Three Poems

By Constantin Severin

THE CITIES OF GIORGIO DE CHIRICO

the world is a honeycomb of ghost towns with warheads and gothic rosettes
throughout which haunts alienation dreaming and loss
among arches with huge shadows towers and marble statues
empty squares mannequins in windows with drawn shutter

Andrea Bocelli sings alone in the Milan Dome

people with masks pass blindly over blossoming cherries
from the parks the carresses of lovers have disappeared
along with the cries of children
an old man with a plastic bag walks down the deserted street
with eyes iridescent from the depths of an atavistic fear
he tries to cover his yellow ears with cotton wool
he doesn’t want to hear the sirens
which drives away angels and bees

people have become islands infected with fear
in the increasingly lonely cities of Giorgio de Chirico
pictor optimus

RED MONOCHROME DREAM

in a dream i scattered my own self who was dreaming me insatiably

in a white hospital room while painting the walls
with the brush dipped in my own blood
doctors in astronaut suits
coveralls three pairs of gloves glasses masks and visors
closely watching the monitor of a video laryngoscope

red zigzag

someone is trying to snatch the brush from my right hand
but my drawing of blood is advancing rapidly
it drains into hallways with anxious silhouettes and dazzling lights
on spiral staircases and in hundreds of rooms with intubated patients
thirsty for all the oxygen in the world

red zigzag

the blood covers the birches in the yard and the dew lilies
ambulances and trucks of the dead waiting in line
the deserted city where the birds also seem to have a limping flight
in a dream i lost the death who was dreaming insatiably
all my stories of life

THE CYBERNETIC GHOUL

my generation has been reborn
three times from its own ashes

in my childhood people built their destiny
thinking of the being of nature

in my youth the world shaped its becoming into being
thinking the unthinkable

in my old age the world is cutting its chaos
thinking the being of language

future generations will not have to be reborn
man will become an eternal cybernetic ghoul

     Constantin Severin is a Romanian writer and visual artist, founder and proponent of Archetypal Expressionism, a highly regarded global art movement, which he founded in Bukovina, in 2001. A graduate of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, he has published ten books of poetry, essays and fiction.

  In 2000, after over 20 years of dreaming in the realm of  poetry, I felt that I wrote too much and I finished my main projects, the first one being a long poem dedicated to the huge cities, megalopolis, “Wall and Neutrino. The Poet in New York”. I even made public statements that I will no longer write poetry and I will focus on oil painting, my first love, and on writing novels.

    This Spring I discovered that in a strange and dangerous period, characterized by fear, death and fake-news, the best way to express myself and to fight against despair and solitude is to write poetry. I found myself, my family and my friends in the middle of a true Carnival of Death (my home-city, Suceava, was the first to experiment the lockdown in Romania) and unexpectedly since April until July 2020 I wrote a new book of poetry, “The Carnival of Death”.

     I hope that soon we’ll regain our normal life and I will no longer be frightened that the word “closeness” will be deleted from the dictionary.