A romantic theater play with rain, firefighters, freedom celebrations and cycling lessons

You need to learn how to turn, are you going to go in circles all your life? a grandfather asks his granddaughter in the park. She is learning how to ride a bike and going full speed in a circular area. Again and again. She’s laughing, the grandfather is smiling, I’m smiling, too.

Yes, I need to learn how to turn, I tell myself. Cause I went out of the circle and then I stopped, practicing again my favorite sport: contemplation. Inner and outer contemplation. The yellow taxi at the other side of the park, the white dog, the puppy. The man wearing red shorts running in the park every day at 7 and a half in the evening. Maybe he trains for the marathon. He’s taking a circular route, too. I smoke and I watch. I watch everything. What do we know about the inner life of an introvert, unless the introvert tells us about it. What do we know about the inner life of a cat, sitting at the window, all day long, in a house with a garden, where plants grew partially wild, but flowers still take turns in blossoming.

It’s been raining, I like taking the umbrella and venturing myself around the city. It’s hot and moist, maybe this is how living at the tropics feels like. Today, thunders and lightnings. Like in a Shakespeare theater play. You’re romantic, my friend says. She’s right, I am. I have the impression the public is waiting to see what the next step will be. They’re waiting eagerly and I like to prolong the suspense. I promised myself I will do only impeccable acts.

At night, flames and fireworks.
I should have been celebrating my freedom today, I wanted to take a walk on the main boulevard, in silence, wearing my freedom dress. My freedom dress is an ex day-to-day dress, which was retrograded to pyjama status. It was my sleeping costume, in Barcelona, one year ago, when a thief entered through the window. It was the dress I was wearing early in the morning when I walked to the police to tell them: I don’t have any luggage, money, cards, phone, identify. It was a lucid, crucial moment opening from the threads of time, when I realized I worried too much for imaginary things, but when it is really needed, even the worst situations can be solved. It was also about the emotional luggage, of course. And since then, I started dropping all the things that hindered me from being light, one by one.
I didn’t wear my freedom dress today on the boulevard, but I paid a silent thought to all the people learning how to turn. And at night, I had some apples with the firefighters, watching a street lamp that could or could not catch fire. Miss, with all this rain, there are street lamps catching flames all over the city tge wires are not well isolated. Fireworks buzzing at the corners of the streets in darkness. It’s almost funny, me and the firefighters watching a street lamp, on the day of my first contact with freedom celebration. It’s like a theater play.

Thunders, rain, flames and a romantic writer. Don’t worry, miss, you can go to sleep, we will be here all night long, guarding the light. And I close the door, thinking this might be the most romantic things a group of man ever told me.

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Life, condensed into six poems and a story

I wrote pages and pages
Notes and letters
Love letters, motivation letters, biographies and statements
Documents and proofs I live, I feel and I exist
But in the end, it all goes down to six poems and a story:
Break the weakness chain with beauty
About people hurting other people ad infinitum
And feeding the void instead of feeding the cats from the fourth floor window
A story set in my memory
In my favorite month, May in Bucharest
When it smells like flowers everywhere and it sometimes rains
And people carry broken umbrellas or study art
And meet each other again by chance, in revelant moments
Just to wish each other
Good luck.

A poem
About a statue with a hole in its chest
Stuck on one of the longest boulevards in Bucharest
A very straight road, which I used to take often
A statue that reminded me of a prince who gave away his last sapphire
His eye
Out of kindness
And I couldn’t find anything better to say
To a statue
To a memory
To an island
Then pointing to the wings that paid him a visit:
There is a pigeon on your shoulder, Sir.

Another poem about memories, bubbles, expectations
A very typical day in the life of a poet
Living a stratified life
In which Lady Cyclops, a painting, doesn’t leave for Japan anymore
And I have no more tears to shed
Cause I have spent them all at her imaginary departure.
It’s okay
As long as we can still hold the freedom of our poetic imagination
Don’t worry, Lady Cyclops, you will go to Japan, I will paint you a ship.

