A poem by the Norwegian writer Aina Villanger (b. 1979)

1

in night-drenched outaness yer laid gentle-like

in mother-sea tissue yer eyes awl glood shut and

hands clenched like blind gazes inter deep water

hovverin like some plankton along the sea bed

yer swayed inna flora ev eternity

surroundid by bubbles in ecstasy en calm

yer wez nourisht by a cord

that inflatid yer

a link between yerself and wots firm

joind to the earth yer mother

yeah without yer knowin it

yer dreamt ev the land with sun

wot came through the chink

gave yer yeller trumpet rays

like wot mornins do en

woke yer from yer seevin warmf

tricklin red in sparklin black

Villanger writes poems that show traces of dialect/sociolect by use of unusual, often phonetic spellings. The English translation uses the language spoken in the area where I grew up, north-west London, back in the early 1950s.

 

Poem by the Flemish writer Erwin Mortier

 

Letter twenty-eight

(Hadewijch variation)

Should I stay silent I can hear you. What I hear

silence imposes on me. What I must keep silent

I listen to my soul tongue-tied.

When I speak your name, languages tear me open –

so I clam shut and sleep

in the temple of your night.

Bide, do not snatch from me the sheet of

all the firmament. Let your naked heaven

and its hemispheres rest on my eyes

like a roofless enigma.

Place a finger on my lips Beloved.

From one finger one can’t fall.

Time for a Komrij

FIETSTOCHT

Het verre postkantoor was de magneet.

Niet om de luchtpostzegels of de taal

Van overzeese stempels - nee, het deed

Op tweehoog ’s middags dienst als jeugdleeszaal.

Tweemaal, op dinsdag en op donderdag,

Verdween ik in het ruime trapportaal

En kwam weer buiten met een brede lach.

Ik had mijn voorraad boeken andermaal.

Met in mijn hoofd een eerste regel die

Ik vluchtig had gezien bij een verhaal

Werd, fietsend, al naar het vervolg gegist.

Toch geselde ik vervaarlijk het pedaal

Om sneller thuis te zijn, omdat ik wist:

Het boek is beter dan de fantasie.

BIKE RIDE

The distant post office was my pole star.

Not for its airmail stamps or for the print

On foreign postmarks – no, much more by far

As upstairs library it did full stint.

On Tuesday and on Thursday afternoon,

I’d disappear across that spacious floor

And,wreathed in smiles, I’d re-emerge quite soon,

Equipped with my supply of books once more.

My head now whirling  with a new sensation

At some first line that I had swiftly glanced,

I guessed, while biking, what would then ensue.

The pedals, though, were pounded till they danced

To get home all the faster, since I knew:

A book is better than imagination.

Poem by the Dutch writer Jan Eijkelboom

Engelenburgerkade

The sun shone down on Engelenburgerkade.

Clad in plus fours I rode there on my bike.

A backlight tinged with autumn

came over the Catrijnepoort

and cast the shadow of half-open shutters

onto the gable of an old warehouse.

And suddenly within myself lay stacked

a load of happiness that scarcely could be borne

yet was so light I wished to cycle on

through that gateway and across the water

into the world and never to return,

though my home’s here if anywhere,

as nowhere else would be my home.

And briefly all the pain was gone

of being young, of grappling hard with God,

with Calvin’s hold still on

my throttled throat.

That quiet sun, that instant in my head

when life was luminous soon passed.

Within the week all was interred, more dead

than living, in a sonnet firmly cast.

Five poems by the Flemish writer Stefan Hertmans

Fireworks she said

On five etchings by Karel Dierickx

1

Fireworks she said,

I see black fireworks in the night.

We have to wait for a hand’s

light touch.

We looked inside through the window.

Saw the unwritten tablet,

Borne by Moses from the mountain.

Scratch the glass with your finger,

You taste the acid that

was in my eyes.

Haze can now condense into a graze.

Writing was once: drawing from nature.

How bright the night becomes –

You see that distant dawning?

