If you don’t have anything else inc.

we call him the chicken-man

everyday, against the 78^th street’s walls

against many imaginary enemies and memories

mumbling about and demanding

warning the moon to come closer and kiss his forehead

while sipping his free coffee from Burger Factory

his steady audience hardly notices anymore

the absence of his wings, the fakeness of his chicken sounds

and in spite of any noise, threat, smell, push, nip, nudge or call

to civilized citizenry, they come and listen

hey, the chicken-man is here!, come and listen, folks!

and laugh about

write about

shudder about

tell about

worry, wince, curse, berate and

walk away

just walk away

why not

he’s just another crazy street parrot

a Broadway relic, with a hoarse voice and scary smile

or, maybe, he’s a champion of dialogue with strangers

a fine observer of our perverse way of ignoring the moon

who should be closer to our forehead by now

its light, felt like a kiss of cosmic meaning...

could this be the chicken-man’s dialogue

with me

with you

with all the pedestrians

that never stop

never listen

even me

or you

never…

What you are saying and what we are

Any other time I would be surprised by your comments

Not now though, as you look stunned and puzzled by my looks

Youthful you say, despite my mature and somewhat conservative behavior

Additional proof, if ever one was needed, that who we are may be deceptive.

I listen to the rapid fire of your carefully picked words and only

Once in a while I detect hesitation, mostly, it is your mind’s flow

Appraising the untenable details of our magic encounter,

Nourishing, not only on the surface, and tender in so many ways…

Tempting like a rare perfume is your subtle suggestion

Whispered between an invitation and a soundless wish

Only to be heard and understood as miraculous possibility…

We radiate like stones mounted on long lost rings

As dazzling and as unnoticed as the imploding stars of a

Neutral and all important universe known only to a handful of

Dedicated observers…

It is said that what’s good for the fourth century

Elevates our own, yet we haven’t even started to practice beyond

Reluctant and timid gestures… we learn more about power

Intercepting our own weak signals on the way, spells of innocence

Nested in our wandering souls, we learn new strategies of hiding our

Good side and new ways of using our cynical strength…

Sit and tell me stories

Or walk with me to the park

Under warm and gentle wind

Let your words flow

Stay a while. Here. Yes…

The Parable of the Key

There are those who have heard about your key

And there are those who have seen pictures of it

There are those to whom you described your key

In vague terms, offering more illusion and hope

And those who think that they know it in detail

Just from the way your lips make a perfectly round giggle

When you’re generous enough to tell your key story

There are those who had a glimpse of your key

And those who have seen the key in all its splendor

There are those who have used your key only once

Although they now imagine or brag that they actually owned it

And those, perhaps drunk at the time, who can’t remember

How it felt to have your key in their possession

There are also those who have used it a lot

And can’t remember at all how they could live

Before they started using it…

And then, there are those, happy ones, who are still using

Your key, blissfully ignoring your signs of separation,

And those few mad ones who threw it away

When they couldn’t get the meaning of its two blades,

Sharp sentinels to a tumultuous realm of pure pleasure,

And finally there are those who are still dreaming

Of a key just like the one you possess,

Not even knowing that it actually exists…

And you, always dangling your key, proud of it,

Touching and caressing its random forms,

And dreading the day when you’ll be forced

To keep it in your purse, forever…

Tanglewood Nights

You move your arms

in anticipation of danger and harmony

a music of gestures born early

to anticipate perhaps a colorful dawn

accompanied by silvery reflections

in the nearby woods

a changed emphasis is on the way

we see it, leaves balancing their moves

while trumpets shiver and violins howl

through dark corners of the past.

They are sitting in the comfort

of their week-end loneliness

perennial hunters lying in wait

scattered all over

the great lawn of music.

Some look like heavy birds

fallen from the sky

others are whales or albatrosses

somnolent silhouettes, short-lived shadows

in love with a meadow, a bush or a flower,

a spear of grass.

When the music ends

(and it never will) they stand up

and walk arm in arm

happy with what they were made to feel

happy that they were able to rejoice

in a heaven they never knew that existed

until tonight…

Along every path in the woods

there is the history of fallen leaves

one that even the old trees remember only faintly

during summer nights of music

when young leaves are becoming acrobats of love

jumping towards the ground

ignorant of their lasting immobility

once they touch the unmovable earth…

luckily, the wind comes to the rescue

engulfing them in a new symphony

a quest of love, like a small passion-hurricane,

at the feet of new lovers

one night, after the music, at Tanglewood…

by Ioan Serban

at Tanglewood Concert Series, 1997

PARTICULARITIES

You rise in the morning, young man,

and worry about mistakes you must avoid, correct or amend.

