet it could have been my eyes. A
statue carved in flesh maybe Rodin's while thinking of Camille
her skin the color of the sand, so young and shiny like the rays
of the New Moon. I had been told she was the Wife, the Given One.
I tacitly embraced her much gossiped idealism and dreamed of her
blue eyes, the deep blue eyes of what they called a Gift. Yet to
her, from what I perceived, she was only the rib, penetrating the
flesh and longing for a duplication into Something Else.
Something Tasty. Eve had an insatiable heart; she was always
hungry for the unborn Adams with their unborn loves and poems
hiding in the shadows of the Park. Through her, the rib aimed
high, so high that the final goal could not be guessed by the
mind, only perceived by the senses. Eve had been born a lonely
woman and stayed like that since the Adam in her bed got so bored
of loving himself. Life at home was like dying of hope
suffocation, keeping the claustrophobic indoors and telling him
that you are out and doing fine.
The Fun Fair was the place where something was always happening,
a bird would sing, an ant would die, a leaf would fall young and
very green. Good things and bad things. Plus the Fun Fair's
keeper was speaking in rhymes and the power of his words- a
melody- kept on resounding in Eve's ears:
Looking for the Ultimate Satisfaction?
We have Forbidden Mellow Apple Biting at your discretion!
People presumed (and I see they still presume) that that was why
Eve had all those terrible bedtime worries she was continuously
complaining about. She called them heart-migraines and flesh
insomnias. Some thought she had gone crazy with no real husband
at home, some thought she was sane when she said that the apple-
trees of beauty were having nightmares too, and that their leafy
crowns were giving her the whispered messages from the Honey
Moon. So people listened for hours, for days, for weeks and no
distinct sound could be heard coming from the apple-trees. They
tried harder, some of them got inspired and composed beautiful
music, and at the changing of the year they all felt older, much
more older than a year older and scared, much more scared than
they had been of the things they had used to know before as being
terrible.
Eve felt lonely again, this time with no refuge in the refugee
camp. In an imagined dialogue with her, I would have asked her:
"Why don't you write what you feel? Why don't you write about
your spiritual wanderings?" "I don't master the punctuation
marks well," she would have said. "People say that in life they
don't know what's coming next. I don't know what is coming next
either, but I know what is NOT coming next in my life here, so
my dots become exclamation points and I say Beware Eve, as moles
can't see but know how to dig, people can't feel but know how to
hurt."
Three years later, yet don't count on the date since our
calendar is relative, a tormented Eve, naked but not cold, wrote
these in a state of deep hunger. The Adam in her bed had gone
hunting. And, like a beauty sign on the face of the sky, the
Honey Moon was singing, "How does the poet feel in front of you,
inhabitants of Eden? Naked, she is completely naked in her
irrepressible nakedness, she feels naaaked..."
*
What We Call Bedtime Worries
They are some sort of feelings, thoughts or just figments of
ideas that some people cannot sleep on.
***
The following poems are connected to the above story.
*
A Poem To Eve
Open Doors
A windy hallway. Me, wearing a raincoat
And grabbing your Arm, Umbrella. A boat.
Parallel visions: sunshine in my right eye
Where the Emperor is bleeding: O, Helios, don't die!
Sunbeams in my fair hair. A Feast of Light.
I am soaked in my sweat. A Flesh Delight.
While baking in my own juicy despair.
I am a mellow Apple: O, Eve
To feel is to believe.
To give is to receive.
Go take that bite...and live!
Dark forest in my left eye. The hidden sky.
My hair is the dying fuse the waters reject.
A blue forget-me-not. A thought.
I am fading. I am raining. No complaining.
Prodigy of Love flowing
Through my rivers of sweat.
My skin is wet.
I have lost Direction in Time's Incineration.
Black Waves and Wavering. Digression.
I ask Fate about keylocks while striving for Choices.
Where am I, Tower? Blind Doubt rejoices.
Am I the heiress of Shiver? My fingers quiver.
