The Dragon Of The Clouds
Tell me the truth. No matter how terrifying it would be.I ate Don Giorgio in Sardella. I mangled the agolayab in Trenton. I made a hash of the scrilab in Gobumbe. That isn't the rain's thunder. It's my breath. Those aren't blue mountains, it's my back coming out from the clouds. That isn't the sunset, it's my evil eyes throwing flames.
Well, tell me that I burnt Waldora's land and the ships in Punta del Sol. Don't keep the truth away from me, I will haunt your dreams. I don't let you sleep, I overrun the clouds, I arise from the clouds in no time and ruin your parties, I drive your friends away and ruin your Sunday processions.
You reluctantly sit at the same table with me. You fight whenever you have to decide who will sacrifice himself. You hide your girls.
You mocked my poems. I left them written on magic stones, but you urinated on the verse I wrote with so much candour.
You called me from the clouds. I am everything you hate most. I am sodomy, I am your fights and your hate. I am the whole dirty stuff. But what do you know about the whole? What do you know about the magic One?
So many pages you filled with your essays on One! So much torture you put on him in pompous phrases!
But what do you know about One's depths?
Don't start crying. You could have burned time with trifling matters. But I would have liked that you faced the unknown, you howled that One is dead and burried and you declared the lights century having Utopia work.
But Utopia is like a flower!
I sniffed her while I was dripping from the clouds, embodying from your fears, from your suppurating wounds.
You mocked my verse and you credited a poor lunatic with them and you tried to erase them with lye because you were jealous.
How can you not die of jealousy when from your own misery arises such a wonderful metaphor, when fear finds the rhythm, proving you that the band and the orchestra are pale and powerless gatherings.
Don't start crying, I'm gonna eat you all. I'll make you acquainted to Utopia, but it will be too late for you. Don't fight in vain and don't give up your literary prizes. You're agonizing in vain. You're feathering me in vain, declaring me the most important poet of the century. I will swallow you at one mouthful and will digest you slowly. You will mingle. You will be one. A single creature, that will find the truth revealing the whole. Not for long, because in the evening, after releasing the storm, I will give you up, I will throw you into the ocean, as lousy and extremely boring drops.
Don't cry, don't beg for mercy. Look, the mermaids are caressing my scales and reciting my poems and caressing their nipples.
One's secret?
Speed is One's secret.
But what am I saying, obscurity?
I'm a poet dragon and more than that, I'm a remarkable philosopher.
I could lecture you on totality, but frigates are calling me to cuddle. How? Could we find the Absolute? You, naïve people, that's not important.
Yumm, yumm.
English translation by Adriana Mosoiu.
Ovidiu Bufnila was born, in Romania,. He is the founder of www.imagikon.ev.ro and www.wordmaster.ev.ro. His novel, JAZZONIA was awarded the best Romanian SF novel in 1992. He received the award for the best Romanian SF story, MANDHALA, 2001, the Sigma award, 2002, for excellence in Romanian SF and the Sigma award for the best Romanian SF novel, Moreaugarin's Crusade. As a recognition of his talent, in 2003 he received the annual Clouds Magazine Award.
