ADRIAN URMANOV

 VIGIL

I.

THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE AIR and it stays tightly held there—Thick hands from another kind of mud with another kind of nail almost like claws

enormous fishing hooks There’s something in the air and I breathe air

and the air is full of fishing hooks

I get out of the air and Huge claws are left behind hung in the air holding my guts my brain and  my heart

as evidence

II.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS INCREDIBLY BRISK with almost imperceptible shifts from one state to another There are tonalities that superpose and

this Causes vibrations in my stomach

I constantly prepare for vomit

I constantly prepare for the moment when everything will begin I only know it will begin and that Everything will happen incredibly brisk with almost imperceptible shifts from one dead man to another

IV.

ONE OF THEM IS YOU AND ANOTHER ONE—I / everything comes down to a state of uncontrollable fear I was visibly shaking my head

and this In spite of all assurances

of all previous preparations—years are queued / branded / exactly catalogued / meticulously  described in Long files

longer than the time of the actual years

Memories larger that the actions they wrap us gradually but permanently and with extreme certainty

V.

THE DREAM BEGINS in the immediate vicinity of my pains the horrid pain in the stomach the deaf pain in the ears

because This air is not digestible or simply my stomach can’t digest it and the Pressure of so many flops that have poured out of me in layers—like urine gathers in the sea water / under the sea water—

atrophies my hearing

and Everything would distort Everything would touch me if I didn’t know about the immediate vicinity between dream and my pains the horrid pain in the stomach the deaf pain in the ears and if I hadn’t always used the dreams to cement my days

VI.

I’LL REACH UP / HIGH ABOVE / THE HIGHEST / with this inverted gravitation and All will slowly-slowly stream in the sky and From the sky in the sky above the sky and From there directly into God’s heart from where He took me to wrap me in flesh and glory

VII.

 I SIT ON A CHAIR AND EAT THE WAY PEOPLE EAT and I drink by the law

Everything I eat trickles under the table and from under the table under the floor and from there directly into the shape my body will take in 2000 years time from now or perhaps 20000 years

Or perhaps nothing

Perhaps I don’t know exactly

perhaps it doesn’t even trickle, but it remains above the floor because the Day of my grave will catch me alive in my flesh—and 2000 years or 20000 will be in the blink of an eye

I sit at a table and swallow all these thoughts in my heart I chew them with the teeth of my heart and It is encrusted with a thick nutritious layer for a love that covers me on the inside—much surer and whiter than the thickest layer of snow

Adrian Urmanov

 born on october 2, 1979, in ploieşti

 volumes in romanian:

carnurile cannonice – pontica, 2001 – bucharest writers guild prize

poeme utilitare – pontica, 2003

schelet – pontica, 2004

included in the following anthologies:

you too can have this beautiful life – white trash intellectuals press, 2005, uk

i have crossed an ocean – heaventree press, 2005, uk

generatia 2000 – pontica, 2005, romania