Marlene van Niekerk – vertaling in Engels
Marlene van Niekerk - vertaal deur/translated by the author & Tony & Gisela Ullyatt
Marlene van Niekerk
Marlene van Niekerk is the author of two volumes of poetry, Sprokkelster (1972) and Groenstaar (1983), two collections of short stories, Die vrou wat haar verkyker vergeet het (1992) and Die sneeuslaper (2010). She has also published two novels, Triomf (1994) en Agaat (2004). She is currently responsible for the supervision of M.A. students in creative writing. She wonders whether the only subversive activity in a brutalised society is perhaps the writing of small poems. Van Niekerk has won several prizes: in 1978, the Eugène Marais Prize and the Ingrid Jonker prize for Sprokkelster as well as the Chancellor’s Prize from the University of Stellenbosch; in 1995, the M-Net, the CNA, and the Noma prizes for Triomf; in 2005, the UJ Prize for Creative Writing for Agaat, which also won the Hertzog Prize in 2007. In 2010 she received an honorary doctorate for her literary work from the University of Tilburg.
* poets of our fatherland unite
this my dearest countrymen is a jingle like scarlatti’s for princess benjamin
and sweetness pikini both of them police chicks at the station in macassar
enter around ten o’clock li’l sweetness pikini who does not fit in ‘er bikini
as princess benjamin stirs sweetener into her mug of herbal tea
this is now behind the counter for serious complaints
when the station mice have fallen quiet
and the walrus had dozed off
the one who is supposed to guard
the grass the crystals and the ecstacy
the coke the mushrooms and the crack
confiscated from the white pipes
and the hash heads and the mandrax mules
and the bling buddies with the rayban shades
who’s stamping ground this is
and who also just like them two
earn a pittance for their toils
this is a scarlatti jive for the princess with her little baton
and the sweetie pie second in command
the hatcher of the hectic schemes, check ‘er
as she swishes from the canteen with her coffee
prods pikini the roaring royalty on her rank insignia
left right left as they clink their teaspoons
in the terrible twin cups of macassar
while the watchman at the service bell
is snoring in his cubicle
hi there blue blood of the station, winks nikita pikitini
my coolest miniskirted queenie
who is the boss girl of this precinct
i know something ‘bout this ninconpoop policing dive
that two worthy women like us cannot survive
without coming out in shingles
a haystack grass is stacked in sacks and going
flat in our storeroom, what do you say lets nab it
this so called evidence of the black hole in the universe
and fuck the waiting for a pipsqueek paycheck
what about you sergeant, my bucks are sucked
and I dig a sony and an ipod and a perm
i want a lexus like the one that madam drives
who heads the prisons and who won’t be seen alive
in her rickshaw from toyota
and these tons of woolworths quality weed
lie here rotting day and night under our noses
no one will split if we drop it in the township
and make our million dollar dreams come true
this is a little jumpstart like scarlatti’s for the officers of justice
who do not know how they must chastise their highnesses
the swishy sweeties in macassar town
now take it from me one can only pick a littte music
just a wee bit with domenico scarlatti who clicks
my tongue from its spitting dicky and switches me
like dominoes on trickle
and christ this princess is like snappy on the uptake and she says
fuck pikini now you make my nipples tight
and ping she thwacks her teaspoon in her cup
and cracks the service bell from its bracket
and tweaks the bunch of keys from the big belt of the walrus
and they make a go for it like thelma and louise
like bonnie and clyde but with that chique sashay
of the swinging macassar chickies and they haul the sacks of grass
from the evidence hole and pile it in the hatchback van
this wont be five trips only more likely forty says miss benjamin
to the dilly dolly with the brainwaves in the macassar copshop
we need a bloody lorry and a few lawless fellas from the flats for operation transport
this is a scarlatti jig for the inhouse scandal of macassar
and the understandable motives of the suspects
‘cause guilty they can’t be if one looks at the example of the selebis
and the missus of cwele the commissioner
who bleeps her mules on her mobile phone from capetown to colombia
while the whole bang shoot that is south africa goes down the bloody tubes again
this is a ditty like scarlatti’s a little blue at the twinkle hour
with the night jars screeching in the copse and the smell of burning rivers
it is time to modulate into a minor but my grammar is exhausted
And pogorelich wakes the neighbours what’s the chance
my rapping brother from the township may i I invite you to promote
this number under the slogan: poets of our fatherland unite
and keep the nation from the crooked ways of the law enforcers.
