Versindaba
~ ‘n Kollektiewe weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

Andy Fierens - vertaal deur/ vertaald door Francois Le Roux

 

 

nooit word ons êrens uitgenooi

 

nooit word ons êrens uitgenooi en as mense ons wel ʼn keer vra

dan gaan ons nie, ons is so anders, ons droom van anemone wat suig

aan die houtbeen van ahab, aan sukkelaars wat krummels gooi

na ‘n sleutelhouer-eendjie, quizmeesters en werkersmiere

wil ons i.k. van ons weet, en ons antwoord dat ons nie die vraag verstaan nie

ons weet slegs dat enige-een wat ons huis binnekom hul streng moet hou

by interne orde-regulasies

 

ons het gillend vanuit die lig geval, is omring deur starende konyne

wat suurmelk drink uit ‘n harige bak, onder die wanindruk van alleenheid

besnuffel hulle hulself, en as hulle bedruk raak is daar altyd iemand

wat ons pret bederf deur met hulle te begin speel

 

misterieuse oorgewig meisies stap daagliks voor ons vensters verby

hulle hoop op rampe, katslingers in hul diepste wese, en let tog op

die geruis van a’s en o’s, gerugsteun deur ‘n simfonie van kwaakdiere

as hulle lang sinne praat oor die vernietigingsmeganisme van ‘n wolk

 

hulle is die soort wat die reeksnommers van hul borsinplantings invul op hul

lottokaartjies, die soort met ʼn volmaakte skoptegniek wat dan eerder tennis speel

hulle is die armes wat die vet jare namaak met ‘n opblaaspens en dis hulle

wat sê london bridge is falling down, so jammer jy kon nie daaronder staan

maar ons oordeel hulle nie, ons sê maar net dat die beste psigoloë sweer by nekskoot-terapie

 

ek voel so alleen, sê elkeen wat ons teëkom (die pa’s en die tieners

en die skaamspleetboelies) - kyk, ons is geen pseudo-moraliste wat hul wederhelwe

bedrieg met ‘n transseksuele lookalike nie, ons is geen diewe in die nag wat met knuppels invaar

in die hoenderhok van armsalige wedergeborenes nie, ons sê gewoon dat solank

‘n inwoner van doosdrif ‘n doosdrifter is, dat solank daar onskuldige idiote

met onskuldige idioot-verdriet is, ons sê eintlik maar net dat die wat die laaste van die mohikane

was miskien heroïes en cool lyk, maar die feit bly dat hy elke aand sy eie skottelgoed moet was

 

ons laat ons nie bestraal daar waar geen kanker kan bykom nie, ons vlieg

nie na die maan om die aarde te kan sien nie, ons is geen freaks wat voor die oë

van hul kinders die wêreldrekord vir paaseiervangste verbreek nie, ons is geen

boere-blondines wat in mendeljev se tabel verskyn as element

sonder eienskappe nie, ons is geen kulturele praatjiesmakers wat uit

volle bors laat roep liewer ‘n muitery op die bounty dan verveling op ‘n veerboot

 

o, ons vergader bedoelinge, o ons vergader liefde en haat en seemansliedjies

en dit is nie dat ons nie met u wil praat nie maar ons lustetabernakel moet dringend

in vir reparasies, nee ons gaan nie daaroor lieg nie, ons spandeer liewer

die res van ons dae om ons leë plastieksakke mooi reg te sit as wat mense gedurig

na ons verwys as draadtrek-drilsersante al kloekende rondom lustige hol-tes, of nog erger: as

haarkappers met handkrampe, ons moet slaan en salf, slaan en salf, veral slaan

 

daar is hulle wat hulle cd’s in koffiefilters bêre, daar is hulle wat nie kan oorleef

sonder suiganarol of lekamydose nie, en daar is hulle wat hoog en laag sweer

dat klankdigte onderbroeke ook geur verbeur en daar is hulle wat voet in die hoek sit

op deurnat paaie, hosanna skree op skerpe draaie maar ons spreek geen oordeel

daaroor uit, ons sê slegs stilte! hier speel mense lugkitaar

 

altyd dieselfde aan jou deur: die spoegbelopenes met die geswolle bene

die meester van atmosfeerbederf, die verneukte huismuis met haar kettingrokende

geskeide boesemvriendin, ons praat maar net, ons is in die modus van suip

ons konsulteer die dame met die tarotkaarte en die dame met die tarotkaarte

sê die lewe is ʼn wonder, en dié van julle stink van onder

 

ons oorleef op brandweerwater en vulkaanas, met wonderbra’s en pepersproei

hou ons onsself omhoog, nie-wetend hoeveel kilowatt geduld ons versprei

aan vriende op hul terugkeer maar dit was baie en met toerisme op sigself

skort daar niks nie, maar ons het onsself groot vrae afgevra toe die viëtnamese gids

aan ons voorstel om teen ‘n lekker afslaggie met ‘n bazoeka die koeie

van sy buurman af te maai

 

ons gooi ‘n fantoombom in ‘n see van mense, die resultaat is popcorn

wat knetter in ‘n skedelpan, ons stuur fanmail na swaarlywiges wat

op dieet gesit word en ‘n rookwors wegsteek tussen hul vetrolle

ons dink na oor die rooi, die geel en die bruin gevaar waaruit ons

luidkeels aflei dat die dodo glad nie so ver gefaal het

toe hy van die gaan-en-vermenigvuldig-pad afgedwaal het

 

daar is diegene wat sê volksmoord is geen doodsake nie, dis statistiek

daar is diegene wat met ‘n luiskammetjie gestolde pasta uit die hare van

hul tandeborsel kneuter, daar is vroue wat wil sterf sodat

hul mans die defibrivibrator kan toets en daar is hulle wat fantaseer oor

spontane selfontbranding maar ons spreek geen oordeel daaroor uit nie

ons sê alleen dat swyg soms erger is as moord, ons sê gewoon

soms moet jy soos ʼn speg ‘n kompromis te lyf gaan

 

ons met ons front row tickets, ons wat soveel waarde heg aan

verteringsgerief, ons wat so ‘n hekel het aan kommuniste wat

beweer dat die opwarming van die aarde ‘n gevolg is van die kapitalistiese

uitbuiting van die seisoene, ons met ons kinkhoes in kabouterland, ons

tel die sirkels van kandinsky en die vere in volière, ons oortree nie

die reëls nie, daarvoor is ons harsings te streng, ons lig ons duime vir

vermoeide helde aan die daeraad van ‘n nuwe shoot out en

tussen ons gesê en verswyg: eens het ons maande gebid dat dit moet ophou

reën maar toe dit eindelik opklaar word ons aangestaar

deur ‘n eindelose kille bloue leegte

 

o carmina carburator, ons is geen lid van vissersklub moed & geduld

ons is geen lid van gimnastiekklub lenig en snel, ons is geen

homoseksuele homohaters, ons is geen deur vrou en god verlate

bystandstrekkers wat pretensievol die bundel 10 poems that will get you laid

gaan sit en lees op die onderklere-afdeling van truworths nie, ons is geen

kulinêre stommerik wat kla omdat die gazpacho koud is nie, ons is geen

esoteriese handsakgrypers wat hulself vandag uitsonderlik in toom

hou omdat mercurius sy marskante bestraal nie

 

