Friday 9 December 2011

Yesterday's poem on the Dutch Meulenhoff calendar, by Gerrit Komrij


THE WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN

In order to collect the doubtful prize
For all the pain she caused that’s gone before,
The holy trinity adopts the guise
Of three air pilots, sticky still with gore.

And Destination Hell’s their aircraft’s mission
“The devil waits with fat cigars and bourbon.”
The airmen’s journey seems an endless prison.
For years the blood-red airscrew whirring’s droned on.

Not far from Saturn, a ring her station,
Combing her hair, they see a raffish belle.
Clearly they display their admiration
But nowhere can they rest. There is no hell.

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