* A rap song on the basis of the newspaper report about the two police women with the wonderful name Princess Benjamin and Sweetness Pikini who stole bags of confiscated grass
from their own police station in Macassar, (Die Burger 13 Januarie p 9)
(Uncollected)
(Tr. by the author)
Poem for President Motlanthe
Photo DB February 27 at the beginning of a SADC meeting concerning the Zimbabwe crisis
How can you bring your neighbouring country’s mad dictator to the table?
How do you get his slot-mouth to the peace trough?
O president, from the outset you remain virtuous,
you remain in the pink, you scrunch up your snout forgivingly
you clench your buttocks and
brace your breastplate grimly in regent mode
you lead him step by step,
you prick up your ears for the cameras,
your beard
a goatee, your collar
pristine,
how does one please
an expert exterminator of the Matabele, president?
You mumble ubuntu, uhuru, ujamaa, you
embrace a fuck-the-world kind of freedom that you
cribbed from PWB and Smith
(one should know what to stress these days,
one should remember the right things)
How do you bring him inside
this stalactite of power
this rabid grasshopper?
It is evident, mister president,
you handle him softly, you handle him like a chum, the colours of your tie clash
less harshly than his, your breast-pocket handkerchief
puffed up a tad less, on account of his ghostbrittle self,
you let him understand, the two of you are men,
who feel good in your tailor-made suits,
you are cut from the same cloth, your spectacle frames
a little less expensive, the label more local than his
you mark your pace invisibly up the steps of your royal palace,
until you are in step with his tread
like an ageing pig feeding on the bread of grace
Isn’t he and won’t he always be your brother?
(as Stroessner was then the schmak’s brother
not to mention church hat and spouse)
a king just like you?
Even though his people cower totally fucked
beneath the soldier’s heel on your borders
where Kruger lions simper miserably,
even though his subjects gorge on grass,
even though they roll their good-for-nothing money like dung beetles
to bakeries baking clouds of chalk,
even though they suck the bitter piss
of grasshoppers through straws,
even though they have a rat up their arse as their last rations,
even though hospitals are flooded with cholera,
even though they choke on your bone-white flour,
even though your people scream makwerekere at your tightly-guarded walls,
even though their fingers reach for your throat,
how can you deal with a man who does this to his nation
and to your nation for that matter?
to your precious French ideal of Renaissance?
(And I know what I am talking about, my white Vlakplaas guards
had a braai next to their enemies’ corpses
in the name of the lord jesus christ, I was a fool
to think that you could do better in this godforsaken territory
of white and black barbarians)
Now at midnight I rage as if you were ever going to hear me,
and I ask, how in the name of the father do you do it?
You treat him like a gentleman, mister president
you eat a peppermint beforehand just in case
he does not trust
the quiet diplomacy on your breath
you want to show him, mister president,
your love of your neighbours
is unknown in these regions.
O lord and the tamtam, don’t forget the tamtam, president,
The tamtam and the tattoo and stywepap for the chauffeurs,
the carpet and the flag and the foxterrier gang of guards
with surveillance worms in the ear, with armpit-holsters full of lead
with dark glasses of fraternity.
(between your guards and his your safety
a likewise incline of the head, and deodorant and rearview mirrors
of distrust and jujitsu and small electric truncheons
sizzling against the thighs.)
How do you do it, mister president?
In that air filled with Southern African amenability
overflowing neighbourly ardour
and sentiments about human rights,
in that halo of clicking shutters
before the portals, you tilt your head, making yourself famous,
with a glint of bottom teeth
look, my arm is rigid from ceremony,
but I flex my fingers
behind me, warm, affable,
toward your monkey-paw of resentment,
come on then, tata, toward peace, toward truce,
you are my child, over your sins, Motlanthe, I
and all of us here, scatter
bucket loads of Kalahari sand.
I am not ashamed,
I guard you,
I take your hand.
(Uncolledted)
(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)
