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Author: mascara

Denisa Duran translated by Florin Bican

Written by mascara on . Posted in Translations.

SONY DSCDenisa Duran (b. 1980) is a Romanian poet, translator and cultural manager, author of four poetry books: the award-winning debut collection Pufos şi mechanic (Fluffy and Mechanical), Bucharest, 2003, was followed by the bilingual book Omul de unică folosință / Disposable People (translated into English by Florin Bican), published by Galway Print in Ireland (2009) and promoted during a reading tour in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin; in 2012 she published Sunt încă tânără (I Am Still Young) – a selection of which was included in the anthology The Most Beautiful Poems from 2012; in December 2014 her new book came out, Dorm, dar stau cu tine (I Am Asleep, Yet Keep You Company), accompanied by illustrations. She signed her first three collections with her maiden name of Denisa Mirena Pişcu.

Selections of her poems have been included in several national and international anthologies and translated into: English, Czech, Bulgarian, German, Italian, Turkish, Arabic and Finnish.

 

Amintirile atârnă în mine

Amintirile atârnă în mine
grele
ca nişte mere verzi
cu viermi.
Viermi
şi sub ţărână,
departe,
în adânc,
au spălat oasele
alor mei.




Netezesc mormântul

Netezesc mormântul,
smulg buruienile,
trag cu mâinile de pământ,
ca de-o pătură,
încercând să-i trezesc.





Oamenii se adună în jurul lui

Tatăl
mânca din mâna mea
cu greu.
Şi a murit.

Oamenii se adună în jurul lui
grijulii,
preocupaţi
să nu se molipsească de moarte.




Candele

Am fost ieri pe la Europa
să împrumut o cană de ulei
pentru prăjit cartofi
(sunem mulţi şi mereu se termină uleiul
de parcă l-ar da cineva pe gât).
E drept, E. nu ştie
şi nici nu e treaba ei,
dar o părticică din uleiul pe datorie,
încleiat sau lucios,
eu îl pun la candelele aprinse
pentru morţii mei
şi ai săi.
Memories Hang Inside Me

Memories hang inside me
as heavy
as green apples
ridden with worms.
Worms
under the dirt,
deep down
in the earth,
have also washed clean
the bones
of my people.



I Level the Grave

I level the grave,
I pluck out the weeds,
I tug with my hands at the earth
as if it were a blanket,
attempting to shake them awake.





People Gather Around Him

The father
would eat out of my hand
with difficulty.
And he died.

People gather around him
reluctantly
worried
lest they catch death.




The Lamps I Light Up

Yesterday I dashed over to Europe
to borrow some cooking oil
for frying potatoes
(there’s too many of us and we keep running out
as if someone were guzzling the stuff).
Truth be told, E. doesn’t know,
nor is it her business,
that I pour the tiniest portion
of the oil on loan,
be it rancid or fresh,
into the lamps I light up
for my dead
and for hers.

Letter for Reza Barati by name withheld : Manus Detention Camp

Written by mascara on . Posted in Writers In Detention.

Hello dear Reza,

How are you?
Are you in a good place?
Everyone is here and they are saying ‘hi’ to you.
I’m sure you remember Mustafa! He is saying to you, “Let’s play cards!”
Ali is saying, “Do you remember you would always get 6-6 whenever we played backgammon?”
Hussain is saying, “Do you remember whenever we played soccer, you would always be the goal keeper because you were tall?”
Behrouz is saying, “My mother goes to your mother every day and they cry together”. Hassan is saying, ” Forgive me, when you departed, there was a bit of displeasure between us”.

Reza! Do you know anything about Hamid Khazaei?
Are you together?
Please say ‘hi’ to him and say to him that we miss him.

Reza! It was hard to believe you had departed, we can’t believe it now either.
We would never think that they would kill the strong stocky Reza Barati, unjustly under a stroke with their hand.  Reza, no court of law has been established for you yet!
Your murderers and their masters are walking freely and they are showing off, blocking the way your blood is beside.

Reza, I don’t know if you know what they have done to us in this year that you weren’t here. It’s been really hard. Reza, they shed the blood of those like you and Hamid Khazaei in the name of human rights and they did not even care.

Do you know what Scott Morrison said after your death? He said “the way to stop these deaths is to stop the boats”. It is shameful.

Reza, they are more ruthless that the dictators of our own countries. They kill people at once there, but here, they kill slowly and by torture. They killed Hamid ruthlessly as well. Maybe he’s told you himself or maybe his pride hasn’t let him tell you that, how they did treat him ruthlessly. He died slowly slowly in front of our eyes in less than a week.

Reza, this is end of the world, no one helps us. They completed their racist confrontation by killing you and Hamid to show how mean they are.

But you don’t know that great people amongst them in Australia honoured you after your death. We can remember in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and many other places. Thousands of people shed tears for you and they condemned their government and that is your actual court. You don’t know but thousands of kind people lit candles for you and sit in streets. They showed humanity has not died yet and the account of the Australian people is separate from their racist government. Today, we are hopeful in the aid of these people with their great souls to achieve our freedom.

You are closer to God there, so pray to God that we will be freed from this prison very soon. Reza, I know freedom was nothing more than a dream for you and Hamid, an unachievable dream that you did not achieve here but now you are completely free, so rest in peace!

Dear Reza, I don’t want to keep you busy for a long time, but you will be in our hearts and souls forever. If the tree of our freedom gives fruit, we will not forget the blood of you and Hamid by it.

We love you both!

 Translated by Ali Parsaei