The world needs the poems of Dan Sociu. It probably doesn’t make any sense to talk like this, but we might speak of Sociu as a combination of Bukowski and Rilke. Confessions of real life, with classical rigor—the best of both, and, in combination, better, at times, than either. This seems too easy to say, which is why we qualified it above in strong terms: it “doesn’t make sense.” But surely this slyly advertises, to a certain degree, what we are saying: there is something about the poems below (translated from the Romanian by Ana-Maria Tone) plainly uncanny—odd and strange from the ease of their honesty; matter-of-factly profound from a depth of patient understanding—as in the portrait of the cat, which reminds us of Rilke’s “The Panther'” beyond the mere feline similarity; the time traveling visit to anxious school; the masterpiece of love poet not loved; and finally, a love poem that documents, it seems, almost everything. Nicer than Bukowski, more approachable than Rilke, Dan Sociu is, with or without this comparison, an important poet. Enjoy.
SI FRUMOS E CÎND
How sad and beautiful man is when he’s wrong
about the world (and maybe he’ll never
know), like the cat driven mad
by the shining of a knife on the wall.
It forgets about everything else and it flies
into a rage directly to the playful spot
of light—and every time
it falls flat on its face and every time,
without hesitation, it throws itself
on that glow which is actually
nothing, doesn’t mean anything, is
useless. Indeed, if it disappears, it lies
still at the wall and waits,
with trembling whiskers, for it to return.
PARE UN VIS UNIVERSAL
It seems to be a universal dream. I’ve heard it
being told by others as well, the first part
is the same at least, the rest depends:
I’m at school, we are given
a test paper and as usual I haven’t studied
anything. I’m afraid and I’m ashamed then
I suddenly realize I finished school
a long time ago, I am an adult and they cannot
do anything to me anymore. I lie back and stretch
my legs on the bench, I look at my classmates
pitifully, how little and clumsy they are, caught
in the anxiety like a fly in a curtain—
don’t you already know that we were born in death
and that all cares are already over?
NIMIC NU MAI E POSIBIL
Nothing is possible anymore between me
And a nineteen year old girl, just as nothing
was possible when I was nineteen
years old. I listened to them carefully, they ruffled my hair,
they’d gently reject my touches, no, Dan,
you are not like this, you are a poet. They came
to me for therapy, they’d come with their eyes in tears
to the poet. I was a poet and everyone was in love
around the poet and none with him.
The poet would go out every evening
quaking like a tectonic wave and
in the morning he’d come back humiliated
in his heart—the quakes moving
for nothing, under uninhabited regions.
BECAUSE WE LISTENED TOFETHER TO THE HEART OF THE LITTLE GYMNAST BEATING IN THE CORNER OF THE HUGE MAT (PENTRU CA AM ASCULTAT)
First there was that beautiful gesture of yours in the bus
when you caressed with your fingers in the paper the photo
of a writer who died at 27.
I had seen girls doing that to celebrities’ faces before
and your gesture, very short and sensuous, on the features
of a dead young man, of a stranger,
moved me like a hundred obituaries.
Poor dear, you said.
I sensed you then, through your whole disguise
beyond your nice PR persona
I perceived the little girl who struggled to grab
a flower on the lower branch of a cherry tree.
Then there was a Sunday afternoon in the subway to the railway station.
We were talking about kids and I said that I didn’t want any more kids,
that I didn’t feel up to it. And that it would be unfair to my daughter.
In the station you kept trying to get out by the other door,
the one that leads to the disgusting abyss between the tracks
and you hid your eyes so I wouldn’t see you crying.
You once told me—I’m not beautiful, not in the classical sense.
And I told you—I know, I mean at first I knew,
now I don’t care anymore.
Some other time you told me you weren’t conceived out of love
and I wondered where you got all your love from.
So what if your parents didn’t want you.
I wanted you.
