Poems
by Geo Bogza
Translated
from the Romanian by Julian Semilian
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Mysterious
crime in the Bustenari parish.
The
authorities are conducting an investigation.
to
Miss Mimy C.
Ion
Anton Bosilca, twenty one only
with
derrick-mechanic ambitions, grease-boy just now
having
thick lips, muscles forged in steel
and
a few sisters, one somewhat pretty, another somewhat
not,
but
each with a soul rotten like apples fallen from the tree
and
another one cross-eyed,
Ion
Anton Bosilca, Sunday, 9th of June, current year,
when
the village hora ended
how
is it he took off for the woods by himself
and
never came back again
Sunday
night full of scares
And
one gunshot
They
didn't find him till three days later, in an oil-derrick
his
head vanished into the black, his legs shooting out like
hopelessness
that
the sisters had to make him out from the shoes, yellow,
with sharp -
pointed
toes
Their
shrieks were knives stabbing the air
and
I saw them tumble down from the top of the hill like big
rocks.
Yes,
dear miss, they came a-tumbling down
His
sisters did
His
sisters
nobody
gave them a hand
they
were squirming like worms on the ground
and
the people were saying the sisters with their
innumerable men
killed
him so he never found out about them doing it
who
when he returned from working down at the derrick
had
to get the food ready and feed the chickens too
what
with the sisters busy with the guests and all
whom
they slept with all at once by the bunch in their single
room
in
the broken down home at the edge of the forest
ion
anton bosilca he made some virgin with child
nobody
spoke about the murdered boy's transgression
when
who knows the father of the big-belly virgin
waited
for him with a gun in the woods
and.
But
they never found out who did what
not
even when towards the end of the week
the
authorities show up kind of drunk
(so
many hills to bustenari, so many taverns)
and
they dragged him out, spreading his black and rotted
body
ripping
it open with knives, his skull with a saw
(the
doctor the brains quivered in his palms like glass beads)
and
found fourteen holes and where they nestled
the
fourteen pellets
next
to the liver
Then
they sowed him back together
and
gave him to the sisters and said put him in the coffin.
and
the girls cried we got no coffin, we got no money to
make him one.
That
night, Veta, the prettiest
who
knows will stalk some drill-man
with
a wife far up in some mountain village
and
dragging him into the shadow of the crude reservoir
glueing
herself soft against his thighs
will
whisper to him
my
love is equal to the price of a coffin
Contemptuous
poem
During
one of my nights I made love with a servant girl
It
was unexpected - and almost against my will
It
was somewhere in a dirty provincial town
And
I was staying at my childhood friend's.
One
evening I was strolling the streets - and when I got back
The
servant girl was making the bed in my room
She
was a young servant girl and darkish
She
said everyone had left, gone to town for a stroll
She
smiled
and
walked in front of me innumerable times
I was
coming apart that evening and had no taste for making
love
But
the servant girl was young
Don't
think she was older than sixteen
And
since she sat herself near the bed, like she was waiting
I
stepped up, smiled, and asked her what her name was.
She
told me some name, Maria I seem to recall
I
told her it's a beautiful name, and she mimicked shame,
I
think it was just before midnight
Through
the open windows a jumbled murmur broke in from
the city
Somewhere,
there, were ballets, movie-theaters, splendid
women and
automobiles
Here,
it was just me and this servant girl
She
didn't say a thing, just closed her eyes.
She
was a short servant girl, dumpy almost
And
she reeked of sweat real bad
O,
servant girl whom I made love to in a dirty provincial town
When
I was coming apart and your masters were gone
Servant
girl whom I've never seen since
Servant
girl, on your thighs two red stripes from the garters
Servant
girl with your belly stinking of onions and parsley
Servant
girl with your sex like an eggplant dish
I'm
writing this poem about you
So
the bourgeois girls will go hysterical
and
to scorn their upright parents
Because
even though I slept with them innumerable times
I
don't wish to sing them
And
I piss on their powder cases
On
their lingerie
On
their piano
And
all the other accessories which constitute their beauty.
GEO
BOGZA, born in 1908 in Ploesti, petroleum center of Romania. Active
member of the Romanian avantgarde in the twenties and thirties.
Arrested for his "Poem Invective" book, on charges of usurping morality.
Travels to Spain in 1937 as war correspondent. After the war becomes
correspondent and then academician and state poet. It is the younger
Bogza we love.
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