Poetry: Six Poems

By: Tatiana Ernuțeanu

I

I’m sitting on a chair

a cigarette in hand

from time to time

a different color of eyes

I remember the color

always

after the word

desert

in a bar

with my disasters jim davis's cat and the floor

sprinkled with the cocktail taken to

table four left front

the shelters of non-existence on the banks of Arno’s river

no one asks me

what I'm looking for here

what I have to forget

how the cinema from Florence looks

I am not at anyone’s disposal

don’t caress me

don’t take me in yours arms

don’t tell me what season it is

because I’ll see that

black navy coat

from what’s it called

In her arms and I’ll

also see the Liepke moment

and the void and the lack

of it

partly due to the Arno

which erases everything

except memory

partly because baldessari's scissors keep saying the same words

without making a sound

II

the sun is scratching

a stranger

in the foggy mirror

an imprinted reality

by the intensity of the disaster

into which you have slipped

like a worm for years

you look at the clock

with that indifference

you watch the bloody beaks

of the ravens

and it seems natural

the clock shows an hour for living

it's not your time

this profitable compact structure

the world is a business

the sun is scratching

and you watch the steamed sea

a stranger in the mirror

while crystallized bunches of people

wipe out

your trace from the world

it's an hour to live

the voice hisses and hisses

and the wind is a touch

and you still want more

you're greedy for pleasure

and for the whip

and another sea tempts you

and you stand still

and you say how good

and the whip becomes the leash

you lick its edges

you smile happily

it's not about that...

III

you are shining hadar agena

during the trip

coming down from the air

like an Iberian imperial eagle

allusion to a white manipulation object

you don’t whisper it

I don't name it

I / you could

with screams and the device that mounts the dream

turned on

on via Francigena or not

like a sea mist

you penetrate

the silence of the vital institution

from a new zero kilometer

in the crossbones of my bones

moving me

again

up and down

carrying me through the air

like a cape

short film hadar agena

in the illusory brilliance

of what we can never call

protection

IV

caravanserai

you are standing in front of the window

I don't remember the day

from sardis to susa

just your body

whitewashed into an

unsuspected force

he was looking at me and all I saw was

splendor like an American franchise

shut up, I'm braiding my hair with lead wires

a method

that demolishes everything is not fixed in the air with the gaze

we do it for the future for the industry for the beaches of Asia

you encouraged me

with the dexterity of your movements

when I see two options to repeat the mistake

you wore a lot of blue in the secret past

a stylistic pitch probably

no nothing from the dream

just an email plique-à-jour beyond memory

V

we have in front of us

a full glass floating in

the bathtub

a steamy square

creaking

at an interval

which

we cannot anticipate

from time to time

something small incandescent

is projecting into the front of my eye

no one is saying a word

we try to catch

on the translucent surface of the water

all our little cracks

the absences

all the signs of despair

made with wrinkled fingers

you are turning on the left side of the bed

I believe in yesterday

and take a short breath

as if you were still underwater

the moment gives and the moment takes

you are feeling differently your organs

you are breaking the formula you keep repeating

and the memory still produces a tender emulsion

You are telling yourself you won't leave

no handful of sand

to become a desert

and ask for whom you are with

to use his mind

as an external hard drive

all that's left is

the full glass floating in the tub

and the absence of the eye in front of you

VI

all you need to understand about this collapse

is to stop letting any glare to take your mind

by naming things in default

the frequent triumph of the absurd

and that drinking all your blood

is not enough to stop it from flowing

and if you can’t

you'll have to get used to

bumping into the only place left empty

***

Tatiana Ernuțeanu (she/her) is a publicist and poet living in Bucharest. Her column in Forbes Life Romania meditates on love, vulnerability, loneliness, and nostalgia. Her debut poetry collection, Flesh, Dreams and Sad Bones Forgotten in Hydra, was published in 2020, and her latest collection, Blues Newsletter (ed. Tracus Arte), was published in 2022. Visit her at her website and on Instagram.