ons mag nie kla nie, daar was mooi dae en elke sentimeter tel

en as julle dit werklik wil weet, die mooiste oomblik was toe die kiss and ride

onderbroke blyk te wees en ons inderdaad oorweeg het om gewoon aan te hou ry

 

ons is die cadavre exquis, dit is ons droom: in polonaise verlaat

ons die brandende paleis, duik ons die water in met laventel tussen

die tande, styg ons uit die diepste weer op en lanseer ons onsself

soos ‘n vuurwerk deur die spuitgat van die wit walvis om daarna soos ʼn bruisfabriek

van geure bo die oseane te sweef indigo ligroos geel grasgroen rooi

dit is die droom

 

daar is diegene wat tot rus kom by die gezoem van die magnetron, daar is diegene

wat seesiek word by die gedagte aan ‘n lekkende kraan, daar is diegene wat

swem in haaivinsop om gevaar te bowe te kom, daar is diegene wat

jou blomme skenk en jou daarna te lyf gaan met die vaas, daar is diegene

wie se regterhand lid is van ‘n selfhelpgroep, daar is diegene wat as kleingeld

dien vir haremlose manne, daar is diegene wie se lieflingsdiere getekende

diere is, daar is diegene wat sê dat ʼn melaatse beskou kan word as ʼn heilige

maar ook as ‘n legkaart van 1000 stukkies, daar is diegene wat glo dat alles

beter word deur die lees van boeke met titels soos die wonderbaarlike

facelift en 99 ander moderne mirakels, daar is diegene wat leef volgens die leuse

the groove is on the move & die wêreld draai rond & stuur tog groete

aan jou katelwonde, daar is diegene wat ‘n bekerhouer op ‘n kanon vasmaak

om met die terugslag na die skoot bierskuim te kan kry

daar is diegene wat van koerasie smulgeluide begin maak,

daar is diegene wat opgetjaarts word deur geriatriese divas, daar is diegene

wat beweer dat oordaad baat, daar is diegene wat kug

totdat hul derms soos ‘n lasso uit hul bekke vlieg, daar is diegene wat sê

liefde is om totaal futlose weerstand te bied, daar is diegene wat bid vir

die heil van die wêreld, daar is diegene wat bid vir ‘n goed funksionerende

maagklep, daar is diegene wat hul deur botox laat inpomp met ʼn tuinslang

en daar is diegene wat ure lank jou knaend kan beklets sonder om iets sinvol te sê

terwyl jy eintlik dringend op pad moet wees maar na wie jy tog bly luister

uit simpatie of ter wille van ‘n sekere vorm van medelye want nie selde

betrek dit op sosiaal geïsoleerdes nie en omdat jy dink dat dit uiteindelik wel êrens

heen sal lei bly jy kalm, maar tog blyk dit op die einde altyd weer

dat daar geen punt is aan hul verhaal nie, geen einde, geen boodskap, nada, niks

slegs verlore tyd, daaroor spreek ons geen oordeel uit nie, maar as ons ewenwel

mag saamvat, ons bedoel gewoon, ons wil maar net sê, nooit

word ons êrens uitgenooi en as mense ons wel ʼn keer vra dan gaan ons nie

 

Vertaling van die gedig NOOIT WORDEN WIJ ERGENS UITGENODIGD

deur Andy Fierens

(Vert. Francois Le Roux, 2012)

 

Andy Fierens Andy Fierens is dichter en performer. Zijn hilarische en genadeloze teksten, zijn voordracht hamerend als het ritme van een repeteergeweer, hebben cultstatus van België tot Japan.   Hij bezit het brulgehalte van Johnny The Selfkicker, de absurde levensvisie van Gust Gils en de punk power van John Cooper Clarke. Zowel solo als met zijn groep Andy & the Androids overrompelt hij de toeschouwer met zijn verbale oerkracht. Zijn bundel ‘Grote Smerige Vlinder’ werd bekroond met de Herman de Coninckprijs voor het Beste Debuut. Uit het juryverslag: ‘Potige testosteronpoëzie van een dichter die wijdbeens in het leven staat en met een glimlach in de klerezooi stapt.’ Romantiek op zijn Fierens’. Dichter zonder vrees!

 

 

Marlene van Niekerk - vertaal deur/translated by the author & Tony & Gisela Ullyatt

 

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)

 H.J. (Henning) Pieterse - vertaal deur/ translated by Leon de Kock  

 

 

 

Arabesque

 

The desert landscape of your back

is whimsical, like September.

 

My fingers hesitate on the brink,

buck arriving at water.

 

At oases you stir up the air,

oases that disappear again.

 

For yet another night

the fog preserves you.

 

You dream like a Moorish tower

alone against the sky.

 

Your voice is dust in the passageways;

are you waiting for a cry from the mosque?

 

My thoughts circle you

like doves a minaret.

 

Always you return, return

to the dunes of your youth.

 

My voice doesn’t know you.

All music sinks into silence.

 

The passages to the square

are still

 

and you melt into the dunes,

whimsical, like September.

 

(From: Alruin, HAUM-Literêr, 1989)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

Wing

 

It was freezing cold in the Free State.

Under grey air, next to a ditch of dull water

I found the last, kicking African coot;

one wing and a paw crushed by my trap.

 

I carried him home, tried to keep him warm,

fed him maize; he wanted nothing of it.

He pecked halfheartedly and, with a webbed claw

scraped at my begging hands.

 

For two whole days I sat and looked

at the strange wildness in his eyes.

His agitated heart felt odd under my hand,

until a pall spread across his sight.

 

In the grey time just after midnight

wind now rattles down the chimney.

From behind icy clouds around a lost moon

gusts of rain fly up against my windows.

 

I must still get used to your body,

you murmer, tired and ruffled here next to me.

Your head is half-hidden under my shoulder;

with a hand you try to still my strange heartbeat.

 

Before the membranes of sleep stretch too far,

I clamp your twitching heart in my mouth.

You rub warm my knobbed wing, my whole back,

and wonder which of us will want to flee first with the flock.

 

(From: Die Burg van Hertog Bloubaard, Tafelberg, 2000)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

The second-last day

 

You walk quietly alongside me. Clouds hang too low

over the water. You ask about the spume,

about far-off dark spots, the sea’s special tune

today. I can hear how the gulls chase their shadows.

 

Quickly you walk ahead of me; your tracks disappear

before the sand sucks them in. I feel something scream.

Sea bamboo that tossed its hair in currents

now lies washed up, here, stinking like a corpse.

 

Octopus remains, rotten fish-heads give you pause.

Then you flick your hair back over your shoulder

in front of me. Suddenly it is dark, and colder

in a spot of sun than it was, earlier, beneath the rocks.

 

You are coming after me, your eyes already crook.

I suspect your shadow steps; I am too afraid to look.

