Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and the poet
Morning Cofee Before by Daniel Ursache
far, far away from the thousand-nippled laser sphere
about to spurt its glowing red milk over us all
marian and george have a bathtub filled with paper boats
they clap their hands underwater to raise the fury of the sea
and then limp to the doorsill with wet steps
lights out
they strike matches
against the edges of the matchbox
igniting in flight like mortar rounds
far, far away from fire-ejaculating mummies and cybernetic squid
with green lights pulsing in their fiberglass tentacles
marian and george have just climbed on top of the wardrobe
on a makeshift ladder of broken chairs
they eat crescent pastries all night
and pass notes – encrypted in their own secret cipher
with numbers instead of vowels
y45r d5mb – n4 5
y4 m4mm1 d5mb1ss w2 h1v2 th2 s1m2 m5m
and they use curse words and ask naively what’s a blowjob
they gnaw on ink pencils and stick out their tongue
and they neither cry nor fear the power outage scheduled at nine o’clock sharp
because they’re together
and a little brother will soon join them
far, far beyond william wallace crying freedom with his entrails tortured
and trinity’s silent death – no glowing butterflies, just three titanium beams –
one line blinks on a computer terminal
sending sigkill to all processes
and that’s all
marian and george are reading the most fucked up issue of cutezătorii
where pif gets abducted by aliens and turned into a gherkin
starring the fuckthosegoddamnnazis world war II fighter pilot lieutenant-commander stancu
and stephen the great – vanquisher of the tatars – excalibur in his hand
and a mars teeming with zombies and overminds and red sand
what’s this pale celestial body page two row six?
errrrr a planet…
when you look death in the eye
someone knocks at the door
you think you’re advancing stealthily zero vibrations the flies
motionless on the sticky paper reassure you
warping the light around you
not knowing that from the other side
you sound like an asthmatic bulldog scratching at the door
staring through the peephole in the door
right into a bazooka barrel
but wait good sir it’s a mis- – and death
will kick you onto your sofa
taking a walking dump on your neat marble tiles
and flash selfies in your bathroom mirror
with his fingers in your mouth
your porcelain dogs will dance on their glass shelves
in the still air
sporting the smug grin of a smuggler
death will slam his huge dick against the table
unfurling it across the flower patterns of the oil-cloth
with its moist tip like a sinewy snake just hatched
its scrotum like piece of liver scored and forgotten in the fridge
your anus like the knot holding the air in a balloon
thou shalt step, thou shalt slide into the light
sticky-white
you can listen this poem here: https://soundcloud.com/korbea-pleataneagra
we’ll keep on living keep on fucking
until we get stretched out elongated
we’ll sweat eight different colors
like a byzantine fresco
we’ll be limp yet still hidden inside you
watching the sun until it shivers - methyl
in the tenuous, volatile, absinthe-like air
we’ll rot right here
in this burnt grass
the sleepy buzz of power transformers
these red plastic strings unraveling processed cheese triangles
this smell of empty cigarette packs
and strange tea
are the mountains now beneath us?
these mountains will grow through us
peaks through corpses. later
the restless worms will let us lie
with wreaths of hair around our skulls, like halos –
bleached white and immobile
we’ll gaze at the starlit sky
POET'S STATEMENT:
Shrek is love, Shrek is life.
I’m fed up with literature’s book and self fetish, the way it stares at its own crotch and feels up its three missing pairs of ribs. I’m fed up with avoidance of tropes, fear of going beyond intimacy and confession, with turning one generation’s mannerisms into religion (I’m looking at you, the 80’s and 2000’s) and burning the rest at the stake.
I’m fed up with the quest for a higher, hidden meaning. Poetry is not Shrek, poetry is not an onion – so why force layers on it? Poetry does not necessarily mean to say anything deeper – just like cars blowing up with the strength of a thousand suns don’t, just like unicorns farting rainbows with Bohemian Rhapsody in the background don’t. Why can’t we be grown-up kids and accept the idea that a text can sometimes be just an action flick with a thousand explosions, a colorful pixel vomit whose magic is worth basking in for a little while?
I want my poetry not to be about me, but about the movie I’m directing in my head: and I want you to see it. I don’t care about your feelings, I don’t care about my feelings: I just want you to see it. To help you paint it on the inner walls of your skull, its taste, scent, sound and texture, and that thing you sense with your skin, and the feel of candy taken out of the box and all. I want to show you all this stuff (both) because, and although, we’ll die and it must go to waste.
I want to learn and then to teach you how to eat the text with your bare hands - despite what your mother taught you about alphabet soup - #nofilters, #noscope, no middleman.
Florentin Popa was born in 1989, Băicoi, Prahova County. He lives in Cluj-Napoca, and he loves the “hr” consonant cluster, hadoukens, the ukrainian black metal scene, falafel, and his qt3.14 gf. His google-doppelganger writes articles about treating couples’ infertility with mud baths.
Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/korbea-pleataneagra
Popa has written a sonnet about Ken Masters, describing his strong pressure game and buttocks. Also a book of poetry, Trips, heroes & love songs (Bistrița, Max Blecher Publishing House, 2013), which won the Iustin Panța Prize for a debut book.
