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Best Poems Written by Constantin Severin

Below are the all-time best Constantin Severin poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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A Jazz Poem

- a solo nijuin renku -

English version by Liviu Martinescu

entrance to an underground
crowds in winter's clouds
and an atomic clock to boot

          the first snowflakes on
          the punching bag in the yard

the jazz poem
the town is creeping into
the golden scale

          enormous through teardrops
          the whitewashed houses

symphonic white
out of scores of thunderbolts
some leaves on the moon

          "and thus she sleeps awake
           long after she's got up"

the motorcycle
that's carrying them entwined
is curbing the hour

          raceless race-course
          the loneliness of no-horses

the streets sweat out
in the glove of speed
no time for tomorow

           seven doves go clink
           against the rosetta of the cathedral

the pollen at night
migrates into saints' bodies
as well as violins

           the lark's feathers
           made iridescent by the moonshine

circling the deserted
merry-go-rounds the glider
a whirl of silences

          only balmy tree-branches
          breeze here not whispers

each body
leaks out its own time
two abysses

         dark rails
         pulsating under streetcars

yellow saxophone
toward the super-yellow sky
it's me in there in the sound

         the concert eroticized
         new swallow nests

the raw soil blooming
among cherrytrees
beyond the wall

         in the shadow of the piano
         the spring bread

Copyright © Constantin Severin | Year Posted 2011



Details | Constantin Severin Poem

The Axolotl

English version by Liviu Martinescu

- a solo nijuin renku -

waves covered in wind
in our blood the salt of the sea
is seeking the shore

autumn clouds scattered
by viola d'amore

insatiably drinking in
the image of those conches
lurking amongst barren poplars

devious ways in
a square black against white

stuck between word and shadow
time
a salamander

I would twirl your red hair
in yellow rings

through rolls of thick fog
to meet the axolotl
bearing the face of my beloved

afloat away from our own selves
among unknown engravers

in the foreign harbour
anemones
sink the eternal sky

in the long forgotten bell
crickets have taken shelter

melting wax 
covers the books
of metamorphosis

smoky chrysalides
rise from among vowels

the shape of the larva
slowly yields the contour
of your absence

my palm feels the vortex
of your frozen name

a scream snowed under
albatrosses with myrtle in their beaks
shattering the moon

how changed the last
water dwellings

a cluster of birches
from one being into another
music will pass

it's only the sound of time
that entices grass to germinate

amongst plum blossoms
the hourglass sends up its sand
up/down to the last grain

deep into lilac woods
fire devouring fire

Copyright © Constantin Severin | Year Posted 2011

Details | Constantin Severin Poem

Haiku

the flame of the lighter

amplifies the fluttering

in our lips

English version by Liviu Martinescu

Copyright © Constantin Severin | Year Posted 2011

Details | Constantin Severin Poem

After Light the Fire

- a solo nijuin renku -

English version by Liviu Martinescu

the first butterfly
erupting crater
or sap at work in the grove

           a mountain sprig on fire
           two irises in bloom

the flames of those feathers
illuminate the cup
of our last tea

           the book as well as the candle
           transgress reality

winter moon
a spark of burning ice
over things from the past

           from the depths of the mirror
           render me this person to the snow

in your absence
moths swirl round
my eyesight

           the spurt of o symphony
           advancing in a mass of wax

sacred scarabaeous
that can only survive
by devouring itself
           
            how the passage of thoughts
            through the lamp bulb can hurt

two suns for one town
in a subterranean star
space is no more

            how the rainbow soaks up
            the light of angels

giving the wheel a spin
I could see against the spikes
her dreamlike face 

           the silence of the falling leaf
           on sizziling shoulders

sun-flooded gate
the moon bouncing off
every blessed chestnut

           when autumn comes the form takes off
           to the world of my other self

the blind musician
warming his hands
the red tulips

           I will only be able to play
           during that hour the clock utterly lacks

home again
the wild rose
curls round the guitar

           May wind dilating the fire
           after the light had its chance

Copyright © Constantin Severin | Year Posted 2011

Details | Constantin Severin Poem

Wall and Neutrino, the Poet In New York

(fragment)

English version by Liviu Martinescu

50.
oddly the leaves seem to count us
in their fall
houses shaped as a shrill sound
nobody lives in nobody
often the poor hear the nought in objects
blind people's hands do not signify
in litheness of pure
bars stroking one word
that thought-lives us
imitating the wistfulness of
unborn gods
we sink too soon
in the sleep-iron landscape
our fingers deafened
by the cranial blade of computers
surrounded by liquid helium solitude
and pounded heart
in the vacuum mouth of objects
we can only be saved by the word
the word that grinds its own shape
with the intensity of a star
breathing its own catastrophe
the word through which the violet
ribs of children can be seen
sequential workers
their complexion as dark as statistics
the gauze bandages of goods
hiding rotting canals
we live in approximation
our eyes shredded
by speed
nonplussed we fail no notice
that our dogs return from hunting
bearing sumerian tablets on their collars
who are you coming out of the net of time
to touch our civilization
with a myrtle sprig
ay sleep hauls cities
on paltry claws
their music a breeze from the future
yet cybernetic bells snow down
on blue deafness

Copyright © Constantin Severin | Year Posted 2011




Book: Shattered Sighs