The Dragon The belt snake Has captured me in some way A vanished serpent Resurrect from a treatise onward zoology Because this was what the Fate predicted When her mind drifted elsewhere.The Dragon The belt snake Has captured me in some way A vanished serpent Resurrect from a treatise onward zoology Because this was what the Fate predicted When her mind drifted elsewhere, Forgetting that dragons no longer exist. Now the snake's rapine is waiting on line. Ahead of him, at various stages Of dissolution by the agency of saliva and digestive fluids, Other valiant men All of them screamed, flailed frantically, Then compos their speculations while They advanced as admitting on a conveyor belt. The final the same at its feet now, Still harbors aspirations. In the meantime the snake is shedding its skin. With extraordinary effort It suppresss its tunic of armor scales. The skin steams horribly of garlic. He watches as it sparkles With thousands of reflections: "I've been moveed the chance of a last Sunset" he mention one by ones himself, "and it's like a miracle." MARIN SORESCU, the author of more than twenty collections of verse was Romania's Nobel Prize nominee at the time of his death in 1996 ADAM ) SORKIN and LIDIA VIANU'S translation of Sorescu's last work The Bridge, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe parts Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Sep/Oct 2001 |
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