A poem I wrote in Sibiu two years ago
After watching a theater play
I used to go to the theater often
I remember I once watched an entire theater play in German
Although I didn’t understand a word
Because I was too polite to get up and ask for translation headphone after the play started
But somehow I figured out at the right moment to move on stage when it was required
It was a nice change of perspective, to see a foreign world through the eyes of the performer.
I was living in a beautiful bubble back then
Although sometimes I used to fail seeing it
So I wrote myself a reminder:
Life as it is until it starts changing
With fireworks and snow sticking to my eye lashes.

Another poem, which is again related to the theater and my hometown and its touch of quiet magic
It is about the destiny of the poets
I have no great ambitions, Fernando Pessoa says, writing poetry is my way of being alone
Alone, maybe, but always searching
And ready to go around the world
Looking for the love supreme.
A poem in which I see myself with the luggage in my hand saying goodbye to the actors in my hometown
I, a fully grown imaginary person
Letting everyone know how Maya learnt how to swim:
Maya learnt how to swim when she understood
That every wave of anger and every wave of joy
Still belongs to the ocean.

The luggage appears again in another poem
This time in Barcelona
It appears for a little while only, because it gets stolen
But I pick up the chance to change my perspective again:
So I end up thanking the thief
For allowing me to experience a glimpse of freedom
Walking around in my pyjamas
In broad daylight, in Barcelona
Which was not that bad in the end
It is worse when we cling to things that are not that good for us.

And last but not least
The poem about the magnolia
Because I am a free spirit again and I allowed myself the tremendous luxury of watching a magnolia for one month
And paying often visits to Tomizză
With double zz, like in pizza
A giant orange cat, spending his lazy days on top of a purple car
In a neighborhood
In my inner city.

The magnolia, a story about the link between beauty and freedom

I waited a long time for the magnolia to blossom
And when it finally did, I was happy
I took a sit next to it and I watched everything in silence.
The news about the magnolia blossoming spread fast
And it was mid afternoon when the first group arrived
They took pictures and marvelled
How beautiful, they said.
The news about the magnolia blossoming spread fast
And more and more people started arriving by train, by bus
By flying carpet.
They queued around the corner
Equipped with binoculars and cameras to enhance their vision
To bring beauty closer
And to capture it
To catch for a little fraction of a second the time of beauty.
The news about the magnolia blossoming spread fast
And more and more tourists
Noisy and impatient flooded the streets of the neighborhood where the magnolia blossomed.
I was sitting next to it, observing everything in silence
I sometimes smiled, I sometimes frowned
And there were days when I welcomed them with a white parrot on my shoulder and told them ancient stories about delicacy
And the secret of the man who thought he owned a palm tree in a city where snow can reach half a meter.
This is not my magnolia, I said, this is my friend
If you want, we can all take a sit and watch it
I have prepared several rows of chairs for those interested,
For those genuinely interested
In beauty.
But please be silent
This is a very delicate tree, if it doesn’t like something, the flowers close
And you won’t even have the time to realise what happened.
Among the many passsers-by, there were some who knew how to respect the magnolia
And some who didn’t
There were some who got in front of it and tried to catch my attention with their noise and complaints
But I was already getting indifferent towards what is not worth seeing
So I had to use my magic power, close one eye and make them vanish from my sight
And they yelled louder and I just said calmly, I want to watch the magnolia, your hatred is not beautiful.
Among all the troubled visitors, there was a lady, who approached me
And told me a melodramatic story about the magnolia being her favourite flower in childhood and slyly asked me to cut one flower and give it to her.
Me to cut it and her to have it
And i almost fell in the trap
And I had to close both my eyes and dive deeply inside myself
I said no, you wouldn’t know what to do with it
And if I cut only one flower, my friendship with the magnolia will be over
It would be as if cutting the link between beauty and freedom.
I got back to my chair, I took a sit and went on observing the magnolia and world circus.

A dream about chemistry and happiness

I’m back in class

And the Chemistry teacher

Short haired with a metallic blue gaze

Is about to collect our home assignments.

