At The Table By The Window Poem by Ion Mureşan

"What a won-der-ful place for weeping and smoking you have here!"
I said to the barman, for oftentimes, at the table by the window,
late at night, I have sighed,
thinking that you are far, far away, my love,
and that I shall never see you again.

And he, "a face oiled like an iron padlock",
puffed and blew into a glass to cloud it:
"Sir, we would be honoured for you to weep here with us,
we would be honoured for you to smoke! And so we can weep together,
in your honour I'm giving myself two slaps!
In your honour I'm giving myself yet another!
Anyhow, in Romanian culture there's too much weeping,
for, by your leave, we are a weepy nation!"
And his old cherubic head slowly sank between the glasses -
a moon between snowy hills.

And the pub was packed: three or four blokes to a table,
hunched like badgers over their ashtrays.
(Faces contorted with pain
and silent as in a dream.)

Then it was midnight, then midnight passed
and the hunches of their backs began to quiver, to rise and fall,
as though each had a turkey under his coat
with its claws dug into his ribs. And the barman walked among the tables singing:
"But how can I forget you, how can I forget you, how can I forget you
when your kiss is so sweet!"
Then from the collars the turkeys poked out their necks, like snakes,
red tasselled banners by every ear, hideous banners, beaked banners,
and the laments went from table to table like beggars:
"Glug-glug-glug, Maria, why did you leave me?
Glug-glug-glug, Maria, why did you deceive me?
Glug-glug-glug, Maria, it was for you I rotted in gaol!
Glug-glug-glug, Maria, what am I to do with five children?"

And each table
was like a house
with three or four smoking chimneys,
and we were drinking with our elbows on the roof.

And beneath the ceiling, creaking away,
the fan was winding our lungs into a grey clew.

Tears and ash in the ashtrays, black water.

And as thus I sat with my face to the wall
I began to laugh.
And I pointed my finger upwards and said:
"They've stopped work! They've stopped all the work!"
And going out into the street I looked at the sky:
and the sky was like a building site hastily abandoned at the onset of winter.

Translation: 2007, Alistair Ian Blyth