Dan Sociu

Two Poems translated from Romanian by Monica Cure
May 27, 2025 Sociu Dan

In the first three days I heard my mother
calling me as if from behind a wind
blowing the other direction
what are you doing? she asked me
upset that I was ignoring her and didn’t even see her
and the next day she yelled my name
desperately
as if from somewhere farther away
from the opposite sidewalk
and on the fourth morning
I dreamed a song
it was sung by a woman
whose voice was cracked
as after you’ve been howling and have calmed down
it went how is it, how is it,
my life,
that you spread your wings
when I no longer thought it was possible.
I felt relief the sun was shining
and when I took out the garbage, the trash next to the bed
she lay in before I brought her to the hospital for good,
I found colored feathers in the snow.

 

 

În primele trei zile am auzit-o pe mama
cum mă strigă ca de după un vînt
ce-i bătea împotrivă
dar ce faci? m-a întrebat
nervoasă că n-o bag în seamă că nici n-o văd
și-a doua zi m-a strigat pe nume
disperată
ca de undeva mai departe
de pe celălalt trotuar
și-n a patra dimineață
am visat un cîntec
îl cînta o femeie
cu voce crăpată
ca după ce-ai urlat mult și te-ai liniștit
zicea cum reușești cum reușești
viața mea
să prinzi aripe
cînd credeam că nu se mai putea.
Am simțit ușurarea era soare
și cînd am dus gunoiul, resturi de lîngă patul
unde bolise înainte s-o duc de tot la spital
am găsit pene colorate în zăpadă.

 

 

 

I have a writer friend
we don’t talk anymore
but we both came
from modest families
and felt we were smarter
than our bourgeois brethren
luxury products, he’d tell us
he feels we’d have shined
at Oxford at Eton and after
envoys of the Crown in Africa
that we would’ve deserved
a life like the one in Golden Brown
the music video by the Stranglers
sardonic, cruel, and melancholic
brilliant, dare-devils
it was nothing like that
we worked, copy editors
translators
but time would’ve passed anyway
and our African years
as envoys of the Crown
we can say they happened
it’s all the same.

 

 

Am un prieten scriitor
nu mai vorbim
dar veneam amîndoi
din familii modeste
și ne simțeam mai deștepți
decît confrații burghezi
produse de lux, ne zicea el
simțeam că am fi strălucit
la Oxford la Eton și după
trimiși ai Coroanei în Africa
că am fi meritat
o viață ca-n Golden Brown
clipul de la Stranglers
ironici, cruzi și melancolici
strălucitori, temerari
n-a fost nimic așa
am muncit, corectori
traducători
dar timpul oricum ar fi trecut
și anii noștri africani
ca trimiși ai Coroanei
putem zice c-au și fost
ar fi totuna.

 

 

Dan Sociu (b. 1978, Botoşani, Romania) has worked as a journalist, translator, editor and copyeditor, but is best known for his poetry. He has published nine books of poetry, three novels, and prose and poetry in Romanian as well as international literary journals, for which he has won numerous awards. As an English to Romanian translator, he has translated over 20 novels, and the poetry of over 30 British and American poets, as well as articles and plays. He has been an artist-in-residence in the U.S. and Germany.