 

(From: Die Burg van Hertog Bloubaard, Tafelberg, 2000)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

Translator:

 

Leon de Kock is a writer, translator and scholar. He has published three volumes of poetry in English (Bloodsong, 1997, gone to the edges, 2006, and Bodyhood, 2010), a novel in 2011 and several works of literary translation, including the novel Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk and a collection of poems, Intimately Absent (Intieme Afwesige) by Cas Vos. Translations of Etienne van  Heerden’s novel, In Stede van die Liefde, and Vos’s Duskant die Donker (Before it Darkens; selected poems) are forthcoming. De Kock holds a chair of English at the University of Stellenbosch.

N.P. van Wyk Louw (1906-1970) - vertaal deur/translated by Ilze Gertenbach & Charl J.F. Cilliers

 

To A Urologist

 

Doctor, by courier I send again:

this fruit, fine-pressed and fair,

sifted from dark flesh: from air

distilled and cherry juice and grain.

In your flask let my scant scourings

not mingle with those sun-drunk things.

 

(Translated by Charl J.F. Cilliers)

 

 

 

Barriers

 

 Without hesitation, my naked soul will

 come to you in its simplicity,

 as from the depths of sleep our dreams,

 as against the light of dusk the trees

 reach for the cerulean moon;

 

 come with all its dark urges,

 and say the holy, unheard of

 things that people are so

 hesitant about, that waver at the edge

 of my mystic words.

 

(Translation of Grense N.P. van Wyk Louw (1906-1970,

By Ilze Gertenbach)

Ilse van Staden - vertaal deur/ translated by Charl JF Cilliers

 

Ilse van Staden was born in Pretoria in 1972, but grew up in the Waterberg in the Limpopo Province. She matriculated at Pro Arte High School (Pretoria) and studied veterinary science at the University of Pretoria. From 1997 to 2005 she was a full-time veterinary surgeon. Subsequently she has been a part-time vet and a part-time writer. Her first volume of poems Watervlerk (2003) won the Eugene Marais and Ingrid Jonker prizes. She completed her B.A. degree in Creative Writing through the University of South Africa. In 2008 Lapa published her second volume of poems Fluisterklip.  In 2009 Pandora Books published Die dood is ‘n mooi blou blom for the author as a bibliophile edition.

 

 

They Say It Is Raining

 

They say it is raining

cats and dogs and tadpoles with toes               

and in the rain gauge mosquito larvae drown

dreaming of drier things,

flat rock-hollows overflow,

empty out of birds

that bewilderedly bathe in droplets from branches -

incessantly

it rains

between clusters of termites and reeds

mired in the clay of broader streams,

water clogs the low-water bridges                               

because the farmers prayed too hard this time

and somewhere a blue tractor sinks

up to its wheels into the fields

like lungfish in the mud when it was dry -

it is raining, they say

and toddlers already know

about crossing t’s and dotting i’s

like droplets

around rainbows.

 

(From:Watervlerk,Tafelberg, 2003)

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

Death Is An Illusion

 

There is no other side,

just here

and these words against the wall

with windows of our daring or faith.

As if behind a window pane                               

a landscape of illusions grew

while we peered and wondered

(for wondering can be belief)

is eternity always this

imagined external view?

 

(From:Watervlerk,Tafelberg, 2003)

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

Gasp

 

The silence that now often fills

the horizons where my landscapes lie,

the cough that hovers in a throat’s phlegmatic trough,

at times the dragging feet of an aimless wind:

 

my stony breath is spent.

 

With time spaces fill up with dripping limestone,

in hidden corners sheltered sounds that slowly calcify.

I gasp for air too rarefied to breathe,

petrified rhymes whisper in my head.                                 

 

My throat comes caving in.

Somewhere a word turned to stone.                                  

 

(From: Fluisterklip, LAPA, 2008)

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

come

 

come chickens, come angels

sleep in the niches of the morning

sleep the sleep of the dead

in cages, on roof ridges

in shelters, in block houses

breathe through embrasures as if through spiracles,

the way that winged creatures breathe

in the evanescence of time’s passing

in passageways, in graves

 

come chickens, come angels

sleep death’s sleep like a morning dream.

 

(From: Die dood is ‘n mooi blou blom (Pandora Boeke, 2009)

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers)

Translator:

 

Charl JF Cilliers  was born in 1941 in Cape Town. Initially he went into the field of electronics and lectured for 4 years. He then joined Parliament as a translator in 1968 and retired in 1998 as Editor of Hansard. His first volume of poems West-Falling Light appeared in 1971, to be followed by Has Winter No Wisdom in 1978. His Collected Poems 1960 - 2008 appeared in 2008 and The Journey in 2010. His latest volume of poetry , A momentary stay.  was published in 2011. He also published a volume of children’s poems, Fireflies Facing The Moon, in 2008. He has retired to the Cape West Coast where he continues to write.

Danie Marais - translated by/vertaal deur Richard Jürgens, Charl JF Cilliers & the author.

 

Danie Marais was born in Kimberley in 1971, went to school in Pretoria and obtained a B.Com degree with legal subjects at Stellenbosch University in 1993. He furthered his studies in the field of education at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, with German, mathematics and philosophy as majors. At present he lives in Stellenbosch and works as a freelance journalist and writer. Marais writes a regular rock column for Beeld and Die Burger newspapers. He is a scriptwriter for Binneland sub judice. In 2007 he participated in Poetry International in Rotterdam and was included in the Dutch anthology Hotel Parnassus:Poezie van dichters uit de hele wereld. For his first volume of poems, In die buitenste ruimte (2006), he received the Ingrid Jonker, Eugene Marais and UJ-debuut prizes. His second volume, Al is die maan ‘n misverstand, was published by Tafelberg in 2009. He also compiled an anthology, As almal ver is: Suid-Afrikaners skryf huis toe, for Tafelberg in 2009, a collection of essays, letters, short stories and strips about the experiences involved in emigration and/or living abroad. In March 2010 Tafelberg published Nuwe stemme 4, an anthology of poems of promising but hitherto unpublished poets which Marais compiled in collaboration with Ronel de Goede.

 

Cheers!   

 

The world is everything
that is the case
Wittgenstein said.
Everything, however,
rubbed me wrong for years
I clenched my black heart
childlike for revolution my teeth
on edge for another world.

But on this hazy summer day
with the city washed up
jetsam against Table Mountain covered
in scars my cup runs over I toast:
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
and The Story of an African Farm
from an attic window in Woodstock.
For, oh, this deluded world with its petty wars
Cape Minstrel choirs and mountain fires this ocean
we have ploughed this dashed world is
my home with its
Grapes of Wrath its Rain Dogs its mutts
barking at the gates of paradise its
Madame Bovarys and bergies riding
bluetrain spirits horrors high, yes, only this world
gives us
a perverse masterpiece
our daily bread -
the great unholy mass clouding
the sun.

 

(Uncollected. Tr. by the author, 2012)

 

The Earth Slips Blue

 

Once the outermost darkness of space

comes to admire itself

here within

blackness of desire

surrounds the white moon still

 

When deepest indifference at last

recognises itself in the mirror

the earth slips blue, falls free -

twirls softly through the  void

in the oil of the all 

 

(From : Al is die maan ‘n misverstand, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. By Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

Overnight

 

Everywhere it is the same -

the sea washes in,

the sea washes out,

disappears in the sand.

The sun does not ask why,

nor does the moon venture a reply.

And surely that’s not what you write a poem about.

