Two Poems by Iulia Gherghei

 

The summer of muted streets

 

The night is falling, slipping through the bricks

The sky is between colours

A storm is brooding nearby

Exalting hope

The clocks are melting 

The hours are drooling sweat

 

The heat, gathered in long strangling ribbons is pushed away

By a feeble breeze

Mosquitoes will start buzzing soon and 

I am exhausted, a sticky fatigue

But the heat won't allow any rest

I take every breath cautiously

Like a play of hide and seek 

 

With the summer heat altering the colour of the sky

I stay with my eyes wide open

Barely breathing, barely 

moving

Absorbing as much summer as my body can endure

Who knows what season will come next

 

What plague of locusts

What manifestation of sins will tarnish this land

What seas will split

What plastic idols would they reveal

What grounds will shake in disgust

What molten lava will seal sky and land

And everything in between

 

Back to the sky

Never seen before a sky so similar to a sidewalk

Cement coloured, no stars

Pressing down the heat

Mercilessly

No car alarms, no human voices

Just heat, dripping sweat and a muted neighbourhood

 

 

Demons drink too

 

She sits there on that high chair

Legs elegantly crossed 

Her high heels, arrows of pleasure

Pointing straight to hell

She sips slowly fixing me to the ground with her stare

Dark, hollow, blasting stare

In her glass the liquid changes colours

Another sip and I slip under her spell

I gladly surrender to that horrendous heat

I become an empty shell to be filled

With whatever the demon craves for

The glass is full again

And on repeat I pay my sin

 

Her drink is green now

But I can tell red becomes her

She starts her journey towards me

The glass gets foggy and then blasts to shards

Her steps are light but that tormenting heat precedes her

Even my shoe laces melt

She walks, she flies, she passes through me

On my lips scattered ashes rest

A remainder of hell's aroma

Iulia Gherghei, Romanian poet of English expression, graduated from University of Bucharest as information technology expert, has published her first poetry collection in 2012 at blurb.com

Prisoners of Cinema Paradiso was edited by Brian Wrixon. She mainly publishes her poems on Facebook. She was also published in many e-zines or poetry sites like Destiny Poets, where she received the honour to be chosen Poet of the year in 2012. In 2015 she won the poetry contest of the Blackwater Poetry group on Facebook. She was part of many anthologies, one of them being The Significant Anthology edited by Koshy A V and Reena Prasad. 

In 2020 some of her poems were translated in Turkish by Baki Yiğit in several Turkish literary magazines. 

Also starting this year she has her own author page on MadSwirl.com site. 

In January 2021 she received the Poem of the year award from the Destiny Poets site for her poem An imaginary friend.