the baby

the baby pops
through
mummy, daddy I dream
to be 100% like
you and perform
righteous
acts. I'll follow the
way to the golden door.
the baby walks over
to the chair, this is
my destiny, sits,
it is nine o'clock
so the baby starts
typing. friendship
is an expression.
the bottle does the
talking, son, the bottle
is a religion.
and the
eyes will tell you all
Picasso I've
seen the waking
nightmares of genius.
that is not a block
of stone. that is your
living.
the baby cradles a
rat in the gutter.
pets it. loves it.
feeds it. the rat
has an answer. belief
is overrated.
stroked
and cuddled.
trapped.

at the kitchen table

you were wise to the ways

reading at the kitchen table,

I watched you with love

Nicu, ‘twas your birthday

and I remembered your passion

smiling as the Communists lost

paunescu

the poet looks in the mirror;
he sees a face, the face of a memory
lays it down in rhyme without
caricature;
he goes back to it, the same
wordless, meaningless journeys
that end, they kid you
not;
there he was writing
in bed, one last poem
for the comrade
indoors.