Joan Hambidge – Vertaling in Engels
Joan Hambidge - Vertaal deur Jo Nel & Joan Hambidge
My sweet old etcetera
Joan Hambidge
It’s through Latin
Etruscan becomes comprehensible -
and even Egyptian hieroglyphics
are effortlessly deciphered
by experts; now explicable.
But who will someday grasp
the alphabet of our ruins?
Mysteriously you construct
a plastic model ship
of the Titanic - while I drift
on the Dead Sea
anticipating deliverance.
Archaelogical research
cannot simplify
the destruction
which you multiply.
(Vertaal deur Jo Nel)
One night-stand
Joan Hambidge
The scène is always the same:
intro-drink-seduction-bed.
The next day constantly a mind fuck:
guilt-silence-longing
and regret.
To fall in love is like placing a bet.
(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)
Writing as fucking
Joan Hambidge
To write a sapphic verse
close before midnight
leads to many problems
(ignoring “vicious mathematics” …)
to find a non-off-beat image
for our for(ever)ness:
the pen is mightier than the sword:
does not work; too phallic, sexist,
sounds like penis-envy…
when two lips speak together:
does not reveal much of our softness/tenderness;
rubyfruit jungle:
is false, fruit-
less romanticism;
dark labyrinth:
too desperately literary;
bitter lemons:
cute poetic cunninglingus.
To write a (love)poem
like this, creates
coldness/logic/guilt
about that which merely is.
(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)
Domanda
Joan Hambidge
For Margaret Rosabel Mezzabotta
Untimely, premature your exit
to an unknown region.
The soul, I remember this morning,
needs the slow maturation of wine.
If hastily uncorked or poured
wine suffers bottle shock.
You would have been able to verify
this for me: an obscure reference
to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
But to comprehend your death
is an undecodable hieroglyphic
in a dark impassable alleyway.
Death reverses the order of words,
it makes us look back, remember, even
seize small moments of chance -
like my cleaning your glasses once,
discussing dark symbols with you.
For this funeral oration, or rather declamation –
as a poet I am completely unprepared,
no, undeclared, undeserving…
The so-called consolatio or comfort
of a medium (Look, she sends you a rose)
or the flickering of a candle,
undoes nothing. What does “passing away”
mean? That you had to leave - in my book
anyway - far too rapidly
for heaven? That your soul was forced out
seemingly without warning. That roses fade,
candles cease to flicker…
Still I wanted to ask:
“Who scratched out Nefertiti’s one eye
so that she was blinded on the other side?”
(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)
My parents
Joan Hambidge
i
From my birdlike mother,
I inherited my unhappy, dissatisfied, unpleasing nature:
Yesterday, was a better day.
From my forceful, burly father,
my dreamy, romantic, undaunted disposition.
The one can place words like blocks;
the other’s dreamy nature almost blocked
by others…
And me?
Their heirloom?
The one part of the Janus head
looks back to what was;
the other half to what words
may unblock.
ii
Oh it was always so effortless, so easy
to turn away from you my parents,
the eternal addressees
of this poem and my prayers.
This is an elegy
before you leave for the other side
and because a funereal poem might be inappropriate
at this time of deadly silence.
For her my crooked old mother
for him my burly father
something which is shorter than a letter
worthier than a legacy
more lasting than a gravestone
more reliable than an insurance policy
more worthy than a family ring.
Every poem which stems
from me with affection
due to them.
Her voice the metre of my verses
his hand the form of my words.
iii
They are the salt of the earth
yes, the salt of the earth
because their tears
their tears
stream like salt
like salt
over their cheeks
They are the salt of the earth
my parents
lamenting in silence
over their children’s tears
streaming like salt
like salt
over their cheeks
iv
Mother:
tonight I recall a letter to you
written in my niggling handwriting
from a faraway country:
It is winter in New Haven
at night I hear the silence
of the snow falling
like the wings of departing swallows
O Mother
I carry the heavy burden
of feeling the descending words
the feathers of a departing swallow
O Mother
O Mother
I carry the heavy burden
of words descending on me
like black swallows.
v
Tonight I suddenly recall
how you called
out: “Everything is against me!”
and about three decades later
I realise
Dad
how you struggled
to fit us all in
on your 30 Day Old Mutual
calendar.
Another policy
another late shift
an extra work load.
And I?
I keep myself busy with a policy
with almost no investment value.
It fails to fit on a normal calender,
it prefers the unpredictable hour
and yes, it does not protect you
against disillusion
or similar feelings
as a published poem betraying the poet.
vi
When I was younger
and oh so unsure
they were merely in the way
but now I return
incessantly to them
my parents so sure
and understanding,
prepared to stand surety
Does a pun lurks there
in being “sure” and “stand surety”
if merely in a poem?
vii
Dad
I carry you
a graft on my body.
I dreamt of you last night:
you are playing in an orchestra
with your old cronies
at a small, village wedding
with many dirty, stacked plates.
You hand me a glass of wine…
How real, tangible
the dream feels which according to Cirlot
might indicate an approaching death.
Yes, my father presents me with a glass
from which I pour life
with full abundance.
viii
My mother prefers
Not to be mentioned in my verses.
Yet my first searching, rambling poem
written in a faraway USA
in cold winter snow, was addressed to her.
Previously I spoke to her through
other woman poets in my letters.
Poetry learnt by heart
now written from the heart.
My mother prefers
not to be mentioned in my verses.
Yet all words stem
from the restrained, confined mother womb.
Oh mother forgive me this tres-
pass, this intrusion
of your privacy,
due to the unsevered umbilical cord.
ix
Look at them, my parents,
sitting as a young engaged couple
on a sofa in a Jewish studio.
You smile with a little hat on your head
holding Dad’s hand.
Many decades later I realise:
we choose undoubtedly our parents
prenatal and astral.
Here they are, my parents,
waiting
the two old wrecks
in a poem by their second eldest.
I see them after being 50 years together:
on that day I phone them up
from a faraway place.
I place them neatly
- as if for a photo shoot -
for a final analysis,
for an unharmed version,
in a thankful cadeau.
A coup de chapeau!
(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)
Rome
Joan Hambidge
Although I lost my religion long before my virginity
yes it was traumatic to copy others
in this process me I copycat could I understand in Rome
the first original shall we say, most original city
of the arts understand why artists create
represent passion in a painting hanging upside
down from roofs everything for art’s sake
I must confess: I even cried
when I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta
as it becomes more than a mother
not comprehending the death
of her beloved firstborn look at the fingers
they are stretched out searching
the son’s cold broken knee
the head backwards the loin cloth unravel-
ling how long will it take before the body de-
composes? the muscles breaking down
Even the holes in hand and foot
recalled in breathtaking detail
(Remember: He was pierced)
For me death here becomes colder than marble
(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)