I'm crawling on the ivy of Frustration.
You, manly power, go build your home right there.
Don't move within my world. Don't steal my perfumed air.
Hush...I'm thinking now...The history's repeating.
Strange body alchemy: three words and Chemistry.
It has to do with angles. And soul geometry.
Flesh tapestry. The cycle is completing...
Death is resurrection. Circle of Perfection.
Now man go round the corner - walk on tiptoe -
Don't burn my lawn - sleepy at dawn.
Don't step, but fly. Don't ever lie.
You must have high precision
With my gangrened indecision
This is a psychic Soul incision.
Tower of Babel - babbling hearts -
I am your Queen. The queen of Spleen.
The Apple grows black velvet sin
beneath its shiny skin.
Postpone my quickening: O, Love
I know a language in which pain
Does not rhyme with rain. Hold back.
I praise my brain. Let the earth drain.
The sun is bleeding on a sunny day
I pray. I pray. I pray. Three times.
One single way.
O, Eve
The slaughter of the faithful daughter.
I say here today I am the proof
of your dwelling in me. The bay
tied with a golden sand leash to the sea.
My flying fish. Your wings vanish...sh...
I stay aloof...so die in me. Obey.
And yet I cannot be. My sea is energy.
My warmth is life. I am designed to be the Wife.
My Destiny's mutinies.
Someone close at least one door
To my soul. My life: a hole.
You are my earth. I am the blindness of your mole.
*
Eve to the Honey Moon
When the Moon sleeps
I die
I'm the Moon's
Open Eye
*
Eve to the Apple-Trees
All the friends I got
are trees
All the birds they got
are hopes
All the hopes they got
are songs
All the songs they sing
I write
*
Eve to the Honey Moon Again
Be patient with me, Sister Moon
All the doors to the Convent are closed
Someone left me locked outside
In this world.
*
The Impassioned Eve
I am fire-haired
I am flower-hearted
Now in bloom
I am love-possessed
*
Eve To Her God
You gave me locusts of desire
You gave me mountains of fire
Godly gifts
I burnt my rotten fruits
On Cain's altar.
*
Eve To The Dark
You are the horns I grow
You are the thorns I hide
You are the secret Call
You made me fall.
*
Eve's Fear
I'm not afraid of the dirt
I am afraid of the Great Unwashed
And I want to wash my fears away
With their tears.
*
Eve's Desire
I want you to be the prisoner of my quick sands
*
The Promises Of Eve
I will shape your dreams
I will kiss your fears
I will drink your tears
After-Moon...
*
Eve About Her Poetry
My poem is one second long.
Like a breath.
To its beat I belong.
The rest is death.
***
Story #2
The Story of Lake Dimbovitsa
[The Wonderlanders]
This is a story whose roots are lost deep in the recesses of time,
before such stories were actually written down, but rather passed,
a generation at a time, sometimes even skipping entire generations
that either were not interested, or who merely forgot, as time was
quite different in those days, generations were shorter, and lives
were shorter, too: as a person approaching middle age today would
be said, at the same age back then, to have already led a complete
and total lifespan, as likely as not with both grand-children, AND
great-grandchildren.
Thus you can see that this story is populated by very young people
. . .and such people do not often leave much of a mark on society,
other than in stories. . .such as The Little Boy At The Dike, such
as The Boy Who Cried Wolf [which may or may not be true] and other
such stories of this nature.
But this story centers around a girl, and not a girl who has magic
inflicted upon her, as in The Red Shoes, but a girl who rather has
inflicted her magic upon society, and then chooses preservation of
self or preservation of society, when her magic proves very strong
. . .very strong, indeed. . .only it may not have been magic. . .
This story takes place in Europe, before Columbus, but not so long
before. . .and it may be the reason that ice-skating is dated back
to the time it is. . . .
This is also the ballet, Les Patinagees, from the same story, with
various changes, as is usually the case with ballets.