I don’t know why I keep dreaming about chemistry

And about Denmark

I’ve been to Copenhagen last night

Although, in person I have never been there

Is there something rotten in Denmark?

 I was in the Chemistry Museum some weeks ago

Marble statues and a garden

And long walks looking for something I knew it should be there, but it wasn’t.

I remember I was once heading towards a party

It was summer and I heard the distant sounds from another party in the botanical garden

People laughing, dim yellow lights and music gently flowing among the trees

And I told myself it sounds like a Midsummer’s Night Dream

Without having any clue yet that Cupid was about to mislead its arrows.

For the chemistry homework, I took a long time to prepare

I wrote five pages of an exquisitely logical demonstration

I was proud of it and surprised when the teacher,

Short-haired, with a metallic blue gaze

Gave us an unexpected test

On that precise subject.

I thought I was prepared, but after I had a closer look

I realized it requires translation from Latin

I told myself, no problem, I can do this

I’ve been reading novels in Spanish and French

For the mere delight of seeing the world from a new viewpoint

As if changing the chair on which you are sitting

And changing the reading glasses with the sun glasses

In spring.

I told myself no problem, I can translate from Latin

But then I had a closer look and realized the test required interpretation, not only translation

I told myself no problem, I can make a bright pink origami flamingo following instructions in Brazilian Portuguese

I can also beat a computer at chess at level four with four queens

Typical, cruel cat behavior

Reserved for imaginary battles only.

I don’t know if I passed the test

And I still don’t know if it’s anything rotten in Denmark

But by the end of the dream,

Luca was happy

With his sunglasses on.

Fear, Wings and the Inner Compass

1. In order to overcome fear, one needs to know it deeply, to know its colours and its shapes. Fighting the big, invisible monster is not an easy task and many succumb in front of it and they let fear guide their steps and actions. They loose themselves in the yellowish fog and find comfort in the thought that many others were defeated by fear as well.

It is somehow true that fear comes paired up with creativity, in the sense that it is precisely fear which can kill creativity. Fear blossoms when creativity is unused. Fear is wasted creativity.

And fear lets other demons blossom: greed, envy, hatred.
2. Without an inner compass, it is very easy to get lost in the fog.

Or without someone to pick up your chin and remind you of the direction you had and forgot.
3. There are many things which I knew and then I forgot, only to remember them again. The cycle repeated until I became sure of them and they became living part of my Inner Compass.

In spring 2016, I was writing a theather play, which I entiteled back then The Shadows of Mr Wisebird, it is dialog between a female character and a man or a bird and their playful, philosophical talk, constructed around the idea of flight. I reread it recently and marvelled at the wisdom which visited me at that time and gave me the inspiration to write it.
4. There are people who try to cut off your wings because they cannot imagine themselves with wings, I was writing back then. People, who will try to make you unhappy no matter what because they are terribly unhappy themselves, as a dear friend of my mine told me and I meditated upon that phrase for a long time.

Let’s say they almost manage to make you join their unhappiness and fear. And then what happenes? They try on the freshly cut wings and ofcourse they don’t fit.

The secret of being a bird is the ability to grow wings. As simple as that. I added this phrase to the theather play and to my inner compass. I changed its name from The Shadows of Mr Wisebird into The Feathers of Mr Wisebird.
5. Inevitably, one gets dirty by navigating through life. When the dirt gets too thick or the poison being served is too much, one needs to retreat, clean properly and go back to the source of all beauty and love and gratitude and freedom. And then come back.
6. Whoever wants wings needs to learn how to grow them. It is indeed possible. And being thought how to do this is also possible.

It is possible, but not mandatory.
7. There are people who don’t want to learn. They just don’t want. They find fear and unhappiness more comfortable due to their lifelong attachment to suffering.

They cannot imagine flight or happiness.

Forcing any kind of teachings on them is a mistake, teachings should be just blown in the wind and who has the ears to hear them and if the timing is right, wings will come.
8. There is only one measure possible to the value of art: the intensity of the hearts that were thought how to fly or who were reminded they once knew how to do this.

