By Sentimental story
Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,
and touch my elbow to the ground
to look at the grass, bent
by the falling of some word,
as though by the paw of a lion in flight.
The words spun between us,
back and forth,
and the more I loved you, the more
they continued, this whirl almost seen,
the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.
From the book “Bas-Relief with Heroes”
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
A poem
Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn’t you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?…
Public clock with statues
The stones open an eye of stone,
the bones open an eye of bone.
Each dog has a snout in place of its eyes, and barks
from three snouts, generously.
It’s a constant transforming of eyes in the air.
The eye of the cat turns into leaves.
The leaves murmur a sweet lament
in the sockets of the mother cats.
My eyes remain open and misted.
My eye blinks in the town council tower,
and suddenly I sense in my sockets,
with infant in arms, the statues of Mary.
From the book “Bas-Relief with Heroes”
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Sign 12
Little by little she became a word,
bundles of soul on the wind,
a dolphin in the clutches of my eyebrows,
a stone provoking rings in water,
a star inside my knww,
a sky inside my shoulder,
and I inside I.
From the book “Bas-Relief with Heroes”
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
This excerpt from the early poem “In Praise of People” displays Stănescu’s efforts at considering perspectives beyond human consciousness, which he pursues in many poems.
From the point of view of stones,
the sun is a falling stone,
people are a tender pressure . . .
They are motion added to motion
and light you can see, from the sun.
From the point of view of air,
the sun is air full of birds,
wing beating on wing.
People are birds never before seen,
with wings ingrown
that beat, hover, glide,
within an air more pure: thought.
Worlds of Words 
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