Andrei Zbîrnea (1986) is a journalist@realitatea.net, copywriter, sometimes poet. Handy man@ Mornin’ Poets Wokshop. Borussia Dortmund fan and also big lover of The Office (US) Tv Series. He hopes to write prose someday. Published Books: 2011 – Rock în Praga (Herg Benet Pusblisher), 2014 - #kazim (contemporani cu primăvara arabă) (Herg Benet Publishers), 2017 – Turneul celor cinci națiuni (frACTalia), 2019 – Pink Pong (with Claus Ankersen, frACTalia).
Run Like Hell Delicate Sound Of Thunder 1988
Pink Pong #2
The mothership is afraid of beginnings
The mothership leaves the oceans
flowing into stardust untouched
an affectionate voice is broadcasting from the shipboard
a calm voice breathes with every new birth and death of the galaxy
cities by cities are made into clusters of debris
we will demolish the historical buildings
we will build other clusters of debris
around hysterical malls around overground parking lots
voice-actioned
we will create new acrobatic dance moves
we will sell overpriced vinyls
constraining our potential customers nonstop
it will go by the name ’marketing’ and it will be our secret
it will go by the name ’marketing’ and we will lay our heads
on our pillows every night
the mothership is the hideout which we all have been searching for
the mother ship holds the principle of a warehouse
for the sake of those times when you could not escape
the moos surrounding the cities nearby the pastures
They're gonna send you back to mother
In a cardboard box.
You better run.
I do not fear technology as much as I fear the force of the frantic masses
I do not fear the mothership as much as I fear the pollution in springfield
I do not fear the mothership as much as I fear the sunsets and sunrises
adeptly modified in photoshop I do not fear mother I’m not allowed to fear
because the moos surrounding the cities nearby the pastures are like a mirror
hanging above the bed
I do not fear animal cages nor of the provincial drama I do not fear
I’m not allowed to fear
Sheep
Pink Pong #6 feat. Irina
The machinist goes by innocuous the machinist
is the new version
of WALL-E
a version which almost all
hypermarkets
have in their monthly promotional sales
best before/lucidity is becoming
more scarce
I counted sheep flocks of sheep as
I was waiting in queue
there was an inside joke at the protests
george soros was giving away milk and croissants
at the only shop and go from victoriei square
during that evening I thought about that catchphrase
I have one more wish
Dragnea for Sheepish
(#NOT)
dragosh l. almost borrowed it
for his banner
still at last minute decided
for some popular lyrics
of some pop dance song
Get out of the road if you want to grow
old
in the engine room at the entrance the displayed message
the message that influenced many
regional communities
t h e m o t h e r s h i p
s h r i v e l l e d s c a r l e t
w a l l s
t h e t o w n
b e d
some kind of an ophthalmologic test
when you are six and you
learn letters and numbers by picking up
so you do not have to wear glasses with thick frames
memory is playing tricks on you/ fourth row
where the mother ship forgot a subway ticket
like a rite of passage studied on
the scribbled school desks
hostility in electromagnetic field
cardinal versus cartesian
the machinist is counting sheep
the machinist does not know that
by multiplying the painting’s
width with its length
he can find out the total number of sheep
and all this can be done with a calculator
a whole number suitable enough
to be written down
even rowan atkinson was overcome
by this number
High Hopes
Pink Pong #18
Fire walk with me
For hours and hours I’ve been staring at the table’s electronic display
I had escaped the pestering of the machinist
and WALL-E (finally) had received
the money for his vacation
the mothership had found a solution to the housing problem
expelling sunshine rays towards the southern outskirts of the city
there where the block of flats are either monochrome or come from
the jysk or ikea colour catalogues
And we would see each other every Thursday
in the Fire pub thinking about the last deeds of redbull
the machinist does not agree with these kind of names
that have been circulating in the public space
the machinist prefers the classical names as it follows
john tobias ebbe or even augustine
the pets need to have names easy to remember
even by those who have poor pronunciations in English
the decalogue will be modified
the machinist informs us daily
that the transition time has come on the mothership
what can I write with a silver pencil brought from Athens
or which is my favourite haruki murakami novel
do you prefer the short version or do we have a couple of hours
a contortionist would probably give you clearer answers and
he would never give away the insecurity through the modulations of the voice
after a while liv kristine disconnected the electronic table
and redbull said good-bye in his almost human manner
Hey You
Pink Pong #22
Sample post-punk (spp)
train’s timetable fashionable again
every city on the world map
keeps adding
new and new
trendsetters
I tried to decompose your voice in atomic elements I don’t
believe that I have succeded we drift away above the tavern
a shipwreck towards ephesus during this night
your fingers are the most beautiful
