Unanimously ill
What would it be
if we’ll got sick
suddenly,
If there won’t be
someone us to treat,
someone to remove
bandages and bracket?
What if,
as our legal right, say
to get sick,
we find out quick
that we are ill one day
and had no one at all
no one to call?
And what if, say
on a damned day
we’d got sick
all
at once astray?
.
Bolnavi unanim
Ce-ar fi, ce-ar fi,
Dacă brusc,
Ne-am îmbolnăvi,
Dacă n-ar avea
Cine pe cine să mai trateze,
Cine cui să-i mai scoată
Bandaje și paranteze?
Ce-ar fi dacă,
În urma dreptului legitim
De a ne îmbolnăvi,
Chiar ne-am trezi
Că ne îmbolnăvim
Și n-avem cui ne adresa,
N-avem pe cine chema?
Ce-ar fi dacă
Într-o zi blestemată
Ne-am îmbolnăvi
Cu toții
Deodata?
.
You, illiterates
I told you that I am a dangerous man
and you chose to ignore my righteous warning.
I told you be more cautious and afraid
when you speak and my person is concerning.
I told you that I terribly react
if you step on my freedom just a tad.
I told you that I am the faithful soldier
who’s fighting only foes, worst kind of lad.
I told you to calm down and to appease,
you, capricious censors of our age,
that you’ll pay dearly your petty caprice
to make our days much tighter than a cage.
I told you to start working, really work,
and not lurk zealously behind our back.
I told you that no one will ever like
your dreary tendency, troubled and dark.
I told you that the time of now has changed
and the lay of the land is more complex.
The intellectual is not a servant
and culture’s something more than an annex.
The world cannot be conquered only with
inflated figures, phony enthused vox
with arrogant and lazy doctorands,
and parakeets replacing eagle-hawks.
I told you and I have the guts to tell
that in a greenhouse cannot fit the mount,
that is too short the path: Eden to Hell
and from the doe to panther in a hunt.
I told you to not fetishize Marx, and
to not preserve his teaching in a jar.
But without reading him, you, on and on,
quote him until your tired mouth has scar.
I told you that the battle for mankind
allows not a desertion nowadays,
but you awarded medals to yourselves,
while the battle goes on many ways.
I told you music isn’t a disease
that threatens our old civilization.
It’s for the humankind, to make them better,
I told you: give it the best of a nation.
I told you, fellow citizens, illiterates
forever to remember and beware!
But I knew not that you were born deaf
and fire arms when words are in the air.
.
Analfabetilor
V-am spus ca sunt un om periculos
Si nu mi-ati luat avertismentu-n seama.
V-am spus s-aveti pentru persoana mea
Un plus de-ngrijorare si de teama.
V-am spus ca fac teribil de urât
De sunt calcat putin pe libertate.
V-am spus ca sunt osteanul credincios
Dar care doar cu inamici se bate.
V-am spus sa va astâmparati si voi,
Cenzori capriciosi ai vremii mele,
C-o sa va coste scump maruntul moft,
De a ne face noua zile grele.
V-am spus sa puneti mâna sa munciti.
Sa nu mai tot pânditi zelosi din umbra,
V-am spus ca n-o sa placa nimanui
Pornirea voastra, tulbure si sumbra.
V-am spus ca vremurile s-au schimbat
Si ca situatia e mai complexa,
Nu-i intelectualul – servitor.
Cultura nu-i ceva ca o anexa.
Si lumea nu se poate cuceri
Umflând la cifre si mimind tumulturi
Cu aroganti si trindavi doctoranzi,
Cu papagali care tin loc de vulturi.
V-am spus si am puterea sa mai spun
Ca nu încape muntele în sera
Ca prea-i scurt drumul de la rai la iad
Si de la caprioara la pantera.
V-am spus sa nu-l fetisizati pe Marx,
Sa nu-i pastrati în spirt învatatura
Si voi într-una fara sa-l cititi
Îl pomeniti pâna va doare gura.
V-am spus ca batalia pentru om
Nu iarta astazi nici o dezertare
Si voi v-ati decorat voi între voi
Când lupta este în desfasurare.
V-am spus ca muzica nu-i un microb
Care ameninta civilizatii
E-a omului pentru a fi mai bun,
V-am spus: ceva care sa-i placa dati-i.
V-am spus, concetateni analfabeti,
Si luati aminte si sa tineti minte.
Dar nu stiam ca v-ati nascut si surzi
Si scoateti arma când vedeti cuvinte.
.
Translator’s Note
In contemporary Romanian poetry, Adrian Paunescu appears as a deeply involved social poet, who wants to be a spokesman and a guide of consciences through his poems full of exaltation revealing courage and responsibility on the truths he formulates poetically.
His poetry, built on romantic support, has contrasting aspects, revealing masks and multiple roles of the lyrical self, from the messianic face of the one at the head of the crowd to the “misunderstood genius”, repudiated by the crowd unable to penetrate the deep meaning of his words. Even so, he is humble in front of humanity, completing the image of the poet-actor who speaks his speech with pathos on a huge stage in applause or collective repudiation.
“The Ultrafeelings”, his debut volume, reveals the need to affirm a freedom programmed in a poetic universe marked by a tense interrogative tone, which allows the poet a certain hierarchy of the values he believes in. The poet is endowed, in Adrian Paunescu’s conception, with an energy capable of capturing the world in its aesthetic component, and he organizes this world by bringing to the surface the vulnerable area, the sufferings, the unresolved problems of the modern world.
The degradation of values, the health of the earth, themes treated with a wide, noisy rhetoric are the major themes of Adrian Paunescu’s lyricism, revealing a high moral consciousness, as seen by some literary critics.
In the volume “The Earth for the time being” appears the metaphor of the “corrupt guards”, defining for the identification of the opposition between man and nature, the poet assuming the painful role of helpless observer of the degradation of objective and human nature. Both in this
volume and in “The repeatable Burden” the tone of disapproval of the surface forms that hide deep wounds is deeply pathetic.
This whole universe full of contrasts is under the control of the poet with “vulture” eyes, who observes and gives verdicts.
Therefore, the primordial harmony of the couple, the steam of the snow, the ineffable charm of utterance must be saved.
The condition of the planet is required to be in line with the perfection of the one who sees.
