Four Poems by Francisc Edmund Balogh

 

 

Bridge  
 
The evening sky  was all burning,                                                         
the horizon line ring of blood around me,  
Time, in the role of Nero set the city again on fire,  
looking at it with no remorse 
only with some melancholy  
"Oh how the days are passing by”, 
accounting  moments that are bygone  
like no one's birds. . . 
A verse, a poem as an umbilical cord  
attached to this agonizing day, 
a pearl of the bottom  
of the ocean of feelings, 
the mantle of darkness - 
a disguise from 
the eyes of the moon,  
of stars, though no one can hide.

 

Meditation over a verse 

 

The verse 

that you did not let 

out on the window  

anymore 

it did not become 

a pearl on the ocean bottom  

of time, 

it did not crawl like a slug 

filled with darkness  

on the wall of estrangement  

raised between our lips, 

it did not embrace you 

like the tentacular arms 

(of decay) of autumn 

before the final act of the rest, 

it was not a tightrope 

of melancholy 

stretched over the abyss 

of your silence,  

it was not a rose stalk 

intertwined with our confessions  

that reached higher than  

any of this world's boundaries,  

it was not a white petal 

dropped from above, 

from the eye of your 

guardian angel of love.

 

Exposed


I hanged my soul

like a worn out,

washed out shirt

left to dry

on the horizon line

stretched

between life and death.


My soul

was gently swinging

in the breeze,

forgotten

on the line of verses

that you tied from your heart

to the edge of the world

and back.


My soul

was a child of the night,

it came through the womb

of time...

it was a natural birth

welcomed by the seas

and by the stars.


My soul

followed me,

came to look for my wings

that I lost in this foreign dimension

among moonlight flowers

and poems.


My soul

came to take with him

the mirror's treasured

memories

of us.

 

Cocoon 

 

They say 

in winter time 

the heating will be  

more expensive, 

it will skyrocket, 

you've started  

to replenish frantically  

your stock of warm socks, 

you've piled up 

a long list of memories,  

songs and poems  

that you'll 

warm your soul with, 

you will talk again 

about the bygone, lost  

but never forgotten 

great snowy weather, 

the empty trees will wince 

in front of your deep desolation, 

the dull sky will 

feel like a heavy cloak 

on your shoulders 

making you feel  

defeated by the flow of time's 

little, meaningless, unheroic 

destiny... 

making you think 

maybe you mixed up 

the film sets, 

you entered the wrong door, 

you will wait patiently 

like a caterpillar 

in your cocoon of resignation 

for spring's smile to lit up again 

from where she left off 

while you will 

reinstate, fix the messed up  

order of the world 

by disposing, emptying 

the closet of the old  

unnecessary things.

Francisc Edmund Balogh is a Romanian poet and musician residing in the UK. He works as teaching assistant in London. He writes mainly in Romanian and English and occasionally in Spanish and Hungarian. In the last 3 years, his writing peaked as he received  3 international prizes: 1st place at “L'Olimpiade Mondiale de Poesie” contest, 2020-2021, organized by World Poets Association, Romania, The best foreign author at the 2022,  “I COLORI DELL’ANIMA” contest, organized in Italy and The best poem at Cultural Fiesta’s cultural group "Days turn into night" poetry competition 2024 from India. A couple of Francisc’s poems were published on the award winning french litterary blog „ Lettres Capitales”, published in the "Vort Vergessen anthology from Germany and in the "Azahar" Spanish language magazine. Also couple of Francisc’s works were published in the “World Poetry Tree” a contemporary anthology including poets from 105 countries, presented at World Expo Dubai 2020, and in Brush Strokes 5, an Australian Poetry Anthology of 2024.