Poems by Nichita Stănescu

11 poems by Nichita Stănescu

Nichita Stănescu - romanian poet

Nichita Stănescu
Was born on 31 mar 1933.
Died on 13 dec 1983, at 50 years old.
Origin country: România
Biography: Romanian poet and essayist, he is the most acclaimed contemporary Romanian language poet, beloved by the public and generally held in esteem by literary critics.

Sentimental story

Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about things, flight, word

Season's end

I was so very aware
that the afternoon was dying in the domes,
and all around me sounds froze,
turned to winding pillars.

I was so very aware
that the undulant drift of scents
was collapsing into darkness,
and it seemed I had never...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about feelings, season, end, moon, face

Adolescents on the sea

This sea is covered with adolescents
learning to walk on waves, upright,
sometimes resting their arms on the currents,
sometimes gripping a stiff beam of sunlight.
I lie on the broad beach, an angled shape, cut perfectly,
and I ponder...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about progress, lie, infinite

Unwords

He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers.
I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth.
He offered me a branch like an arm.
I offered him my arm like a branch.
He tipped his trunk towards me
like a shoulder.
I tipped my shoulder to...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about salary, blood, man

The ascension of words

Thus, like the skin
of a shorn ewe, the day rises.

It is difficult to skin the self from a stone.
It is difficult to skin memory from a Greek.

But why should we talk about these!
After all,
light too has a skin,
light too can be...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about light, hunger, memory, self-control, air, being, blood, heart, love, day

Another kind of Mathematics

We know that one times one is one,
but an unicorn times a pear
have no idea what it is.
We know that five minus four is one
but a cloud minus a sailboat
have no idea what it is.
We know that eight
divided by eight is one,
but a...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu

The hieroglyph

What loneliness
to find no meaning
when there is a meaning

And what loneliness
to be blind in the full light of day,
and deaf, what loneliness,
amidst the swelling of a song

But not to understand
when there is no meaning,
and...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about solitude, blind, silence, night, light, day

Knot 19

Be aware that I can kill,
that I can crush with my heel the sweet head
of the peaceful rising star,
because of this I've turned to painting houses!

Be aware that I take no pity on myself,
that I mix my blood with birch trees!
I bring...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about attention, painting, heads, blood, celebrity

Sign 12

Little by little she became a word,
bundles of soul on the wind,
a dolphin in the clutches of my eyebrows,
a stone provoking rings in water,
a star inside my knww,
a sky inside my shoulder,
and I inside I.

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about word, water, soul, celebrity, sky

Distance

is the cog wheel
on the haunted axle of my hearing,
grinding fine the deadened mind
of that unborn god
waiting to be caught
by the earth's blue speed,
and carrying in a handled urn
the plucked heart - ours,
it's beating,...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about speed, memory, mind, tears, earth, god, heart

The Keynote

The bone is a joy only when it's the forehead bone,
when it protects, does not disjoin,
as are the alkaline vertebrae
from the difficult depths of the flesh and the wedding.
I'm resigned to losing the habit
of my manner of being,
but...

Nichita StănescuPoems by Nichita Stănescu about habits, being, body, time, hunger, marriage, solitude, death, joy, celebrity