Denisa Duran
(Romania)
– selection from the collection “Omul de unică folosință / Disposable People” (Galway Print, Ireland, 2009)
Two deaf-mutes
Two deaf-mutes chatting on the trolleybus –
no faces
no bodies
no organs…
Only the words are hovering between them
as they throb
while all around
descending by degrees –
the sound of silence.
Fugitive
The moon hiding behind the balcony
like a fugitive
hiding behind the lamp post.
My birthday-party guests
Too much talk, too much
inner
space
cluttered with words
(and explanations
and introductions).
My birthday-party guests
sinking their teeth into my flesh
as if into a birthday cake.
Making love
I can write texts on my lover’s skin,
I can write poems all over his back,
his arms and his legs,
(I can draw if I want to)
It’s just another way of making
love.
The moon
The moon caught between two telegraph wires
struggling to come out in one piece.
Sign up now!
Vodafone:
“Sign up now!
You’ll get 200 free minutes
The moment you die!”
My body
My body feels long and formless
like chewing gum
without flavour –
I’m stretching it, stretching it, stretching it,
mornings and evenings,
endlessly.
They abide in my mind
I’ve been roaming all day
through boutiques –
looking around I see nothing but
THINGS,
they abide in my mind…
As I’m saying my prayers
God is standing before me
in the form of a handbag.
Whenever I’m changing my clothes
Whenever I’m changing
my clothes,
no matter where you are – close by
or not,
you do enter the room quite
unawares
and catch me
bare breasted.
It is as if I called you…
I asked you to come
I saw
a duck with six ducklings in tow
on the Cişmigiu pond –
I gave you a call straight away
and asked you to come
so we’d see them together
and up to the moment
I saw you
I averted my eyes
from the scene.
Long cables
I’m thinking of the future in terms of
long rubber cables
I keep pulling
closer.
Interview
Mysterious interviews –
you are not told exactly
what they expect you to do,
between what times,
for how much money,
at what particular location…
“We’re looking for philology graduates” –
good for whatever’s needed.
Disposable People
We’re disposable employees
using tissues for wiping our tables
and plastic plates for our food,
plastic forks, plastic teaspoons and boxes
purchased in supermarkets
and sweetshops.
“Salad, please”
(at ten forty five
in the evening)
there’s some food in the fridge
but I’m way too tired
to warm it up.
“Salad, please,
and a chocolate croissant” –
for my necessary
daily vitamin intake.
Every morning
Every morning
I pull at my hair in a hurried, compulsory shower
and make for the office
balder and balder.
Upon the rooftops
There are fishermen’s huts
stretched out all along the wild shore,
and fishermen weaving hammocks.
Upon the rooftops
a small dog is walking
and barking skywards.
Minute shadows
In the morning it rained on my tent –
hefty drops,
rapping against the tent sheet
like sleep-inducing music.
I could see them above me
with sleep-heavy eyes,
open half way,
minute, heavy shadows,
sliding by without
touching me.
I’m afraid of the sea
I’m afraid of the sea,
of her mouth,
gaping wide,
of her treacherous mouths
pretending to kiss the soles of your feet
in humility,
yet ready to bite…
The sea’s constantly slobbering
over our feet.
Translated from Romanian by Florin Bican
____________________________________________
Denisa Duran (b. 1980) is a Romanian poet, translator and cultural manager, author of four poetry books: the award-winning debut collection Pufos şi mechanic (Fluffy and Mechanical, 2003), was followed by the bilingual book Omul de unică folosință / Disposable People, (translated into English by Florin Bican), published by Galway Print in Ireland (2009); furthermore, she published Sunt încă tânără (I Am Still Young, 2012) – a selection of which was included in the anthology The Most Beautiful Poems from 2012; in 2014 her new book came out, Dorm, dar stau cu tine (I Am Asleep, Yet Keep You Company) – a book about “becoming” until the age of one – accompanied by illustrations. She signed her first three collections with her maiden name of Denisa Mirena Pişcu.
Denisa Duran is BA in Romanian & English Language and Literature, MA with a thesis about sound poetry, written in English. She worked as a journalist, translator and editor; since 2007 she is project manager at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest.
In 2015, together with the Austrian composer Bruno Pisek, she created a radio work about her city – Bucharest Nowadays is Beautiful, isn’t it? – broadcast by ORF – Kunstradio. The 51 minutes work, available here http://www.kunstradio.at/2015B/15_11_15.html, speaks about the city from two points of view – of the visitor and the inhabitant – and it includes the poems of the two authors in three different languages (Romanian, German and English), a sound portrait of Bucharest, two voice choirs and music compositions.
Denisa Duran participated in many readings and literature festivals abroad and she was awarded two literary fellowships: by the Vienna Poetry School (Schule für Dictung) (Vienna, 2008) and by Traduki and Goten publishing house (Skopje, 2015).
Selections of her poems have been included in several anthologies and translated into: English, Czech, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Finnish, Macedonian, Serbian, French.