The Sniper

The Sniper

– fragment-

I SHALL NOT DIE IN PARIS ON A RAINY DAY
I shall not see Paris gave up
that woman who might have undoubtedly persuaded me
with her public charity kiss to die in Paris on a rainy day
before growing old here
where the sniper is hiding

where the sniper is hiding in his native bush
before growing old here always counting my money
for the glass that was given to us
for the glass that was taken away from us
let the name of the glass be forever blessed
before growing old here always listening to the rain –
with the exiles of the dead – its nocturnal humming
spilt over the roof tops over Mr. Sniper’s native bush.

Oh yes the initial bush with flowers and birds with bells and
churches
namely the bush where six feet under the earth did I bury
on a November day by the feel of dark
as a dog named Gust would his good old bones
my home my spouse and (for just a tittle while) my inner
voice.
May you grow mushrooms, may God protect you!
Nice and easy did I arrive where I set out
to my native bush with bells and an owl –
where wretchedness is pink-coloured and prevailing where
the batrachian’s atheist laughter prevails over the spirit of the
place
where the rattle-owl is “fly-fly” flying
to prevail upon the spirit of the place.

ON MY FIRST FACE-TO-FACE DISCUSSION WITH THE SNIPER
my old faithful dog named Carl Gustav being present
in the underground atmosphere of an outskirts bar
overwhelmed with cigarette smoke
oh that music vodka mystery
of any outskirts bar

in the afternoon, at 5 o’clock, perceiving my life to be soaring
to the skies
with each glass I was having
the sniper could not withhold his tears
and neither could my good old fox-terrier.

SUCH A SENTIMENTAL GUY THIS MR. SNIPER, AFTER ALL.
Whenever he is drinking a frog is leaping
the batrachian is sniggering at his sniper tears.
Those few customers have just vanished away
that rascal barkeeper
the bodyguard and the striptease-girl all seemed to have
disappeared
fearing the approach of the sniper.
This is always the case in any outskirts bar.

I WAS JUST TELLING MY GOOD OLD FOX-TERRIER
it was time I had left after tumbling my last glass
made of the door and up to the skies with my glass
and that mental rose within
when Mr. Sniper started producing
rough typical belching, one of the most personable
voices I have ever heard:

… Sir,hic

THE STRING’S GHOST IS HAUNTING THE WORLD it is rounding up the
millennium, hic
with more than a justified grudge, hic-hic
I was born into a world (sorry if repeating myself) pulled by
strings
in the winter of ‘53. I CAN SEE STRINGS STRETCHING OUT IN THE AIR
as telegraph wires swallows everywhere
in quite any position one might be pulling the strings
swallows are flying
over and through my head everywhere nice and easy have I
become a puppet on a string I gather
I came to feel the string in my stool
like one who had been fed with strings ever since early
school.

WHEREVER ONE GOES ONE CAN SEE ONE’S FELLOW CREATURE BEING
PULLED BY STRINGS living one’s tough life by the string’s
religion
in churches made by strings new string-made people are
kneeling
praying with ecstatic tears
towards their string-made God…

The string’s metaphysic is death by hanging
Its love: the votive light oil the flickering mystic flame.

SO MANY MASSACRES BEHIND THE STRING-MADE INEXTRICABLE
TEXTURE
Yalta – Malta. So many horrors. If for instance I the sniper
you the poet and that damned fox-terrier
endeared all with our glass do forget for a while
that somewhere someone is pulling the strings of our lives
hand head and feet-strings
we are as if dead. Well the red thread
linking the White House to the Kremlin is but a little string, is
it not?
All that secrecy, the pulling at the strings, the so-called
diplomacy
without a string, without any string-spirit
are inconceivable – peanuts.
The palpable, the sole reality
is the string itself.

So many nights on end have I heard the string wailing
and the string-maker lies in his tomb.

ALL AS ONE with either awe nausea or with grace
as flies would we are struggling in the old string-maker’s net.
Blood and bone string, that is the daily/pocket cocktail.
In the seas, in the string-maker’s net the big, the small fish
and in between the man-bait-nothing-at-all…

While he was beating about the bush, THE SNIPER KEPT
RECOVERING
his inner strength, his balance, his calm.
Customers reappeared – the barkeeper, that striptease-girl,
(The bodyguard did not jump over the fence) – in recollected
liveliness. Again the cigarette smoke the outskirts music
thick noises a certain mystery. And suddenly soaring
in that stale air the night’s revelation – the sniper’s iron fist
Then in spite of myself my body dashed
in just two jumps out through the door tugged by
the old fox-terrier his soul itself
the frog that blood-thirsty batrachian
splashed into the glass
from the sniper’s mouth straight into the district pool.

Translated by: Alexandra Diaconescu-Popa

AuthorMarian Draghici
2018-08-21T17:23:44+00:00 June 1st, 2001|Categories: Poetry, Blesok no. 21|0 Comments