 

But then something else happens, suddenly overnight,

and you wake with  shoes of lead

hands flimsy as breath,

a feeling that slowly looms up

around you like a cemetery

in the soft rain.

 

Sometimes I think you and I

can save each other from this;

defy gravity, the passage of death,

but already we are two old trees

divided by a quiet stream.

 

And I see the seasons

marching through you

and my leaves stir in the breeze 

and my words fall

into the slow water

drifting to the sea.

 

—–

 

I read this poem to you

as you take your seat with a cup

of tea in front of the computer.

I said I wrote it last night

while you were sleeping.

 

You  say nothing at first;

just look at me

with an unfathomable mixture

of understanding and irritation

before you ask:

“What would you do if something bad

really happened to you?

What would you do, say,

if someone close to you died?

Are you already rehearsing for the pain? “ 

 

(From: Al is die maan ‘n misverstand, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. By Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

Christmas Eve in the Medi-Clinic

 

Death sometimes flings a stone through the window pane

just to wake up the people in a quiet house:

 

On Christmas Eve my father’s face turned ashen

close to the braaivleis coals;

he struggled to climb the stairs,

and went to lie down.

When he woke up

his pulse was out of control.

 

At the Medi-Clinic a doctor said

he should spend the night in the hospital.

Perhaps a mild heart attack.

My sister was in tears -

she said that a large, fatal heart attack

often followed on a mild one,

and that, as usual, Dad always

worked too hard.

 

By my father’s bedside in the Medi-Clinic

all this sounded absurd.

His shirt was unbuttoned,

with two EKG pads nestling amongst his chest hairs;

but he looked fit and healthy.

He spoke calmly to me.

Said retiring far from doctors in a small coastal town

was not a good idea.

Here there was proper care…

 

That my father’s heart was a muscle

that could give out

seemed unlikely.

My father was 62, but looked 50.

Was only off sick for two days while at school.

Had hardly missed a day at the office.

He was an engineer who built, maintained and managed things.

Someone who made things work,

and a gentleman.

I cannot remember

him ever, in public,

being petty, mean or rude to anyone.

 

When, at the age of 18, I left home

I had no time for people

who did their bit for a rotten society.

Becoming a gentleman was not my goal.

My father and I had a symbiotic relationship -

he built windmills,

I tilted at them.

 

Now I stand before my father’s life

like a heathen with a camera

at the gates of Mecca -

speechless at the faith and perseverance

that built these walls.

 

That all is vanity is not exactly a new idea.

To write this down a thousand different ways

is surely no more meaningful

than mending a leaking tap.

 

In the Medi-Clinic

I tried to tell my Dad

with words and sign language

that I admire him,

even though he does not actually read books;

that I love him:

and thank you

for the windmills and everything.

 

He answered, but did not look at me:

“I only did what grandpa Danie also did.

It actually goes without saying.”

His one hand on his stomach appeared resigned

when he turned to me and tried to smile reassuringly.

He said don’t keep the others

waiting any longer.

The grandchildren wanted their presents.

He was okay.

 

Grandpa Danie’s fear of hospitals was childlike,

but I took my leave of my father obediently

on Christmas Eve in the Medi-Clinic.

 

On my way home in his silent, silver car

I realized what it meant

to squander your life.

I sailed through 35 years

like a surfer heading for the sea

through the Great Karoo, Dad.

Like the black ball on a snooker table,

unerringly I swish my way across the green baize

heading for the last pocket.

And yet there is still nothing

I want to build or manage; nothing

I can fix.

But I’m asking, like everyone else,

for more, Dad,

more windmills and everything.

 

(From : Al is die maan ‘n misverstand, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. By Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

The Night I Became We

 

Your father, dear Lea Cecilia, is a man

who tries to talk and gesture

himself through life.

But the first time you

came wriggling in my arms

and lay there, you lulled me

like a dummy,

dwarfing the world around us.

 

Your tiny heels

soft as cheeks

left me speechless;

the miniatures of your mother’s long toes;

the useless little hands

trying to fidget in your mouth;

the small tuft of dark hair;

the sweet baby smell.

 

Your wandering eyes were two searchlights probing

the contours of my unfamiliar face.

 

A nurse whisked you off and weighed you,

made a note in a file,

secured a tag around each ankle

and showed them to me -

as if I would perhaps be in need of a label

to identify your whimperings and your toes

in future.

 

After that more things happened,

but they’ve grown vague.

 

I do know that I kissed your mother

before I dazedly wound my way home

in my father’s old motor car -

just before sunrise through the wintry grey

deserted streets of Cape Town:

a man with only one leg and one arm

on a crutch at the station;

two bergies on sidewalk mattresses

in Roodebloem Road below Jamaica Me Crazy;

mist over the harbour and dim lights:

my scanning eyes sliding

over the landscape failing

to find a resting place.

 

In our living room

needy Levinia meows.

On the yellow kitchen table Die Burger’s front page states:

“Foreigners flee from zenophobic thugs -

Rasool has plan to restore order.”

In a photo a policeman with a big gun tries to protect

the foreigners’ meager possessions on a bakkie

against the onslaught of the seething masses.

 

A few tears would be the least I could do,

but for new people the world is a very strange sight.

When a new-born baby cries, there are no tears flowing yet.

 

(From : Al is die maan ‘n misverstand, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. By Charl JF Cilliers)

 

 

What Bad Poems Know

Poetry makes nothing happen - W.H. Auden

 

Why then does bad poetry so immeasurably depress me?

 

Previously I hoped

it was because bad poems were lies

which, like golden sandals,

made desire obscene.

I thought it was the tacky, predictable despair

the Highveld Stereo passion

the emotional pornography

the infantile word games

the lame forced rhymes and paraplegic rhyming couplets

the zombie-hallelujahs

the creepy intimacy and wet kisses

the clueless disappointment

the hang-tit outpourings in clouds of suffocating perfume

the unpolished cries of distress

the suicide notes riddled with spelling mistakes

the illiterate arrogance

the bumbling pretentiousness

the self-conscious honesty

the tedious nightmares

the macho self-pity

the unmagical realism

the suburban surrealism

the perpetual arse-licking of the deaf-mute Muse

the arsenic poeticas

the feigned concern for nature

the small-minded political pontification …

 

But all that is secondary -

it’s the unmistakable truth in bad poetry

that gets me down.

 

A good poem is the mock sun, the lie.

The world is made with shitty style and hollow rhetoric -

life is the rerun of a soapie,

death a mere formality.

 

Good poems are the headlights

that fatally blind you,

because there is a murderous hack

behind the wheel of this twelve-ton cliché.

 

(Unpublished)

(Tr. By Charl JF Cilliers)

 

Translator:

 

Charl JF Cilliers  was born in 1941 in Cape Town. Initially he went into the field of electronics and lectured for 4 years. He then joined Parliament as a translator in 1968 and retired in 1998 as Editor of Hansard. His first volume of poems West-Falling Light appeared in 1971, to be followed by Has Winter No Wisdom in 1978. His Collected Poems 1960 - 2008 appeared in 2008 and The Journey in 2010. His latest volume of poetry , A momentary stay.  was published in 2011. He also published a volume of children’s poems, Fireflies Facing The Moon, in 2008. He has retired to the Cape West Coast where he continues to write.

