an open letter to myself by Constantin Severin

AN OPEN LETTER TO MYSELF
MOTTO:
“SO THAT I CAN DIE PEACEFULLY
GIVE ME BACK MY SELF TO MYSELF! ”
(MIHAI EMINESCU)
my inner voice told me that my self is an exotic island
farther and farther away from myself
in which the lush and archetypal vegetation of the unconscious shines
I see more and more clearly how my heart is alienating me
and I perceive the dodecaphonic music of my inner collapse
this is me in the age of online communicationnight butterflies ephemeral islets of tactile silences
night butterflies small quarantined creatures
night butterflies with wings edged with the silk of hellay my lost and lonely self give me back the eyes born from the eyes of angels
the pure gaze that moves the stars and the souls of bookson the footprints of a fairy the apple blossoms are falling in my garden
a swallow is pecking the lines from a blind man’s stretched palm
this spring I try to develop the photo of the verb to be
on the humid paper like a lamb’s muzzle a few strange live configurations
come into sight angels faces centaurs griffins and unicorns
and the apple blossoms are falling in my garden on the footprints of a fairy
my mother is spinning in her sight a warm beam from the verb to be
and my words are searching for their hearts in the song of the birds in my garden
untill the feelings are blossomingin another voices another rooms
in vain I try to snatch from my face the original Face and run away
to disappear into the cloud of my childhood fireflies
I feel that I am gradually becoming a lonely tree
inlaid with gorgonian chimeras and harps
I will learn to live and die simultaneously
I will live-die with more and more ghostly senses like a night butterflynight butterflies extinguished embers snapping in loneliness
night butterflies fluttering eyes watching the collapse
night butterflies with spectral lives denied of lightay my lost and lonely self give me back the wings hidden inside my waste land
the astral flight that turns the letters into singing birdsin the global village there is total transparency
we love and die in a glass cage feelings are transmitted through optical fibers
love appears and disappears with the speed of light
God has long been exiled young people forgot the word intimacyand look for feverish mirrors for thoughts and online sex
night butterflies blind beings composed of extinguished longings
night butterflies creatures with flight controlled by darkness
night butterfiles small sarcophagi of freedomthere is no more memory just video cameras
nothing is real outside the screen
happiness is a notion in medieval volumes
in schools history is replaced
with the history of artificial intelligenceay my lost and lonely self give me back the hands cracked by the pain of words
the sweet caress that ignites the music between my self and myselfSuceava, November 13, 2021

Constantin Severin is a Romanian writer and visual artist, founder and proponent of Archetypal Expressionism, a highly regarded global art movement, which he founded in Bukovina, in 2001. A graduate of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, he has published ten books of poetry, essays and fiction. One of his poems was included in the 2014 World Literature Today anthology, After the Wall Fell: Dispatches from Central Europe (1989–2014), aimed at popularizing post-Wende Central European literature on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Severin’s conceptual art and artworks have appeared in Artdaily, World Literature Today, Trafika Europe, It’s Liquid, Levure littéraire, Empireuma, Contemporanul, Vatra, Arkitera, Glare Magazine, Cuadernos del Ateneo, Dance, Media Japan, and other international art and literary magazines. Website: http://constantinseverin.ro/ Constantin Severin este scriitor și artist vizual, fondator și promotor al Expresionismului Arhetipal, o mișcare artistică de impact global, pe care a înființat-o în Bucovina, în anul 2001. Absolvent al cursului internațional de scriere creativă de la Universitatea Iowa, el a publicat zece cărți de poezie, eseuri și romane. Unul dintre poemele sale a fost inclus în antologia realizată în 2014 de World Literature Today, După Căderea Zidului: Referințe din Europa Centrală (1989-2014), care și-a propus să facă mai cunoscută literatura central-europeană la cea de-a 25-a aniversare a căderii Zidului Berlinului. Lucrări și comentarii despre arta conceptuală a lui Severin au apărut în Artdaily, World Literature Today, Trafika Europe, It’s Liquid, Levure littéraire, Empireuma, Contemporanul, Vatra, Arkitera, Glare Magazine, Cuadernos del Ateneo, Dance, Media Japan și în alte reviste literare și de artă internaționale. Website: http://constantinseverin.ro/
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