One more by Marie Howe

You can find the original here.

Skynd dig

Vi standser ved renseriet og købmanden

og benzinstationen og grøntsagshandleren og

Skynd dig skat, siger jeg, skynd dig skynd dig,

mens hun iler afsted to tre trin bag mig

med oplynet blå jakke og nedrullede sokker.

Hvor ønsker jeg at hun skal skynde sig hen? Til sin grav?

Til min? Til hvor hun en skønne dag måtte stå som fuldvoksen?

I dag, når alle ærinder til sidst er udrettet, siger jeg til hende,

Skat, jeg er ked af at jeg bliver ved at sige Skynd dig –

du går foran. Du kan være mor.

Og, Skynd dig, siger hun over skulderen, og kigger

tilbage på mig med et grin. Skynd dig nu elskling, siger hun,

skynd dig, skynd dig, og tager husnøglene fra mine hænder.

Also at the festival - the American poet Marie Howe

Here's a translation of a poem by Marie Howe you can find here

Ægteskab

Min mand kan lide at se madlavnings- og byggeprogrammerne,

Discovery Channel, og kirurgikanalen.

I aftes fortalte han os om en mand som kom ind på skadestuen

med en bajonet stukket lige igennem kraniet og hjernen.

Fik de den ud? Spurgte vi allesammen.

Det gjorde de. Og manden var ok fordi bladet passerede lige mellem

de to halvdele uden at skære dem over.

And hvem havde jaget bajonetten ind i skallen på manden? Hans kone.

En stærk kvinde, sagde nogen. Og alle var enige.

The British poet Mandy Coe

One of the most interesting poets at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival was Mandy Coe. Here are Danish translations of three poems you can find at this website.

Køernes tyngde

Køer er usandsynlig tunge,
de er den mørke materie
astrofysikere taler om.
Hele universets tyngde
kan gøres rede for, hvis
du inkluderer køer.

Det er denne tyngde der får
hovene til at splatte ud i mudret,
trækker mælk ned til sprængfyldte
patter, gør at kokasser klasker
jorden med uhyggelig kraft.

Selv malket
bevæger de sig tungt.
Med krummede knoklede rygge
under svien af auktionsholderens kæp
exer og vakler de
som om selve knoglerne
var støbt om fra jernsenge
rustent parkgitter

At se en ko hejset
op i luften ved det ene bagben
er at være vidne til
en planets død.



Tegn

En mand gav mig denne hund.
Fordi han havde tegnet hende, har hun kun to ben,
men fra siden ser hun da fin ud.

Jeg vandt hende i et terningsspil: et ottekast.
Hun har et alligatorgrin
som holder børn og banditter borte.

Værsgo’, hun bider ikke
der ser bare sådan ud
fordi fyren tegnede hende om natten

da han var stangstiv.
Han skal have tegnet en mand, et hus, et gældsbrev
på et væddeløbsbillet. Med have og et træ,

men den tilhørte Stelkie Murray
og man tegner ikke på det som ikke er dit.
Der findes dog regler.

Jeg har en gang prøvet det – slikket på stiften
tegnet en mønt. Prøvet at bruge den
men den var en nitte.

Tror ikke jeg har øje for kunst
men næste gang jeg spiller Leonardo
gemmer jeg et es i ærmet;

få ham til at tegne en pige for mig,
og hvis han nu ikke er for fuld,
får jeg ham til at tegne hende forfra.



Gå i seng med en ost og pickles sandwich

Den er livsforskønnende.
Den prøver ikke at score dig.
Den skal laves.

En ost og pickles sandwich
skuffer aldrig.
Man ligger ikke og tænker:
Er jeg for fed?
For frugtbar?
For usikker?

Dine tanker er klare, dine valg enkle:
at skære den midtover
eller ikke at skære den midtover,
hvor tynd osteskiven skal være
og hvor picklesen skal placeres.

Fra en ost og pickles sandwich
forventer man hverken blomster, digte
eller tilbedelser. Man forventer
det man får:
ost ... og pickles.

Man ønsker sig, man spiser,
og bagefter har man spist.
Ikke noget med at ligge vågen og fornærmet, lyttende til dens snorken.

Sikre snacks.
Kan anbefales.