 

 *

Other poems published with the kind permission by Poetry International Web

 

Sometimes you meet someone

 

This morning I found our cat

blissfully curled up

in the washing basket.

A sleeping paw over her head,

two white back paws

completing the circle.

 

A cat is its own bed,

own house, party, religion, movement, union.

A cat is a perfectly incomprehensible word of fur.

 

People are not like this.

People are road signs on the bottom of an ocean

dreamed in words.

People are empty.

People are “For Sale”.

People are dead-end streets.

People take what they can take.

People flitter like moths around a long ago moon.

They can’t help themselves.

 

Cats come and live in people only

when they’re tired, thirsty or hungry.

 

People have been wondering for centuries about cats.

 

House cats eat their people

only when they are already dead.

 

Sometimes you meet someone who is just like a cat.

 

You find the meaning of your life

in the sound of her name.

You chase her perfume

hand-over-foot

but when you find her

her eyes change

your hands into silent prayers

your tongue into sand.

 

She disappears like darkness in the night.

 

All that remains

is the outline of an emptiness -

a ring of smoke

brown marbling on a piece of white paper

wedding ring in your drawer.

 

 

In the darkroom

 

I took photos of all the distant places

I’d been without you;

photos that would prove how complete

my life is without you.

I tried to smile

for the camera

like a man of the world -

certainly didn’t want to seem

like a guy who couldn’t survive

a couple of old kisses and a wasted opportunity.

But my photos from Norway, Greece and Thailand

didn’t develop into the pictures

I’d planned.

In the darkroom

your face appeared to me

over and over again.

The dripping skins that I hung out in a row

were the over-exposed images

of my life without you;

the photos I showed to people

bleached postcards

from my new life to you.

And yet I still hoped

the photos would persuade you.

 

They didn’t.

 

It’s a pity, you said, that I 

lead such a vicarious life in Europe.

The dictionary explains ‘vicarious’

as: ‘surrogate’, ‘indirect’, ‘second-hand’.

 

I disagreed with you vehemently,

said that only Tuaregs and Amazonian Indians

didn’t live a so-called ‘vicarious life’.

And when they sat around the camp fire and told stories

their lives were also indirect,

second-hand and surrogate,

I added.

 

But in the dark room

by the sleeping body of the woman

who I share my life with now

I know, as always,

exactly what you mean.

In the darkness

your words touch me

with soft eyes

again.

 

 

In Germany where the clouds march in single file

 

Germany is where the clouds

march in single file

where the sun has a permit to shine

where the moon may not stay up as late as she pleases.

 

Germany looks like Germany on television.

The only difference between Germany and television

is that something happens on television.

 

The criminals in Germany dream

of big guns

of America.

The thugs all have

hot water, electricity and medical insurance.

The criminals lead lives of quiet desperation

just like the teachers, butchers and accountants.

 

Germany is wealthy and fat

but anaemic and unwise.

 

In Germany

it is more difficult

to buy an environmentally unfriendly deodorant

than it is for an overweight teenage girl

to get into MTV heaven.

 

I suppose Germany is like everywhere -

the kind of place where you are scared

that The People will find you out,

that they will discover your hide-out,

switch off their TV sets

and escape from their talk shows

to come and get you

to groan and bang at your windows

on the fourth floor

like the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead”.

 

In Germany

you sow mealies

in the flower pots on the balcony.

In Germany

a sea of square houses turn blue in the twilight

when you hear far away voices on the telephone.

 

In Germany

you speak German like a German

until one morning you struggle again

to pronounce “selbstverständlich”

like someone with a mouth full of novocaine.

 

In Germany

your mother tongue is still your mother tongue.

In Germany

Afrikaans is the killer whale

you’re raising in the bath;

Afrikaans is the python curled up

under the fig tree in the living room.

Afrikaans becomes your house god, your altar,

the pot plant next to your CD-collection

that grows in the moonlight

like Audrey II in “The Little Shop of Horrors”

to cast long and scary shadows

over the rooftops of the neighbourhood.

 

In Germany

you walk

perfectly digitally animated

you take

without touching

you move

silently through people and walls

you slip

effortlessly like a voice through a telephone wire

straight through an indifferent day.

 

In Germany, South Africa

is no more and no less than memories and photos -

that old rugby injury you feel in your joints

when it’s cold and wet.

You are surprised to find yourself

choking back tears one day

next to the Cape grapes in the supermarket.

 

In Germany

even the grapes from Italy

remind you of home.

 

In Germany

you often dream

of family, old friends and long ago;

that someone dies

while you are still here far away.

 

In Germany you do

what you want to

whether you want to

or not.

 

 

At a sea green kitchen table somewhere

 

It’s you said and I said

at a sea green kitchen table

somewhere on the arsehole end of the world

once again.

 

And I say it’s South Africa,

it’s simply South Africa

that’s been driving me crazy

all these years.

I say I feel about South Africa

like Robert Lowell felt about a manic episode,

“an attack of pathological enthusiasm”.

To have lived with that savage beauty,

the sweet human persistence

and the consuming hopelessness

for twenty-two years

makes everything here

seem like much ado about nothing, indeed.

I say as Lowell said:

“to have known

the glory, violence and banality

of such an experience is corrupting”.

 

And you say,

blue eyes blazing,

that I have to stop stop stop

all my sweeping statements and grand gestures

that, oh, “Herr Gott weiß!”

I have to

fucking stop quoting things at you.

You say

that I ought to know

that I am not clinically depressed or something

as I seem to believe.

 

I have to finally realise

that I am actually just

a pathologically pathetic neurotic and hypochondriac

and that is why I always think

I’m going crazy or something.

 

You say

you often feel exactly as miserable

as I do, but you don’t

jump to the same conclusions

and you don’t mope and moan about it.

No, you get up

and try again

and you flap your arms wildly

and you spit and curse at the moon

and then you go on.

 

You don’t climb back into bed

to suck your sherbet childhood

like a baby sucks its thumb.

 

You say that I’m mainly

“theatralisch” and melodramatic

and full of shit.

 

And I take a deep breath

and I say

fuck you fuck you fuck you

you can’t call me a drama queen!

 

I say it’s you only you -

you you are

too stubborn and scared to admit

that you too are lost;

that your heart paces your rib cage

like a grizzly bear

when you say “Guten Morgen”

to the secretary.

 

I say it’s you,

you’re the one who’s convinced

that you’re going to turn into a pillar of salt

if you’d turn around

once

to look your sad animal helplessness

in the eye.

 

I say don’t you dare

ever call me theatrical and melodramatic again.

I hear you play Chopin.

I have seen you weep Schubert

when your fingers run away with you

across the keys.

 

I say

to die little by little

bit by bit

is only natural, “Schatzi!”

 

I say

I want to say

 

when I notice how suddenly

silent and wide-eyed you’ve become;

when I see

how a reluctant tear

slowly rolls down your cheek

as you get up

and disappear into the bedroom.

 

Leaving me

at a small sea green kitchen table somewhere

on the bruised end of our stubborn love.

 

Leaving me to think how I

suddenly how I love you again.

 

I know you would have

played piano,

if I hadn’t said those things

about Schubert and Chopin.