Who’s brought along those eyes so

bodiless?

2

That arm she said,

You saw that sweeping gesture in the night?

A face seemed suddenly

To loom up in the sky,

Nostrils, formed and shaped

By this great sweep.

Forehead, borne by this

Unthought-of light.

Your hair barbed wire, my love,

So strange to us the night becomes –

You see those lightning darts

Of gravers in the distance?

3

A bouquet she said,

I see a bouquet without flowers

In the night.

Who is it scatters all those things

Above our heads just like

A form abandoned

By its contours?

Do we not have to pass by

The spray that awaits us?

And who is it firmly holds our hands

Whenever expectantly resigned

We search for you,

Small god, Morandi,

And scrape upon night’s copperplate?

4

Calvary, she said,

I see the Hill of Suffering

In the night.

I took her in my arms.

But hush, it is the morning

that awaits us.

Do you know for sure?

We kissed.

The world is a hollow skull

she said.

I want the dream that waits

For us in that cavity.

Golgotha, Goya’s head,

Countless are the memories

Of what the night snuffs in due time.

Can you hear how proximity

Has promised us the skyline?

5

Oh, tiny heads she said,

Just look there, small heads rocking in the night.

I thought that we were inside now;

Didn’t a vase stand here with something red?

The twilight came.

Shadow trickled, like a puddle,

from its place.

Wasn’t there a hand lie next to

Those small objects in the studio?

It seemed as if we’d passed by

Here some time before.

The maker with his hands

Still full of ink awoke, he saw us

standing there in great confusion.

He seized a rag

And drove us deep, deep

Through the inking in his head.

For more poems in English by Hertmans, go to here 

Poem by the Afrikaans writer Wilma Stockenström

Creating

One day the creator held

his creation like a child a butterfly

in his hand, and quivering

the enamelled wings parted.

Wondrous the colours that glow as deities

glowed, open, shut, with great

display, the wings for day and night.

The creator still feels the small feet

delicately on his fingers and is astonished

at what he has been capable of: the unfolding

of an everything, gold-dust-covered light,

and as it is with creators, he

conceives, proud and humble, one more

one more such lovely, light-hearted butterfly,

repeatedly, for the sake of eternity.

To see the original poem, go to here.
There have been many revisions of this translation at the blogspot site - the latest, and perhaps most important, is that 'oopvou/van 'n al, goudstofoortrekte lig' would seem to contain two nouns, i.e. the word 'al' means a cosmos or universe and is not an adjective.
 

Time for a weekend Hock!

Time brings fruit, not the soil,

Practice makes one learned, not reason

The year brings fruit, let none dispute,

Which soil and field can’t master,

Though tended, can’t grow faster:

All things will ripen in due time

Fruit, crops and grain – and even wine.

Thus in the field, by winter sealed,

No flower you are espying,

From cold it would be dying,

Strawberry, swallow vainly seek

As on the highest alpine peak.

The iron share will need repair,

Though moist the soil and willing

The plough grows dull from tilling;

A raindrop bores through rock’s hard crust,

Oil’s cleansing force can banish rust.

You’re needs aware how iron will fare:

Unused, rust will impair it;

And clothing, lest you wear it,

By eager moths will be devoured,

Like wood by insects gnawed and scoured.

And frequent use can e’en reduce

Stone, iron ring’s dominion:

For ’tis a proved opinion

That not by force do things occur,

But time alone all can bestir.

One should not just in reason trust,

Memory praise be giving

For teaching, art in living.

Despite a good Ingenium,

True learning’s only gained by some.

Capacity and memory

Won’t make you wise or learnèd,

Time though can make you earn it:

Practice and use, I now confide,

Can art – and length of days – provide.

Let practice be your firm decree,

You liberal arts be tending,

Time daily on them spending;

Through practice stones hurl of such weight

That no one else can imitate.

A long pole raise that greatly weighs,

And horse-shoes rip to pieces,

And draw a bow, caprices

That always danger can contain

And human strength may overstrain.

