AN APOSTLE NEAR DEJHAGASCAR

COSMIC ROMANIA 35
-WITH A MASTER OF ASTROPOETRY-

-astropoems Dominic Diamant
text and English translations Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu

You with your activities,
Me with the flight among the stars.

-Dominic Diamant-

I think it is amazing that a church at an edge of Bucharest,
Podeanu (named after its founder in the 1930s),
keeps some of the relics of Saint Apostle Simon the Zealot!

Two of its external paintings show,
as many other Romanian churches,
Apostles Peter and Paul among the stars,
as if, in the Christian consciousness,
they should replace in the sky the strongest constellated heroes,
Hercules and Perseus.

The central external painting of this church shows
right Saint Apostle Simon the Zealot,
then Saints Emperors Constantine and Helena,
and Saint Martyr Demetrios
(who preceded the last two in the beginning of the 4th century).

In the middle of them there is a cross, but it does not have the Sun behind,
as in Constantine’s famous dream.

However, as a compensation,
there are four golden sun crosses on the roof of this church.

Since the Podeanu Church reinforced
my (permanent) appetite for the Cosmos,
I remembered that my friend Petre Vlad (aka Dominic Diamant,
former political prisoner under the communist regime,
author of 15 books of poetry and prose in freedom,
one of the most active participant at SARM’s Cosmopoetry Festival,
a former Romanian national laureate for astropoetry
and one of the most important astropoets in the world)
or Don Quixote of Dejhagascar
lives two streets further,
and I visited him to find the new astropoems he wrote in 2014.

So from now on,
my words become useless…

Just our
somnambulistic dreams
touch the stars…

-Dominic Diamant-

You don’t imagine
about he who is illegitimately chased
by a rigid majority
how highly he can gravitate
on the orbit.

-Dominic Diamant-

THE BALLAD OF AN ASTRONAUT
-by Dominic Diamant-

Make yourself round, unalterable, inscrutable and elastic,
And I ensure you that you will break the belt of asteroids,
Then you’ll freely continue your cosmic-fantastic journey
And you’ll forget the disabled and troglodyte earthlings.

You will fight with black holes and exultant supernovae,
You’ll be attacked and tempted by myriads of stars,
But, in full control, you’ll traverse other spaces
Looking for the mystery from which you appeared.

You’ll pass from a state to another, under changeable faces,
You’ll change yourself into dust among stars,
But your divine sparkle will thrill
And enliven the infinite wave.

The Creation and the Creator, always together,
Will magnificently call the brave hero’s moral mark
To keep the eternal, cosmic miracle in purity
Just like the divine sparkles which rise from the dark.

BALADA ASTRONAUTULUI
-de Dominic Diamant-

Fă-te rotund şi imuabil, impenetrabil şi elastic
Şi te asigur că vei sparge centura de asteroizi
Apoi continuă-ţi în voie periplul cosmico-fantastic
Şi-ţi vei uita de terrienii handicapaţi şi insipizi

Te vei lupta cu găuri negre şi supernove exaltate
De miriadele de stele vei fi atras şi ispitit
Neamăgindu-te niciuna, tot alte spaţii vei străbate
Înfrigurat, după misterul adânc din care te-ai ivit

Vei trece dintr-o stare-n alta, sub chipuri veşnic schimbătoare
Te vei preface-n praf şi pulbere în contextul sideral
Însă scânteia ta divină va izbuti să înfioare
Şi să dea viaţă infinitei tendinţe care e pe val

Creaţia şi Creatorul, unite, veşnic împreună
Vor ispiti în chip mirific neînfricatul temerar
Eternul, cosmicul miracol nealterat ca să rămână
Ca şi scânteile divine din întuneric ce răsar.

A STRANGE MESSENGER
-by Dominic Diamant-

I am the messenger of my dreams
roving alone among the stars
and cosmically looking for love -
angels, zephyrs and seraphs

surround and comfort me
but I am pained by my own light
rebounded on the unknown
I am the shadow continuously roving

and agonizing in its own cockpit
but no force can touch me
and wound me because
my flight is quite candid

and if there is something that scares me
this is the loss of the loving light
which does not find the quantum achievement
in the cosmos bordered by cemeteries

with so many galaxies and black holes
fantastically and fastly revolving
it is so hard to find the wanted side
but I do not despair because nobody knows

what the next moment will bring
a star a quark a sun
a fascinating supernova
that would calm the infinite thirst

so you can find that you would really make a crime
if you repress the sublime renascence of your time

UN STRANIU MESAGER
-de Dominic Diamant-

Sunt mesagerul visurilor mele
ce rătăceşte solo printre stele
în căutarea cosmică-a iubirii
mă înconjoară îngerii, zefirii

şi serafimii care mă alină
îndurerat de propria lumină
răsfrântă fără nicio căutare
sunt umbra rătăcind fără-ncetare

şi-agonizând în propria carlingă
dar nu e forţă care să m-atingă
sau să-mi producă fie şi o rană
căci zborul meu e fără de prihană

iar dacă e ceva care mă doare
e pierderea luminii iubitoare
ce nu-şi găseşte cuantica-mplinire
în cosmosu-ncărcat de cimitire

Cu-atâtea galaxii şi găuri negre
rotindu-se fantastice, alegre
e greu să-mi aflu partea căutată
dar nu disper, că nu ştii niciodată

ce te aşteaptă-n clipa următoare
poate că e o stea, un quarc, sau soare
o supernovă care să te-mbete
să-ţi ostoiască infinita sete

şi poţi să trezeşti că faci o crimă
dacă-ţi reprimi renaşterea sublimă

COSMIC MOMENT
to Andrei Dorian Gheorghe aka Spaceman Sazartinus
-by Dominic Diamant-

My friend, you don’t know how I regret
that we cannot do too much on Earth
so we must fly through stellar worlds
where we are protected by high spirits

Friendship cannot find room
where we cannot be free.
Love… the same! So do not wonder
that someday we’ll depart from here

Deep biases and hard chains
keep captive many of us
so only the flight among the stars
can be saving, making us heroes

I wish you with all my heart, my friend,
a peaceful and luminous destiny.
Be cherished by the entire world
just like my modest person will be.

MOMENT COSMIC
lui Andrei Dorian Gheorghe alias Astronautul Sazartinus
-de Dominic Diamant-

Tu nu ştii, Saza, cât de rău îmi pare
că n-avem loc s-o-ntoarcem pe pământ
aşa că să zburăm prin lumi stelare
unde ne protejează Duhul Sfânt

Prietenia n-are-acoperire
acolo unde liber nu poţi fi
iubirea, nici atât! Să nu se mire
cei orbi că vom roi-o într-o zi

Prejudecăţi adânci şi lanţuri grele
ne ţin captivi pe cei mai mulţi din noi
aşa că, numai zborul printre stele
e salvator, făcându-ne eroi

Eu îţi urez din suflet, Saza dragă,
un destin luminos şi liniştit
s-ajungi a fi iubit de lumea-ntreagă
aşa cum însumi eu voi fi iubit.

An expired man does not expire
as time as in his diaphanous world
he delights and comforts anyone
with his lyre.

-Dominic Diamant-

On a streak of dream
just like a bright star
the fruit of fulfillment

-Dominic Diamant-