Geo Bogza, „Outrageous Poem”

varianta lui Stephen Watts și a mea la „Poem ultragiant”

In one of my nights I made love with a maid

It was all very sudden – and almost without my will.

It happent somewhere in a dirty provincial town

And I was staying in my childhood friend’s.

One evening I wandered out alone – and when I got back

The maid was making my bed.

She was young and dark-skinned

She told me everyone had gone out for a walk

She smiled

And passed close to me countless times.

I was torn apart that evening and had no urge to make love

But the maid was young

I don’t think she could’ve been more than sixteen

And since she was sat by the bed and seemingly waiting

I came close to her and asked her her name.

She told me some ordinary name,  it may’ve been Maria

I told her she was beautiful, she made out she was shy,

It must’ve been about midnight

The confused sounds of the town found their way in through the open windows

Somewhere out there, theatres, cinemas, splendid women and vehicles

Here, just the maid and me;

She said nothing she just closed her eyes.

She was short the maid, and almost tubby

And she smelled badly of sweat.

Oh, maid with whom I made love in a dirty provincial town

When I was in pieces and your masters were not at home

Maid who I have never seen again

Maid with two red garter-marks on your calves

Maid with a belly smelling of onion and parsley

Maid with your sex like a stew of aubergines

It’s about you I’m writing this poem

So as to madden the bourgeois girls in their envy

And to scandalise their honorable parents

Because even though I slept with them countless times

I don’t want to sing of them

And I piss on their powder puffs

Their lingerie

Their pianos
And on all the other accessories that go to shape their beauty. 

Translated from the Romanian by

Stephen Watts & Claudiu Komartin