 

I sit and wonder

about melodrama and theatrics.

 

Sit and wish

that I could tell you

how truly sorry I am;

sit and wish

that I could make you see

how nostalgia is eating my mind alive

how I bellow for love

while you sleep like a baby at night.

 

Like you

I can be no different.

 

© Translation: 2007, Richard Jürgens & Danie Marais
Publisher: Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, 2007

————————————-

Loftus Marais - vertaal deur/translated by Charl-Pierre Naudé, Charl JF Cilliers & the author

  

Loftus Marais was born in 1982. He grew up in Paarl and obtained an MA degree in Afrikaans Creative Writing (cum laude). His poems have appeared in Nuwe stemme 3, My ousie is ‘n blom and Tydskrif vir letterkunde.  His debut volume, Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, for which he received the Eugéne Marais Prize, the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize and the Ingrid Jonker Prize, appeared in 2008. At present he is working on a freelance basis.

 

 

 

 

LANDSCAPE WITH THUMBPRINT

 

as you back away from the window pane what is seen

is a painting, your thumbprint above the valley’s green:

it’s there, a runaway cloud or afternoon moon:

you watch your view’s altered pattern quickly pass

and landscape is once more just a pane of glass

 

(From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, Tafelberg, 2008]

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers]

 

 

ALSO WRITTEN IN THE CAPE

 

now this old prossie-transvestite checks her hair

in the bay’s antique mirror: cumulus chic

with a boeing for a hairpin, final touch

it’s done, she glitters with sequins

regardless of the time of day:

her windows in the morning’s tinsel

limo and ferrari lights at settling dusk

and the smooth diagonal design of her streets

in the spotlight of the moon

she writes her memoires, grand, with stone

as cornerstones, statues and monuments

and, ever the lady, tries to be poetic

even though she makes the past and present

more glamorous than they really are

we forgive her when she lets her mist-shawl

slip, and stands there: Lady Cape Town

floor-lit by the harbour

and then smiles that smile, with history as a backdrop

and moves and shimmers and seduces

but, oh, in some of her moves

you sometimes notice the masculine shoulders

no, not shoulders: the broad mountain of pure stone

 

(From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, Tafelberg, 2008]

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers]

 

 

BLUEGUM TREE

 

in a field outside malmesbury

like scarlett o’hara there stands a bluegum tree

on a hill - exotic vivien leigh

rustles her hair in the breeze

the contour’s diagonals

flatter her point of focus

in the predominant verticals

of the frame’s composition

thunderclouds mass behind her position

she waits for the swartland’s flash photography

for the rain’s applause, washing down her stark

colour-co-ordinated bark

and her branches where no jewels glow

for the rinsing away of the ants under her arms akimbo

 

(From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, Tafelberg, 2008]

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers]

 

 

KAROO COMPARISONS

 

drive in your car, look through the window:

stony ridges, sculptures of time’s flow

crude, abstract, by jackal-piss bushes tacked

together: farmsteads, sci-fi desolate

princedoms of the brothers of portly paunches:

a crow on a pole screams its primal fuck you

too: the wind’s musical chords on fence droppers ring their chimes:

grass tufts drum-brush jazzily under the car:

prickly pear bushes stand like comic mimes

and above all: afternoon with its bleached blue

dress of a poor housewife - then stop, climb out

in the veld, wide as truth, and stare:

wait: you will begin comparing only

with itself each thing that’s there.

 

(From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters, Tafelberg, 2008]

(Tr. by Charl JF Cilliers]

 

Translator:

Charl JF Cilliers  was born in 1941 in Cape Town. Initially he went into the field of electronics and lectured for 4 years. He then joined Parliament as a translator in 1968 and retired in 1998 as Editor of Hansard. His first volume of poems West-Falling Light appeared in 1971, to be followed by Has Winter No Wisdom in 1978. His Collected Poems 1960 - 2008 appeared in 2008 and The Journey in 2010. His latest volume of poetry , A momentary stay.  was published in 2011. He also published a volume of children’s poems, Fireflies Facing The Moon, in 2008. He has retired to the Cape West Coast where he continues to write.

 

*** 

 

Other poems published with the kind permission by Poetry International Web

After a grandiose exhibition

 

on my way home after a grandiose exhibition
I drive past
road painters at work
their municipal stripes of semi-mondrians
make for honest landscape art
after all the “art for art’s sake” I had to endure
(for god’s sake)
even rothko might have gleaned something
from this painter in his overall
kneeling with his brush
as he spreads his white and yellow and red
everybody knows precisely what that means
a worker waves his flag
the same red as unveiling curtains
gucci dresses and still-life apples
but it simply says wait
and I duly wait
and after a while I’m allowed to drive
home
as I find my way along a line
that brings back the vanishing point, every time

 

 

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

 

***

 

ALSO WRITTEN FOR THE CAPE

 

now this old tranny prossy checks her hair
in the antique mirror of the bay: cumulus chic
with a boeing for a hairpin, final touch
and dammit does she glitter in her sequins
no matter the time of day:
her windows in the morning’s tinsel
the lights of limos and ferraris at sundown
and the smooth diagonal design of her streets
in the spotlight of the moon
she writes her memoirs, grand, with rock
as corner stones, statues, monuments
and, ever the dame, tries to be poetic
even though she makes the past and present
more glamorous than it really is
we forgive her when she drops her shawl of fog
and stands: Lady Capetown
floor-lit by the harbour
smiling that smile, with history as a backdrop
and she moves and shimmers and seduces
but oh, in some of those moves
you can sometimes glimpse the manly shoulders
no, not shoulders: the broad mountain of pure pure rock

 

 

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

 

***

 

Night Film

 

a woman irons in front of a window
in her flat’s closed cube
battery lives, stooped, cooped

lamp light projects her onto the roof tiles
of the building opposite:
she’s ironing, enormously, gorgeously

 

 

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

 

***

 

Self-portraits in Spotless Contemporary Surfaces

 

the city turns me into my own objective correlative
the surfaces force me into reflection
deafen me, I only watch, I stare at myself:
I’m functional on toasters, microwave ovens
kettles of stainless steel
I’m framed by the portholes of washing machines
sometimes even in the secretive gleaming of door handles
and the darkness of tv screens that mirror when they’re off
I’m epic in the panoramas of long sliding doors
my face wobbles over the glass of sedans
I sell myself to myself in the windows of shops
always among the narcissi when in front of the florist
I multiply alone through the geometry of the city
I flash schizophrenically in revolving doors, I look at:
low-angle shots of myself on the marble floors of lobbies
the city will echo softly but display
my facets in all the tints of unlyrical grey

 

 

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

 

***

 

Still Life With Wild Life

 

here everyone’s asleep. karen’s husband too,
who cut the grass today.
but karen is an insomniac tonight
in her tasteful nightgown in front of the box:
some david attenborough special.
antelopes ripped apart by lions.
zebras copulating.
a fly disappearing into a poisonous flower.
she takes a sip of warm milk, puts her glass
down on a coaster, watches on.
outside in silence the grass is growing

 

 

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

Charl JF Cilliers - vertaal in Afrikaans deur die outeur

 

Tuisdorp

 

In hierdie vyftigste groen somer

van sy liefde hoor hy

die wind se verwarrende stemme

soos díe van dooies. Hy het teruggekeer

na die dorp wat hy in sy jeug verlaat het

soveel drome gelede.

