Poetry

FUSE (proseintopoem)


Translated by Howard Scott

I bury my head in writing,
I blow my head up,
I go the speed of words.
I bury my head in writing,
I blow my head up,
I go the speed of write.

I write the wee red worms
that perch on wee read words
wide as a writer’s loom
among the wee red worms.

I am the worm in my woman’s head.
the worm in man’s writing.
the wormword or woman-man.
I have the way with words of the bisexual worm.

I put feelings in my head.
I pull feelings from my head.
A worm doesn’t have feelings,
a word needs itself
and its fresh food.

I write like fresh food,
I write in my full frosty body,
I need me,
I write like “needing me.”

fill myself,
swell myself,
crush myself,
till there’s no more
of me.

And there is nothing more.
No shading
because of what
I could be.
Nothing but
my name
looking like a word
that
tickles
and
chews
everything it loves that I love like worms.
So it cries what I write against all possible writing.

WHAT AM I?
WHO AM I?

A name at the speed of words,
a writing in flesh for
the little earth worms
under rain and under the feet
of people happy or sad.

WHO AM I?
WHAT AM I?

My head floats above me
and I can’t find myself.
My head wants all my flesh.

38.5°C. 38.6°C. 38.7°C. 38.8°C. 38.9°C. 39°C. Fever. Late fall, winter cold, fog, mud, gray dogs, panhandlers, homosexual kids, junkies, -7°C. In a photo you can live or exist even if you’re not… alive. I grew up that way (4 seasons, very hot, very cold, everything that is the not, especially not […], I have known peoplefish, animalplants, birdstones, the air and fire of photolands. I made love with the first photo the second the third the next ones, with the camera), with the black glass eye, with its sharp objects, with warm lines and circles, love with […] etc., so that now, I don’t know anymore if my parents are not in some way the grown-up expression of my age at its different ages, taken in photos or left in the margins, or beyond the (…) Or me in love position with my life. No, I wasn’t crazy, I am not crazy, I’m too sad-wise, too beautiful-nasty, too ugly-docile, am another thing, an other EYE.

39.1°C. I can light up at any moment, the lack of action, the absence, the waiting, its tests too simple, too slow.

The inside and the outside of a photograph are inseparable. In life, any life, there are areas and movements that are explainable, areas and movements that are inexplicable.

Dark, light, shadow, limpid void, touched void.

Naked, unplaited, wet, elastic, curly.

“The beautiful red worm” with little dancer’s breasts. Photo. 1.67 m.

I live.
I am.
Empty and emptied.

I strike with my head the crust of heaven, I give feet to the crust of the earth. If I hold out my hands, horizontally, I perforate the boundary with the world. There remain accidents, mellow wounds, through which I receive sound letters, letters from the outside of eternity. Ding – dong, ding – dong, ding – dong… Like church bells. The big bells ring. Ding – dong, ding – dong, ding – dong (…)

In my head, the bees are made of little wax bells.
My head and its honey float over me.

I cry out
and honey runs out between my teeth.
Woman with the combbells
with a
hive in my head.
I am a very good woman,
a honey worm,
a word in honey,
a writing worm with the honey of a woman,
a word
writing in depth and in length,
very gently between and among,
in accordance with,
with the precision of bisexual writing,
to the orgasm of the metaphor of being
alone and alone,
alone as long as necessary.
Isn’t it what isn’t (…)?
Isn’t it the void that loves me madly, dammit,
I don’t, my void!
A worm needs no feelings,
it makes holes, combplaces in a hive,
places for bells and flights of bees.

I am a wormword in time, a wormword – while –
in time – words – of – feelings.

I am called Poemy. And I float
my head turned towards what
I no longer have. Towards the other side. And the other side floats too.
In the wild green shape of a green water lens.
Lens – heads. Little aquatic photos. Green.

I write small. And I eat everything that is beautiful.
I write in me, to open out the bee hole,
the honey of my thoughts,
in which head and body float in
the same direction,
bog flowing
on the edge of my memory.

A verse is like that. It doesn’t
cuss.
It writes in
the wound,
as if the
pain wrote to it on
cuts,
heavy pains, stirring up
cuss words.
That can
understand the words of a worm,
of a worm that takes itself for a woman,
and especially of a woman who takes herself for a wormword?!
Only severely “damned” poets!

I am your damned poet, pardon,
worm–poet, your favorite.
I am the one
who
writes cuss words of love
on your neck.

A worm speaks so well, but
once in its life.
I wish you never hear it.
Vaihingen, December 17, 2004:
inching. inching.

I run from one end to another.
I turn in
the photo, like the key in the lock.
I open myself by writing. I
feel
nothing. I open up wide.
It is likely I write what
I tell sitting in this nest
of flesh that moves to its
own music, but that
is not capable of feelings.
I see my hands bigger and
bigger.
Like Jack’s beanstalks,
they grow and grow
towards
heaven.

I put my fingers in
my mouth and I write there,
climbing on my saliva, I go
into the writing:
up,
down,
and so forth,
then
further
and nearer.
I put my head into the written.
I blow it up.
I go the speed of
love at first sight.

I write till there is nothing.
And it is so
beautiful and clear nothing!
I can speak freely.
And I can speak so
well,
I can speak freely,
I ca
n spe
ak
free
ly!
Above houses there
are
crows.
Above crows, a
red sky.
If I wasn’t writing, I would say “black and white sunset.”
And the belfry of the church of good cheer.
And the light fine rain, frozen in
the shape of needles.
And the fir tree in the
window.
And the pine cones and my
photos in pieces,
hanging from the fir
branches.
And,
especially,
the crows
that
fly squabbling,
talons dug into each other,
like pieces
of a puzzle.
And the little
red worm non-existent,
little non-existent, red non-existent,
Word – Worming – the Way to non-existent.

39.1°C.
39.2°C.

You told me many times:
“You can’t have a good relationship with your worm,
with that word thing!”
“We’re all afraid,
afraid of listening to you!” – under your breath,
before
going to sleep, you all turned your backs on me.
And you will never know anything about the
wee red worm.

I think I have 39.9°C. Cabbala plot? No,
as a poet, lucky numbers:
39, the number of
my father’s house,
9, in school, my
favorite mark,
I think that,
I
no longer climb
further
higher

In time,
Like a drill in the navel of heaven.
There are no steps, nor stops
my writing is not inclined.
The wee red worm,
the guinea pig of my writing, the
little red letter that gnaws on steps:
I come, I return, I implant shrill letters
in the stalks of
your body, I climb down, here I am
I put my
head in your head,
my body in your
body, your head in my body
your body in my head,

Rodica Draghincescu is a member of "generation 90," a movement of nonconformist Romanian writers that was born out of the fall of the Ceausescu regime. She has published many books of poetry, novels, and essays, both in her native Romanian and in French (http://www.draghincescu.com). She is currently doing a doctorate at the Paul Verlaine University in Metz, France, and is editor-in-chief of the international multilingual and multidisciplinairy magazine Levure littéraire: http://www.levurelitteraire.com.

Howard Scott is a freelance translator living in Montreal. In 1997, he won the Governor General's Literary Award for English translation. As well as poetry and fiction, he has translated many books of non-fiction, often in collaboration with Phyllis Aronoff. In 2001, they won the Quebec Writers' Federation Translation Award.