This is not solely a side-comment as this kind of artistic licence
. . .as it were. . .is the true subject of our story.
Whether Lake Dimbovitsa is really named after the main character--
or vice versa--has been argued by historians, inteligensia and the
literati of generations. . .I'm not taking sides. . . .
***
Dimbovitsa was a lovely girl, in an neighborhood of where the girls
were usually lovely. . .and she was no exception. . .at least for a
decade or so. . .but then came a series of long winters. . .not the
harsh kind that fill us with cold and fear of winter, but just long
. . .starting with some early freezes in October, nothing that kept
the crops from being harvested or brought to market, in fact a good
many said those years produced some of the finest fall crops of all
time. . .and the most beautiful fall colours.
These winters also held on an extra month before letting go into an
awe-inspiring set of springs, as well. The ice not melting from an
assortment of shaded ponds until well into May. . .but again. . .it
was not enough to keep the fields from being plowed and planted and
the Springs of that decade also must admittedly go down as a lovely
addition to the nicest and most beautiful springs of all history.
The summers, though perhaps a bit shorter, were also lacking in the
heat and dust that make summers sometimes unbearable, and. . .as it
happened, all in all, these were among the finest years ever.
But our story is a Wintertime story, not of harsh storms and snows,
but mostly of ice. . .and of ice. . .skating. . . .
As Dimbovitsa and her generation grew up, they skated more than had
and generation before, and possible since. The skated at least the
half of the year. . .skating in October, November, December, and in
January, February, March, April and some still in May.
Thus, skating became a part of their lives in a manner that had not
happened before. . .and it made a difference. . . .
Dimbovitsa and her generation started skating earlier in life, more
during each year, and within a few short years had become very much
the best skaters anyone had ever seen.
A new art-form was being born. . . .
Dimbovitsa and her friends, and others for miles around, were being
hailed as true artists, and Winter Carnivals or Winter Festivals of
her era were something as had never been seen before. . .and SO was
the skating.
The difference made in a good Winter of skating and a bad Winter of
skating back in those days was just enormous. In some Winters your
skating just barely got started before it was already over. . .with
freezes that were too quick or too short. . .and there was never an
area of good ice for a long time to practice on.
The difference now was totally amazing. . . .
Kids who started skating in the first year of this decade were much
better than anyone could ever recall. . .and after a few years more
. . .they were truly heavenly, or magical, depending on the viewer.
Each year their parts in the Winter Carnivals and Festivals grew to
become more eagerly anticipated. . .and became larger portions of a
new and already growing series of such events.
Those skaters who were particularly proficient were invited to some
other such events nearby, and the truly great might spend nearly an
entire week travelling from one such even to the next as popularity
and fame grew. . .along with the prizes, accommodations and general
treatment of such wondrous beings.
Want a "Poster Child" for skating?
Just go back and pick one of these. . . .
Dimbovitsa and the other skaters were very much the center of event
after event. . .and after a year or two were, for over half of each
year, the center of attention for the entire region.
Skaters from other regions nearby heard of this marvelous weather--
and soon a migration was on--but the natives had had a head start--
and were more at home, more comfortable, and thus were skating more
and better than everyone else.
People began taking their lunches with them, out to the places such
skaters would practice, and eventually quite a crowd would show up,
complete with vendors so that you didn't even have to bring a lunch
. . .you could be sure to find something there. The vendors had so
much business, and were so thankful for it, that they could feed on
the skaters, so to speak, that they fed the skaters for free. . .in
return. . .and were glad of the opportunity.
So for a few more years things continued to grow at this rate. . .a
rate that would have been totally impossible under other conditions
. . .in other times. . .or other places.
The vendors, to insure that the skaters would come practice, made a
sincere effort to keep the ice clear, and eventually even clean, as
they began to bring water to cover or replace the rough spots.
Some particularly far-sighted vendors took the skaters on tours, to
see all the lakes and ponds they could find, and once in a while to
set up a new practice area that had the right combination of things
for skating, viewing, and travel, to attract everyone to come.
