The Sound of the Earth, de Ioana Cosma

(Foto credit: Teodora Cosman, Last light, 2020)

Frozen Hearts

One day they’ll ask: “What’s in a Hagen-Dazs?”
would icecream smell like blood or sweat or skittles’ rainbow
it will feel just as frozen when we remember rain

by the shape of clouds canned in a cotton candy
a ready-made for doom’s days that were writ in slogans,
commercials and even in Muppets’ show. What’s in this
Hagen-Dazs? they’ll ask, the lot bought and sold, for the correct price.

The see-through of human invention, the sugar code to overturn
all DNA codes…plastic….plastic….plast    ic
did we ingest it or did the fish die from heart-break?
“I scream, you scream, we all scream for icecream”

now it’s a hagen-dazs, a dreyer’s, hell, even a bluebell,
“the skinny cow” says it all without hint of a doubt, vanilla skies,
the post-apocalyptic child hanging on to the memory
of the icecream grandpa gave her rolled in butter paper.

A Memory

When trees and flowers are but a memory,
a fairy tale to be told to kids before they are fed
on tubes and put to sleep in compounds of steel
I’ll put a blindfold on my eyes and turn the neon off.

From lush green to laser blue the world may seem
hip and cool and magic – behind computer screens –
“the nymphs with wreaths of flowers are departed”
Pan and his flute replaced by electrons and bits.

Then you’ll remember that magic summer night
we saw fireflies glimmer on the Chapel Hill, the crunch
of raven ground underneath the frail soles of our feet
the starry skies, the music and the smell of zephyr.

Earth Face-Off

Earth face-off
hitting rugged crust
seagull shriek.

The surface of the earth felt rough upon touching
it had the texture of crashed bones that we build
temples from. The ground was begging for mercy
the ground in agony, the ground was kind.

She knew about travelers, she who was spinning and flying
so she sent the softest canopy his way, flowers to dress
his astronaut helmet, she’d recognized her creator:
she’d waited for millennia and now he was almost dead.

ultrasound love
kiss heart spin.