Stefan Manasia

Translated from the Romanian by
Clara Burghelea

Nineveh

 

Splendid green dress, splendid green sandals!
Coming out of the desert of the day (dust still
floating for a while, after the triumphal gates
and the bas-reliefs detonated the religious meat-eaters).

She climbs the dry-wooded hill,
among lacquered trunks, white
                                                as the Saurian bones.
She wears high heels as if she landed
                                                            from Mars.
She levitates in her cruelly beautiful, soft,
green dress, leans down on me, her cheek pushing
                                    through the adamantine hair.

(In the nest of polished branches, I was trying to come
back to my senses: my eyes were wide-open, but I had died,
ants had brought their eggs into my chest, wild bees
were going in and out of my navel—listening                                                            
to a mysterious relay.
The last creatures had feasted
on the meat of the atheistic hedonist.
I had lost my blood and algae and strange tiny plants
had grown in the branch nest).

She leans down on me, calls out my name.
Again, she leans down and calls my name.
I open tomcat eyes, I remember, I am Ștefan.

Take my hand, she says, the snail ship is here.
In the evening, we get on board, through steam and smoke,
as prophesied,
to the other world.

Ninive

 

Splendidă rochie verde, splendide sandale verzi!
Ieşită din deşertul zilei (praful plutind încă
O vreme, după ce porţile triumfale
Şi basoreliefurile le-au detonat carnasieri religioşi),

Ea urcă acum dealul cu pădurea uscată,
Printre trunchiuri lustruite şi albe
                                    ca oasele saurienilor.
Umblă pe tocuri înalte ca şi cum ar fi venit                                                             de pe Marte.
Levitează în rochia uşoară şi verde, sever de
Frumoasă, apleacă spre mine obrazul ivit
                                                din părul adamantin.

(În cuibul de crengi polizate încercam să-mi revin:
Ţineam ochii deschişi dar murisem, în toracele meu
Şi-aduseseră furnicile ouăle, prin buric
Intrau şi ieşeau albine sălbatice – ascultînd                                                             un tainic releu.
Ultimele vieţuitoare se-mpărtăşiseră
Din carnea hedonistului ateu.
Îmi pierdusem sîngele, alge şi plăntuţe ciudate
Crescuseră în cuibul de crengi.)

Ea se apleacă spre mine, îmi spune pe nume.
Se apleacă iar şi-mi spune a doua oară pe nume.
Deschid ochi de motan, mi-amintesc, sînt Ştefan.

Ia-mă de mînă, îmi zice, nava-melc a sosit,
Spre seară urcăm, prin abur şi foc,
Cum a fost profeţit,
În cealaltă lume.

Stefan Manasia is a Romanian poet and journalist, editor of Tribuna cultural magazine. He founded Thoreau’s Nephew Reading Club in Cluj in 2008, alongside Szántai János and François Bréda, which became the largest Romanian-Hungarian literary community in Transylvania. He published six volumes of poetry and had his poems translated in Hungarian, French, German, Polish and Modern Hebrew. He is also the author of a collection of essays and literary chronicles called The Aroma Stabilizer and a short story collection, The Chronovisor.

Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published in 2021 with Chaffinch Press. She is the Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.