shortcut towards my brain you type ceaselessly on
whatsapp or messenger but your attention is displaced by
a whisper very close to my left cheek we
didn’t get to talk about the sound of the snow transmitted through
radio waves, neither about the fir trees from deva or
iasi your hair like an amphibian talks about New Year’s Eve
spent in denmark hamsters scene(ry) & arranged marriages by
family your voice sounds different on TV the same way
madalina manole’s voice would sound as a polyphonic ringtone
before chernobyl it was the volcano
before tridimensional space
there were two pair of twins
before bedtime I hold you in my arms
before leaving I collect my gloves from
the floor before you it was just
a black hall now silence sleep a postpunk
sample which will take good care of you
just you and a movie about levitation
Lost For Words
Pink Pong #26
A story that the machinist is telling to the mother ship to conclude a small dispute with WALL-E
Many butterflies float above the garden
the unfiltred beer bubbles accompany an imaginary dance
between a blue cocoon and endangered species
life on mars is still a mystery for the British
researchers so are the most recent results at britain’s got talent
in the summer gardens from papua was discovered a new
species of polychrome butterfly
the kids of the 21st century
won’t even notice it they will move on
between two sessions of swipe right & swipe left risking
to be left without battery just at the crossroads. another day, same continent
the kids of the aboriginal will never interact with pokémon GO
and they won’t be able to explain in front of an audience the word millennials
it is still a delicate moment for the love triangle consisting of the mothership, WALL-E and the machinist
the maximum security penitentiary is opening his gates wide
for the the curious visitors the cells are studded with strange forms made of plasticine and chalk
& your shoulders with the specific resemblance of some Peruvians going in a safari for the first time
Comfortably Numb
Pink Pong#32
turnstile/turnstiles
At dinner-time the antennas fell over
the turnstile from the underground. I feel like
an amphibian compelled to watch a talk-show
in which other amphibians build anti-aircraft
shelters. The demolitions were never written on
the agenda. It is expected that the next AdWords campaign
to contain them. We match the phone’s alarms according to
this information
I sit at the table with the emma stone before
lala land and I’m not afraid to hum songs popular
of my parents’ time. Paradoxically neither are you.
(sooner or later) we all end up displayed images
on the desktop of a work laptop or (best case scenario)
animated gifs for the human resources female colleagues
I have enough crayons; I’ll be as coherent as
I can. The advance offered by therapy is shattered
once your left calf breaks down. Always in front of the
grocer’s in the gazarului road. Always during the moments when you’re on the verge
of healing with the other therapist. (we’ll be calling him from this point on acupuncturist,
defining very clearly the nature of his activities).
At dinner-time the turnstiles are retiring to their den just as the little robot C-3PO
would have done it in contact with an army of stormtroopers
I haven’t noticed anybody (in the galactic empire)
to have such green eyes. Yet.
Time
Pink Pong#36
the machinist will evacuate the island in less than 24 h the right to vote guaranteed by the constitution will be suspended for an indefinite period of time with that alembic the mother ship will be able to build her own mother ship through a custom approach WALL-E got tired to keep answering to the letters that he received for 20 years on his work address for 20 years the machinist grows violets on mother ship’s lawn for 20 years the temperature in the living room has been constant a machinist or a thermostat a machinist or a thermostat time has expired WALL-E will turn himself from the little robot that was cleaning into a paper shredder that shreds paper from dusk ’till dawn if you were to choose one of these three characters (the mother ship, WALL-E and the machinist) who would become your BFF and with whom would you go on Sundays to church and on Tuesdays at the museum of natural sciences
A Nice Werewolf
for the Brautigan Library
O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
(Richard Brautigan – A Boat)
try not to deny the evidences
the sunrise halts timidly in the
lost and then found objects box
it’s not the case to traumatize a teenage girl
who can’t find the keys of her parents’
flat tik tok doesn’t mean the key around the neck
generation it’s more of an expose for everything
handbook for conspiracy theories we could talk about
for instance 2016 and pizza gate but I would rather not
break the character that was assigned to you
don’t cry werewolf we have enough time
to build a proxy for truth or our own
home delivery network where
commissions have their own route
my favourite chorus
your favourite chorus
there is a country for the socks from the washing machine
finally the city folded on your pulse
nobody sleeps anymore
everybody checks every two minutes
its phone never during shower always before always after
the werewolf looks at the carnival
this is his world
Translated by Iulia Stoichit