Peace

I was walking

With my winter hat on and an imaginary feather attached to it,

An antenna reciever for radio paradise,

I’ve been watching the snow cats and listened to the flutter of pigeon wings outside my window

At night, the echo of frozen rain wakes me up

And I’m unsure if the sound is outside or inside.

I’ve been reading a book about a frozen heart

And listened attentively to the passionate upraisal of a street musician 

Preeching something ryhtmical about the tormet of coldness

Musical fireworks of a blind man

The same old manifesto against silence. 

I walk and a guy stops me

I like your energy, he says, your vibration is high, I feel it.

All around

Grumpy people 

Flooding the streets after work on a Friday afternoon

And you appear.

I laugh, it’s the first time someone stops me on the street to compliment my energy

I don’t know if I managed to slay the dragon

Or the dragon is sleeping today

But peace visits me in solitude

It comes dressed up in sunlight or snow

Or the yellow street lights of a city that is constantly transforming

Old memories that became dreams around the corner

And numerous  pieces of an imaginary puzzle

Enlighted clouds of fog accompanying me.

Do you believe in coincidences, he asks me

And I say yes, I believe in signs on the road and in an underwater current

I thought everyone could feel it

The one that makes me nervous around disguised people

Because I feel the strong storms inside them

And I though everyone could do that

To see behind masks

What is hidden even to the mirror

But then it struck me like a revelation

That 

At the corner of a street, on the map of my inner city

I have found

My secret power.


From the Journals of a poet: about the postman, dreams, the circular bike, money washing, feathers, spirals, bird view and how I appeared in Freedom Magazine

I wake up all of a sudden

There must be a desperate postman under my window

Mail! Mail! he’s yelling and all his being seems to participate in this unusual wake up call

It must be something important, I tell myself, I jump out of bed and wrapped up in my red bathrobe, I find myself on the stairs

It’s sunny and the many birds chirping already believe it’s spring

It’s noon and I discover, surprised, it’s still beautiful  outside

I must have been sleeping for six months or so

I was so tired, I needed this

Now I’m more calm, that’s the most important thing

Soon, I will start inventing a new 🐦.

Do you have something for me? I ask him

He checks his many envelopes:

No

And then he starts listing all my neighbors

Who do seem to have important mail sent, although they are not there to receive it

They are probably not at home, I say, since I’m the only one who responded to your call

I don’t know what I’m waiting for

If it’s Godot, God or that Portuguese king who disappeared in the desert centuries ago

But  it’s definitely a poetic state all this waiting

In the afternoon, I changed the position of the artwork on the walls

I played chess against a computer

I heard about some people doing a strange protest with oranges

Which made me crave 🍊  juice and classical music

I washed some money

Coins that were covered in honey at the bottom of a bag

I also found a bunch of colorful feathers in the same bag

There was a time in my life when I was giving away feathers to everyone

Literally, feathers to everyone.

I read a few pages from the life of another poet

And wondered again which direction in art should I head towards

There was a time when I could devour any book, but with time, I became more picky

Reading psychology doesn’t satisfy me anymore, it’s a way to look at the world

But it’s just one way to look at the world, not an exhaustive one.

My hunger for understanding and meaning and exquisite entertainment has reached some high peaks

But this city lost its magic

It has lost it precisely through repetition

I postponed again going to the theater

And just went cat seeing

Me and the stray cat are good friends now

I stared at the fabulous circular bike in the window of a gallery

And I learnt a new word: 

Circumambulation

Rounding a sacred object of sacred desire

Life going in circles

Until we get dizzy

At the dizzy level it’s a circle

With the bird eye, it’s a spiral

Circles, birds and spirals

At night I had a dream

In which I put together a lot of information from various sources

It was the story of a man

How he met his wife

While he was playing guitar in a bar

Somewhere in Southern Europe, my poetic imagination would add, just to spice up the story

In the morning, over coffee and chess, I performed some strange dream mathematics

And I ended up with this number:

360

At first, I erroneously presumed it has something to do with the year

But it was actually

The circle

The wholeness

And with my bird eye, I could see it

By the end of the dream, I appeared in Freedom Magazine.