You are what you do

and what you believe will purify the diagram of your prayers.

Follow yourself

and every hour after the noon meal

renew your promises

in the name of grace and reverence

and for every sin you had fallen into

these are the steps to take:

one, place your hand on your heart and

let the people around you hear about your sin

they like to hear about others’ mistakes while they

carefully hide their own

their way leads to madness

ours, if destiny provides, close to wisdom

two, return into the solitude of your strongest belief

and then let all the questions of the crowd

thrust your heart…

the tears will just make you stronger…

Like a woman in love

Wouldn’t you wish to be like a wave

in love with the ocean

and when the ocean gets angry

your body is turned upside down

whirled into the winds

but when the ocean is calm

you’d feel the womblike embrace

you’d never want to let go…

Wouldn’t you wish to be like a wave

in awe with the ocean

although when the ocean gets tired

of your adoring stares

you might be sucked into the abyss

but when the ocean accepts

your heartfelt praise

why, you then may dance and wave your body

like a woman in love…

An innocent flower taking my pulse

and the mouths of our flesh

with cold aromas

complete with separations,

but mixed with pink regrets

and your howl

with my breath hovering above

made of tender delays,

our memories... you still catch,

occasioned by departures,

ethereal exhaled petals of sorrow,

in the sadness of absent returns

did I forget to warn you

with words of the forbidden language?...

your touch aiming at my gaze

my breath caressing your skin

we

like innocent flowers

standing in the way of the necessary pulse…

… and our terrace

do you still remember it?

Forbiden diary

How is one allowed to write the diary

of a sensible man?

The inner eye rarely opens

towards the fragile moments of our distress

and words will never survive our thoughts

beyond the daily wounds. 

If anyone is ever allowed

to write about pain without the disguise of serenity,

if one is battling the eyelids of his inner strife,

if the pages of his diary can ever be filled with her…

if she could hear him…  What of bliss?

She enters his dreams

she stands alone

frozen birds are piled on a cart made of red feathers,

and the ground is of salt and raw fear…

she stops inside a room filled with yellow balloons

and old instruments… he wakes up. 

The wild flowers are well-pressed now

between the full-filled pages of his diary

the background music calls on the desert sand to pour itself in. 

Nobody should ever be allowed to write the diary of a sensible man.

Or to tell.

A Fool’s Miracle

When, young and foolish in my quest,

I dared to light up a candle

inside the wise man’s literary cave

remember, don’t you?, how was I stared at,

and then told, like a puppy hard to handle

(and that was least what I would call a rave)

that miracles are never getting old or stale

it was as if I was committing an incest,

inside a blooming miracle, an invasion

of voracious orchids ganging up on me,

drumming their appetite with heated bites,

heavy madness but flowery still, what better

cold discontents can you fathom for an

irritated spine trying to go straight?...

and then I knew that I stepped inside the garden of duels

under a fidgeting eye of a restless master:

“How?!”, I shouted, as if the wise man was deaf and

unwilling to fight my paper sword, my vapor words…

“How do I make my own miracle into a fiber of truth?”…

“Hide it!”, ordered the old man,

and my tenderness was suddenly torn,

the sound of my feet pounding the ground

as if toys and years of play were ripped away,

thrown into a paralyzed wilderness…

“You, fool!”, he said, “There is your humility at stake!”,

but I was young and failed to see or hear his scorn

for love was my new miracle, I thought, and he feared it…

I nailed the puppy in a frame, and full of tiger fury,

forgetting shame, respect or pride, I told the geezer:

“You just don’t know what of my love to make!”…

my confidence so high, I felt as if I suddenly tamed

an army of wild and very angry bees…

He took my candle, a silent face, a wall of calmness

In a sea of youth, and handed me a note:

“love, when wrapped in words, is fruitless

and thoughts are helpless worms

when love’s fruit has no form…”

and later, by the water, with light from many candles

ravishing the waves, he whispered in my ear:

“Save your words, young man, a time for giving names

and writing songs will come

hold your horn and wait

your miracle is not yet born…” 

A flame in my hand

I stop in the streets and applaud

Lovers who I see kissing

I wave at the girls going mad

And I dance while you’re hissing

Do we know what it is still allowed

Are we hiding the jail in a song?

You’ve been bruising my ears all along

With a scar I had never vowed…

I’m hiding a flame in my hand

Come and get it, you proud lunatic!

Come and get it!

Or I’ll spend my life alone in the attic

Hating the songs you don’t understand…

You don’t understand!

Yes, I’m applauding, and the agony glows

Like a riddle squeezing my heart,

You whisper a curse and I’m falling apart…

The winter has finally murdered my toes…