by Mark Hedden

By catsup, by fish, by coffee bitter and black,
My mind this morning a shredded cobweb.
O Woman, lean back.  Be quiet, one moment more.

How it springs, this nothing, out of things.
A hedge of leftovers, china and glass by light
Dappled, made to dance,
               involves us
                    as the curtain
Weaves the street in its blue stripes.  Be still, be quiet.

What is not or shall not be, I care not.
But, this morning, you, blue in that sweater
And white where my eyes would touch are more real
For my not knowing, more lasting for not having.

Be still, be quiet, one moment more.
Let me finish this cup, black as the pot
You never wash, and bitter enough.  I shall
Go.  This much
          I have.

by Mark Hedden

It is so easy to forget what brings you here.
For three years now I have been sitting in this room
Listening to the sounds projected from the street.
The idea I had was that I would come as an explorer
To map out the city, to learn the customs and games,
And as much of its darker side, the irrational heart
As an explorer could learn.  But I had not reckoned
With my own heart of darkness, the loneliness
Of an observer, the malignancy of inversion.

by Dan Sociu

I’m a comic–book
character —
bubbles
come out
of my mouth
inside which
nothing’s
written.

— translated by Adam J. Sorkin, Dan Sociu, and Mihaela Niţă

by Dan Sociu

One night my wife and I carried
ten bucketfuls of shit —
I think we haven’t spent such a good time
with each other since ’98:
we were vomiting and laughing, laughing and vomiting
— that day we swore
never to eat again —
between the dogs driven mad by the stench,
between the guinea hens, in the darkness of the flowering apricot trees,
the lantern light cut was her legs
gross in my father–in–law’s trousers,
and indeed, her feet went down
as in Solomon’s Proverbs
directly into death.

Then, unwashed — as people do
after they’ve crushed grapes, after funerals
or after pumping the cesspool —
unwashed we made crazy love
and in the dark our daughter’s blue eyes
stared at us.

The way home was never the way home.

— translated by Adam J. Sorkin, Dan Sociu, and Mihaela Niţă