Thus there were now more places to practice, and thus more time, as
not all the skaters went to the same place any more, and the trends
of incredible growth in ice-skating continued.
However, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and this
time it was for all the right reasons, though it didn't work out in
quite the way anyone expected. . . .
For some, the economy, you could say, was booming. . .for the other
part of the population, you could say they were losing control, and
not many people like losing control, once they have it, whether, or
not, they really should have it now.
Thus came the beginning of the end.
The vendors wanted control, after all, they had built the places to
do much of the skating, and had a right to know if they should plan
on enough business to keep things going. Thus, they wanted to know
who was going to be skating, when, and so on, so they could prepare
for coming days.
The parents of the skaters wanted control, because even though most
of the skaters who were passing the age of 10 when all this began--
were, through no fault of their own--now at the age when most would
be moving away from home. Even though nearly all the skaters would
always give virtually all their prize winnings to their parents all
of the time, the parents, as parents are wont, wanted to plan ahead
. . .just as did the vendors.
And so did the mayors and burghers of the various towns, where most
of the Winter Festivals and Carnivals were held, and so did persons
who ran the Winter Festivals and Carnivals. . .etc., etc., etc.
Except for the skaters. . . .
They just wanted to skate. . . .
Of course, there were SOME who desperately wanted the prizes, and a
few of THOSE want ONLY the first place prizes, but most all of such
skaters as these mostly want to skate, and it doesn't really matter
as much to them that they win, as that they skate the way they want
. . .and whether or not the judges agreed, was a different thing.
So. . .as more and more "control" was placed on these events, and a
few of the original skaters got married, had kids or moved away for
for other reasons. . .there were also few less of those originals--
the ones everyone KNEW would draw a big crowd, either for practice,
or for one of the Winter Festivals and Carnivals.
Which led to an even greater attempt to control them. . . .
Which led to a few more of them leaving for various reasons. . . .
Which led to an even greater attempt to control them. . . .
and you can see how that kind of thing might lead to. . . .
Some of the skaters eventually went back to practicing in locations
of their own choosing. . .places that were either not suited to the
vendors purposes or for other reasons not generally used.
They would skate in the moonlight at night, or bring candles to set
on the ice, and would skate around them like faeries in the forest.
All in all, it was some of the most beautiful skating of all time--
and anyone today would undoubtedly consider themselves blessed if a
chance to see anything like it came along. This was simply a group
of artistic persons, freed from the pressures of society, presented
with an extraordinary opportunity in their chosen field. . .skating
more for themselves than for each other. . .more as team than as in
a competition. . .just them. . .mostly for themselves. . .and a few
friends who might come to tend the lights and ice, bring food. . .a
group of friends. . .doing what they like to do best. . .alone.
And as they grew apart from the rest of the now crowded arenas, the
friends felt less pressure not to make mistakes, a more comfortable
atmosphere in general, so they tried more and more things they were
less likely to try in front of everyone, and, thus, yet another one
of the great leaps in skating began.
With this kind of unrestricted opportunity the skaters blossomed in
all directions, inventing new leaps, jumps, spins and positions, in
ways they only the truly artistically expressive can do.
When the time came for that year's Winter Festivals and Carnivals--
virtually every prize was won by one of the "Winter Wonderlanders,"
as they had come to be known that year. . .those for whom a skating
life was a joy. . .not work. . .those who wanted to skate more than
they wanted the prizes or recognition.
That year the other skaters were of course affected by such changes
. . .some in one way. . .some in others.
Some asked to be allowed to practice with the Winter Wonderlanders,
and most of them were welcome. A few just wanted in on the secrets
of the Wonderlanders, to enhance their own competitive position, so
were not so welcome. However, the Wonderlanders were willing to do
what they could to find nearly anyone a place to practice, and they
appreciated anyone who wanted to practice. . .but sometimes it was,
and still is, the motivation that makes the difference.