Rusting

Because we’ve already put governments on the moon
we’ll soon invent bread with teeth
a mechanical rainbow to cut the rain
an icon to appear before us on caterpillar tracks…

As at a fair you pull out graves from a sleeve
dear Lord,
by the light of Your dim halo
glory will polish its own boots
the monkey will swing between the hand of the clock.
Why haven’t You got the sweet recklessness of the madman
to pull towns with a string towards the woods?
Polluted seas will beat their waves
migrating towards pure stars.
In the cars’ cemetery I saw an angel rusting.

Mircea Dinescu

tr.: Andrea Deletant-Brenda Walker
© Mircea Dinescu
Selected from “Exile on a peppercorn”, Forest Books, London

Mircea Dinescu, born in 1950, is one of the best known Romanian poets.
His works have been translated in French, Italian, German, English,
Russian and Spanish. He is regularly invited at international poetry festivals
and has been editing several magazines in Romania.
He recently started publishing a collection
of modern international poetry, called “colectia 33”.