Both practice and restraint’s fair hand

Mankind full well are serving,

From many ills preserving:

So use and practice here on earth,

Not reason, give to learning birth.

Two more by Lennart Sjögren

Downward

Wanted to go downward to the fishes’

floor

where no alliances

apart from eating occur

Wanted to ask about the world’s origin

fins, eyes

and other such things beyond

the range of asking.

A clear and late summer evening

In among the ash trees

that the years have hollowed into a morgue

holes of dark light wait.

The night more entrapped than at any time

previously.

The stones on the road say

that they met a man

walking in the direction of the end of his life.

Someone carries a basket of grief in her hand.

Here is my life, she says

this is what my life has become.

Birds that no longer were birds

died on the branches along with the sunlight

but still sat there.

Poem by the Danish writer Henrik Nordbrandt

Sun-shadow

There is more sun than shadow in the shadow

and more shadow than sun in the sun.

The weather is tatty like a three-day-old

shirt over the back of a chair

and on my retina there is a spot

where the sun has produced a fly

in a winter-white room.

It will never go away

and just as distant as she is

she will never go away either

and the door she took with her when she left

so that house will never be shut

and the heart pumps in vain

because the heart’s doors are open like the house’s.

I cannot get up from the bed

and find no rest

because I cannot feel myself for flies.

‘I’ll find another woman all right,’

sounds tempting at first

but then sets my teeth on edge like sugar.

Poem by the Swedish poet Lennart Sjögren

Thought of speaking more simply

the simple that is better than the cryptic

but the simple also changed to the point

of unrecognisability and departed.

Thought of speaking less of death

death that even so is all we have for certain –

but the mornings too wear graves

in their eyes.

Finally only a flicker was left

and that was

before the first and after the last.

Yes, the light green

of the first coming into leaf

when all language falters.

(from: En ljusare eld, 2004)

The Belgian poet Jan H. Mysjkin writes in both French and Dutch. This translation is from the latter.

Poissons-papillons

La mer était un glacis rose, mauve et gris perle,

sans une ride de surprises.

* * *

Je croyais jusqu’ici avoir vu des poissons volants.

Ce n’était pas vrai. J’en ai vu

aujourd’hui : de six heures du matin à six heures du soir,

ils s’enfuyaient à tire de nageoires.

Quand ils sont loin, ce sont des papillons. De près

ce sont des oiseaux.

Jamais ils n’ont l’air de poissons, sauf

quand ils se replongent dans l’eau.

Je les voyais, absolument semblables à des hirondelles

quand la pluie d’été menace, rasant

les méduses comme de grosses perles d’améthyste.

* * *

À l’heure du couchant, ils ont l’air

de patineurs microscopiques.

 

Vlindervissen

De zee was een roze, zachtpaars en parelgrijs glacis,

zonder de minste overrimpeling.

* * *

Ik dacht dat ik al eens vliegende vissen had gezien.

Ik heb me vergist. Ik zag er pas

vandaag : van zes uur ’s morgens tot zes uur ’s avonds

schoten ze vinwiekend voorbij.

Van ver zijn ze vlinders. Van

dichtbij zijn ze vogels.

Ze zien er nooit als vissen uit, behalve

wanneer ze opnieuw in het water duiken.

Ik zag ze – absoluut gelijk aan zwaluwen

bij een dreigende zomerbui – scheren

over kwallen als amethisten reuzenparels.

* * *

In de ondergaande zon zien ze eruit

als microscopisch kleine schaatsenrijders.

Butterfly-fish

The sea was a pink, purple and pearly glaze,

without a rimple of surprise.

* * *

I thought I had seen flying fish before.

I was mistaken. I only saw some

today: from six in the morning to six in the evening

they whizzed fin-flapping past.

From afar they are butterflies. From

nearby they are birds.

They never look like fish, except

when dipping back into the water.

I saw them – exactly like swallows

at the threat of a summer shower – skimming

over medusas like giant beads of amethyst.

* * *

In the setting sun they look like

microscopically small skaters.