November, 2017
Time in a frame
POSTED IN contemporary poetry, Stories November 12, 2017
Time in a frame
She’s tall, dark-haired, with sparkling eyes,
her fingers swift and sure,
bent over piano she cries,
her white neck’s long and pure.She’s twenty two or twenty three,
and to the angels talking
she needs not notes for melody,
she plays as if sleepwalking.The photo speaks volumes of her
and of that time in amber.
She is with child, her music slur
her wings, her joy, her cumber.She died in child birth, Christmas Eve.
Her daughter is my mother.
She gave us all a life to grieve.
A woman like no other.In this photo she’ll always be
forever young and pregnant.
She knows not that from her to me
Time will be framed incessant.This photo is a last image
Of my grandmother’s life.
She always will be that age,
mother to be and wife.
I play her piano these days.
I look like her, been told.
She is in silence, I’m in maze
She is young, I am old.I kiss her photo, black and white
I smile: how odd and funny,
when time she stopped she had the sight:
I’m older than my grannie!
Maria Magdalena Biela
Birthday in November
POSTED IN AUTUMN November 10, 2017
Happy Birthday, Mother!
Bielka
The laughing heart / Inima care rade
POSTED IN contemporary poetry, translated English-Romanian November 8, 2017
The laughing heart / Inima care rade
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.Charles Bukowski
…………………………………………………………….
Inima care rade
Viata ta e doar a ta
n-o lasa lovita In supunere umilitoare.
fii atent.
exista cai de iesire.
exista lumina undeva.
n-o fi chiar multa lumina insa
e oricum mai buna decat bezna.
fii atent.
zeii iti vor da sanse.
cunoaste-i.
cuprinde-i.
nu poti birui moartea insa
poti birui moartea in viata, uneori.
si cu cat mai des vei invata sa o faci
cu atat va fi mai multa lumina.
viata ta e doar a ta.
cunoaste-o atata vreme cat o ai.
tu esti minunat.
zeii asteapta sa se bucure
in tine.Romanian version, Maria Magdalena Biela
NOVEMBER
POSTED IN AUTUMN November 1, 2017
NoNo sun—no moon!
No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
No sky—no earthly view—
No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
No end to any Row—
No indications where the Crescents go—
No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
No courtesies for showing ‘em—
No knowing ‘em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
“No go”—by land or ocean—
No mail—no post—
No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!Thomas Hood