 

Hy sien die son se pleisterwerk-

kolle teen die ou sementmure.

Die rivier wat al hygend verby die ou skool sypel

nader en nader aan sy modderige stilte

ver van die see.

 

Onder hierdie boom waar hy

verse onder sy vingers sien

gedy het, fladder blaaie

van ‘n padkaart soos blare wat val.

 

As kind het hy altyd hier gesit, alleen,

net buite die dorp, op hierdie mylpaal,

met oë stip op die pad wat oor heuwels verdwyn.

 

Nou gatvol en amper vyftig winters oud

skuif hy al mompelend ongemaklik rond:

wetende hy het dit alles te lief

om ooit terug te keer.

 

[Gedig uit: West-Falling Light, Charl JF Cilliers, Tafelberg, 1971]

 

 

Karoo

 

So ‘n geringe tyd

om alles lief te hê

 

O

Karoo

met jou veld

se maanlose klanke

 

 

(© Vertaal deur Charl J.F. Cilliers)

Uit: Collected Poems 1960 - 2008, 2008 (Malgas-uitgewers).

MM Walters - vertaal deur/translated by Michiel Heyns 

 

M.M. Walters was born in 1930 in Moorreesburg, and matriculated at the Hoër Jongenskool, Wellington. He studied at the Universities of Cape Town and South Africa, and lectured in Afrikaans and Dutch at the Training Colleges of Graaff Reinet and Paarl, and also at the University of Cape Town. Walters lives in Simonstown. His first poems were published in Standpunte and were later collected in the volume Cabala, for which he received the Eugéne Marais, Ingrid Jonker and W.A.Hofmeyr prizes. This was followed by five more collections, of which the most recent was Satan ter Sprake. Walters has published several dramas and satirical essays. Apart from translations from Virgil, Walters has also published Shi-Ching Liedereboek (2003), a selection from the body of Chinese poetry, and Aki no kure: Herfsskemering (2006), from the Japanese. Walters has also published three coffee-table books containing poems and photos of the Swartland and West Coast regions. A new volume of poetry, Braille-briewe, appeared in 2011. (Protea Bookhouse) 

 

 

SHOW                                                                                                             

 

Just see the mares strut their stuff

with silk-cut mane and sickle neck,

the chest swells tight against the stays -

with foamwhite mouth they tease and trick.                     

 

Those who can, show good strong teeth,

well-formed flank and playful rump,

but remain remote and self-possessed

knowing how they cause the blood to pump.

 

Older ladies with thicker thighs

still try to tripple the same brisk trot

and sway their stouter mass with skill

to show the stallion the iron is hot.

 

(From: Cabala, Nasionale Boekhandel, 1967)

(Tr. by Michiel Heyns)

 

 

CHURCH CHOIR                                                                 

 

With pent up breath they stand and hearken

like hounds alert before the hunt -
impatient, for they know the strains,
but never ever jump the gun.
The sour-faced sopranos scoop the note
with powerful opening of the chest,
lips pursed like buglers on parade.

The organist’s little tremolos of fat
bulge and burble con fuoco
as she spreads herself over the keys.
Well-fed Mara shuts her eyes
to fetch a note from in her womb,
tremor upon tremor the tremolo trills

across the throat and rills

of blubber round the rump.

The stout old basses barrel the breast
filled to bursting with hot breath,
the beardless little basses push the chins
tight into the chest in proud belief
that they’re the ones who shake the church.

The baritones thrum up a virile vibe con brio,

stud stallions in fine fettle,
champing now to show their mettle.
The altos drone a low continuo,

a hive of bees at first adagio,
then pick up the pace and there they go,

till at last they all crescendo rinforzando,
simultaneously:  hallelujah, hallelujah - brazenly,

for all the clamorous caterwaul

proclaims the greater glory of the Lord.

 

(From: Cabala, Nasionale Boekhandel, 1967)

(Tr. by Michiel Heyns)

 

 

HERETIC                                                                                     

 

Last night I stood before His judgment throne
and heard Him say: what right has this proud soul
who will not kneel and pay my humble toll
to aspire unto my heavenly home?

And a thousand voices cried: Confess, confess
to Him who bears the brunt of all our sin.

If you but humbly pardon ask of Him,

He will wash you and your wrongs redress.

 

My sole reply was that my knee
can bend for neither God nor man.

May others inherit the promised boon.

To trust in baseless hope is not for me -

my burdens I’ll bear alone, as I can,

and sin-stained and upright, die alone.

 

(From: Cabala, Nasionale Boekhandel, 1967)

(Tr. by Michiel Heyns)

Translator:

 

Michiel Heyns grew up in various towns and cities all over South Africa, and studied at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cambridge. He lectured in English at the University of Stellenbosch until 2003, when he took retirement to write full-time. Apart from a book on the nineteenth-century novel and many critical essays, one of which won the English Academy’s Thomas Pringle Award for Criticism, he has published four novels: The Children’s Day, The Reluctant Passenger, The Typewriter’s Tale and Bodies Politic (a fifth, Lost Ground, is due out in 2011). He translated Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat, which won the 2007 Sunday Times Fiction Award. For this translation he was awarded the English Academy’s Sol Plaatje Prize for Translation 2008 and the South African Institute of Translators’ Award for Literary Translation. His translations of Etienne van Heerden’s 30 Nagte in Amsterdam and Chris Barnard’s Boendoe were published in 2011. He reviews books for the South African Sunday Independent, and was awarded the English Academy’s Thomas Pringle Award for Reviewing in 2006 and again in 2010. 

Marlise Joubert - vertaal deur/translated by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt, Pierre du Preez, Leon de Kock, Jacques Coetzee, marcelle olivier, Charl-Pierre Naudé, & Martjie Bosman.

Marlise Joubert was born in Elim, Limpopo, South Africa. She grew up in Warmbaths [also known as Bela Bela] and has degrees in Librarianship and a BA Honours in Philosophy. After her studies, she worked as a journalist and librarian, including sixteen years at the Fine Arts Department Library of Stellenbosch University. From 2001, she worked for several years in the Protea Book Shop as an accountant and web designer.

Marlise is now a fulltime writer and painter. Her last exhibition of watercolour paintings, Wat die water onthou (What water remembers) took place in 2008 at the Absa KKNK in Oudtshoorn. She and her husband, Louis Esterhuizen, started the popular Afrikaans poetry website, Versindaba. She was the editor of four volumes of poetry containing work of all the poets participating in the yearly Versindaba poetry festivals in Stellenbosch. Her first volume of poetry was published in 1970. Her seventh volume of poetry: splintervlerk was published by Protea Boekhuis in 2011. She is also the author of three novels, of which the first, Klipkus, (Tafelberg, 1978) was translated by Ena Jansen into Dutch as Rode granaat (Anthos, 1981). She has received several awards for her radio dramas.