Thank you!

A big thank you from me to my audiences at the Aldeburgh poetry festival. As promised, here are the two talks I had written down but decided not to give, in order to create more time for questions. You can download the talk about the two poems here, and the Singing Danes here. Hope you like them.
If you would like to ask me anything about them, or other poetry matters, please feel free to write to me at: irons@post7.tele.dk

Not to mention the Dutch prestidigitateur Gerrit Komrij

BUGABOO

Strip me of poetry and

I’m a mailman nothing more

A counter that’s lost the score

A man with no magic wand

Divest me of my masks and

I’m a starch-necked minister

A hair-splitting word-twister

With marble grave close at hand

A bungler who’s trundling along

The sunset his ultimate stop

All love of mankind’s judged as wrong

And bunglers are all for the chop 

(To see the collection this has been taken from, go to here)

One more by Toon Tellegen

MY LAST POEM

I’m allowed just one more poem.

They’re standing behind me.

This is that poem.

It’s got to be an ordinary poem,

not an extraordinary poem,

and it doesn’t have to be all that long a poem

or a special poem for this particular occasion:

something serious or something immortal.

Not something other than otherwise.

Beginning’s the most difficult bit (the prompting).

It’s got to be finished within a certain period.

And by finished they also mean finished!

But it’s nowhere near finished yet.

It’s not even halfway finished.

Not even halfway finished... they know that one.

They pull my chair backwards.

Time for another sonnet - this time by the Dutch poet Martinus Nijhoff

The Dancer

Beneath my skin a captive beast is fenced

That thrashes and would bite a pathway free;

Its dark blood throbs, and muscles highly tensed

Tremble in such confined extremity.

Until its pain like heat flows through my veins

And forces gestures out whose tempered haste

And maintained elegance screw up its pace

Still more before it hurls aside its chains.

One must be powdered so that in one’s face

The black of open-scorching eyes alone

Betrays the madness of the inner beast.

The mouth, upturned and reddened, must display

A pride so godlike everyone should know

A broad smile is now totally released.

A poem by the German writer Reiner Kunze

TWO ROWING

Two rowing

one boat.

The one

knows the stars,

the other

knows the storms,

the one will

guide through the stars,

the other will

guide through the storms

and in the end, the very end

the sea in the memory will

be blue

Another song from 'Svantes Viser' by the Danish writer Benny Andersen

SVANTE’S BLACK SONG

I’m so tired of myself and all my stoppings.

And my body causes me dismay.

What use is it my liver’s size keeps dropping

When my belly just balloons away.

I’m prone to self-hating

Need a touch of overrating.

I’m fed up with my name, my thoughts are fleeting.

And my prayers the Lord will all ignore.

What use to me’s a heart that goes on beating

When there’s no one it is beating for.

I’m prone to self-hating

Need a touch of overrating.

I regret all my past, my birth’s distasteful.

I should not have seen the light of day.

And Nature’s been a damned sight over-wasteful

when I wasn’t strained off straight away.

I hate my self-hating

Need a touch of overrating.

I’m so tired of my voice and my handwriting

and my brain is leaden, tired and worn.

It would be oh so nice and so inviting

to forget oneself and be reborn –

be freed from self-hating

with a touch of overrating.

To hear the song, go to here.
NB The text has been slightly altered in this more recent version with Poul Dissing. My translation is of the original text.

Another poem by Jeppe Aakjær

Another evening poem, this time by a poet known for writing in Jutland dialect and poems that seem destined to be sung. Many of them have been set to music.

Other poems on the blog can be found at 29.03.10 and 09.08.10. The poem 'Now the day is full of song', at 13.04.10, is the subject of a workshop essay here.

        Evening

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun,

While the moor is resting,

        Herds now homeward are begun,

And the stork is nesting.

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

        O’er the moor-path silence falls

As on roads so winding.

        A late bumblebee is all

Keenest ears are finding.

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

        Briefly now the lapwing flies

O’er the bog-pond’s blushes,

        Ere it folds its wings and lies

’Neath a roof of rushes.

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

        Eastern window-panes afar

Flare up in the gloaming,

        Moorland ponds like tiny stars

Catch the sunset’s homing.

        Still, my heart, now sets the sun!