SLAM FINALS

EUROPEAN POETRY SLAM, BERLIN 2009

Chris Tanasescu
Bucharest Speaking

The name of this city that for hundreds of years seems

to have stood for literature and imprisonment now
spells poverty to me. Not spells, yells:
it’s the hunger and thirst that embraces every
bent old woman in the street, then purrs and screeches
in the wheels of the ex-commies’ 4X4s.
It’s humble – you know, humility, which means “of the earth” –
and brazen – which means “of brass.” And there’s no grass,
for sure. Not a happy enough picture? You are
the book my DNA needs to be signed on.
We laughed shyly but the others turned their heads
watching their own reflections against the stony
dark speeding by our train. A carload of bitter
dead driven wildly through an endless tubular grave.
Soon, though, we’ll be back in the street, penniless, kissing.