rhumba
the tapping july hail
puts me in mind
of how this salsa dancer used
to break my windows twice a month
with the stiletto flipped off her lil left foot
I Love Fashion TV
the same need to be slim the same need to be gigantic
anorexic goliath
my life is a catwalk thrusting a long way into the crowd of
fans and binoculars
and I spring forth with a sashay of hips pelvis
and serpentines
being a snake one second a goose the next goose-stepping byzantine new fashion
style my bishop’s frock bathed in camera flashes
raise your foot up! straighten your knee! bristle your moustache!
eins zwei drei Deutschland Deutschland über alles! über alles in der Welt!
worship me hollow me I’m a goddess mother Russia on 10 inch high heels
picture my Bengal tiger bikini
I don’t even exist for ya I’m an off-limits-to-tourists Siberia
as of today you childlilix me babelix
you don’t get to see an invisible seam as often as a smashing forehand
I could bring you versace
I could bring you dior
I could birth you federers schumachers maradonas
hotel victoria
and all of a sudden while speaking of his poetry
I realized he instantly got wasted his eyes falling
into the cleavage of a she-jellyfish at the table
next to ours
we stood up and staggered towards
the subway station his bag on one of
my shoulders on the other himself huge
hair blowing in the wind and belly full of
twins
my new poetry how cute and
nobody’s aware of it mark this but you
listen dude what time is it will I catch that train
on time mark this you’re the one accountable my wife
will kill me if I don’t make it back home tonight!
but it was still him the damn girls made
eyes at as he kept swinging perched
on my shoulder his eyes covered by hair
crying happy tears over being a genius
the critic also showed up at the railway station also
younger yet so collected so
interbellum
so glad to meet you I started
naively
wish I could say the same
and while my tongue was rolling
back into my stomach the train took them away
it was only then that I noticed the poet’s legs
were as knock-kneed as an X, uppercase
all I wanna do is get drunk here with you
had no idea literature is about what you drink
with whom and where when I found that out I was already too old
to even have the patience to have sex let alone
sitting on one cheek and then the other
at the literature museum garden pub
on guarding the ears
before the service the priest shall not feed the chickens work around the farmstead check on the horses in the barn paint the joinery or count his money
it is not good for him to read the papers get his head full of politics gossip reportages advertisements watch tv violent movies or family violence talk shows
or watch sexy comedies that will make him get on top of his presbytera and pour his semen into who knows which of her body’s hollows
it is preferable for the priest to walk get a wagon ride or take the trolley to church and not drive his own black car which always gets him all worked up to pimp it up 100w rms speakers red spoiler on the trunk and neons under
being thoughtful about all of the above
the priest shall be guarded from the devil appearing as pamela anderson during the liturgy and
and shall not throw the censer off into the choir singers’ heads like dice at the
casino
yet mozart he’s allowed to hear for that old nagging wisdom
tooth he always says will get pulled out first thing after lent
***
Felix Nicolau defended his Ph.D. in comparative literature in 2003 and is the acclaimed author of four collections of poetry, two novels, and six books of literary and communication theory. He is on the editorial boards of Poesis International, The Muse—An International Journal of Poetry, and Metaliteratura, and he serves as associate professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Communication at the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania. He has recently been invited to launch his forthcoming poetry collection—I Love Fashion TV (Vinea Press)—at the Salon du Livre, Paris, 2015.
Translated from the Romanian by MARGENTO (Raluca & Chris Tănăsescu). Chris Tănăsescu is Asymptote’s editor-at-large for Romania. He is a poet, academic, translator, and poetry performer whose pen-name is also the name of his poetry/action-painting/jazz-rock band, the winner of a number of significant national and international awards. See his work in Asymptote here and here.