 

 

archaeologist

 

you walk against the ox red dusk

the wild dogs with you  

you sleep in your tent beside the hippos

that gently munch every tuft of grass each night

or perhaps a puku stirring

                                   past the reeds

where danger might skulk

 

your journey is in Zambia’s footsteps

pushing out along the Luangwa River

on the banks of a lake

on the dirt road of a reserve

 

by day your fingers play in the dust

brush away the earth with little brooms

revealing within markers the cracks of a time

when clay was still stories                     

and you can unravel only shards here or later

for posterity

pegged down in dissertations and museum spaces

 

child, you are a guileless archeologist

gorgeously alive in a safari suit

hesitant with your small hands

clad in soft suede

 

to here

where all your years lie swept in

between fragments

of memory             under the skull         

of my prehistoric heart

 

(From: passies en passasies, Protea Boekhuis, 2007)

(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)

 

 

the language of stone

 

1

 

whatever you read in rock carvings

paper or stone accumulates

not in years, but in weight

 

not the weight of a body

but the weight of history

 

with volumes I grow deeper into you

without which I cannot breathe

 

2

 

I live in sleep’s stone language

in the earth and build a house

with all the words that you read

 

then cut the vein of a river in two

to become as we are

to become as we ought to be

 

when I got up I also remembered

that words can remember

no more than only the words

 

but your speech sounds like stone

rolling and sweeping all that lives before it

is the awakening of the land

 

and your voice breathes like something

in the weight of love or perhaps

in the mountain’s fold

 

and always devoted to blue

 

(From: passies en passasies, Protea Boekhuis, 2007)

(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)

 

 

blossom tongue

 

behind the easy chair

the irises still blooming

after four sterile days.

 

behind the vase of ribbed glass                              

cut-off arteries hang loose in the water.

 

behind purple butterflies bleeds the trauma

of a week ago, no, two or three

when purple forceps pinched my back,

rupturing the rotten cartilage like a nut -

bruising the jellied tissue soft as saffron

and snapping the orange stamen

of braided nerves.

 

behind the chair,

incessant and fervent,

with purple-spittled tongues

the irises bloom

 

before the sun squanders the crescent moon

and the stars’ firmament in perfect equilibrium

ligament by ligament

 

(From: splintervlerk, Protea Boekhuis, 2011)

(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)

 

 

to account for you

 

how could you already walk so ploddingly

on the stilts of your forefathers

how then could your hands grab shakily

at the sunflower in the backyard

 

child how can I rip you loose

from the black pasts’ banners

or the brutal tides in a land

blinding your small heart

 

to account for you in a city

that will never preserve your name

in either peace or exultation

 

to account for you

in your house where bricks

surrender to the crumbling

of yet another couple

where electronic gates

appear to shut tight

against hands hardened around

cold fires and bullets

like dying stars

 

child to account for you

in a fenceless avenue

or explosions on freeways

is tiresome for my fingers

that have already come to know of dreams

ossifying like dismissive angels

 

how then should I pronounce you so that damage

dies timidly apart on a mine-dump

so that nothing slits the soles of your feet

never coming near the first words

of your defenceless tongue

 

how should I then write you up

so that the moon you so admire

 

always hangs its flaming blossom

over your face

 

(From: splintervlerk, Protea Boekhuis, 2011)

(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)

 

 

Eikendal Blues

 

i

the morning’s autumn chill is caught

on the cheek like soft glass

 

my beloved pulls on his gray jacket

my beloved covers his chest

with a black shirt

 

the sky crystal blue the mountains

stock-still mounds of rock

and a patina on yesterday’s fynbos

 

we traipse toward the vineyard

to relish a midday meal

at the Bayede restaurant -

Hail to the King on the edge

of a flayed season

 

soft shadows moving through the dale

and vineyards lift green cloaks

from apple-yellow shoulders

 

on another continent the leaves become

translucent lime-green

with defenceless nails they claw

against another nomadic spring

 

my love and I sit down at a rickety table

beside the smooth shield of a pond

eating mussels and codfish

while somewhere in the country

here and there the earth drowns in blood

 

Hail to the King and the enemy

can come let us await him

 

ii

suddenly the dam makes

an open eye stippled in the middle

with several pure white ducks

their bundled feathers tiny pillows of peace

 

on another continent

the first birds awaken now

 

I watch the ducks on the black pond

I try to become wise -

they do not ponder death

or tomorrow

they simply think of nothing

 

my love and I talk about dominant cultures

and the revolt of counter-cultures against them

 

while he looks at a young couple laughing

at tourists or waiters with plates

the unwearied play of children

in between gnarled oak trees

 

 

iii

I would want to erase thoughts

of our mournful mortality I would want to

become wise and free like the floating

ducks with breaths that can swim together

over the water’s dark cold

 

how smooth my beloved in his skin

how vivid the line of his neck

how fervent and timid the bow of his lip

 

on another journey the leaves begin to erupt

while the mountains arrange blue banners

not far above the yellowing vineyard and nothing

nothing mourns openly

on this day -

 

finches’ nests stir the wind on the banks

and the white eye on the pond

is swept unnoticed beneath

a willow tree

 

my beloved wears a black shirt

I must remember it just so -

behind him the restored white

back of a wine cellar and the colour

of autumn crystallising through

the thinning hair

 

on another continent the leaves

dazzle the horizon

 

Hail to the King

and the enemy can come -

 

we await him

 

(From: splintervlerk, Protea Boekhuis, 2011)

(Tr. by Tony & Gisela Ullyatt)

 

Translators:

Tony Ullyatt was born in Nottingham, and educated in India, Sudan, and Kenya before coming to do an undergraduate degree in English and French in Durban, South Africa. After finishing a Master’s degree in English at the University of Auckland, he wrote a PhD on American poetry at Unisa. He has further Master’s degrees in Psychology, Myth Studies, and Applied Language Studies. He also has a PhD in Myth Studies. He has won prizes for his radio drama and poetry as well as the FNB/Vita Award for Translation. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of the North-West’s Potchefstroom campus.

Gisela Ullyatt was born in Bloemfontein, where she studied at the University of the Free State. After completing an Honours degree and a Master’s degree in German, she finished a Master’s degree in English (Applied Language Studies) as well as a Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Her poetry has appeared in journals both locally and internationally, and she is a prize-winning short-story writer. Through the University of the North-West, she is currently working on a PhD which undertakes a Buddhist reading of Mary Oliver’s poetry.

 

***

Other translations from ”passies en passasies”, Marlise Joubert. Protea Bookhouse, 2007. 

 

Ballad for the lovers

 

(after reading Yehuda Amichai & based on the structure of

his poem “Ballad in the Streets of Buenos Aires)

 

And a man meets a woman late in his life

Battered and barren as the landscape

Wistful and white as the silence of siesta

 

And soon she shows him her hungry lips

And soon she shows him the rift in her heart

And gives him all her hours, desolate, eclipsed

 

And she lives in the dust of her humble possessions

And the rain welling up starts there in her eyes

And he decides to be tender

 

And she knows the conversation between tablecloth and cutlery

And the knife and the fork of so many years

But, by degrees, he takes the hilt in his hand

 

And his hair grows long like verses, and soft like hers, like hair

And his words thread through hers with quiet and longing

And becomes whole in the outcry of her body

 

And blindly they walk towards the blush of the summer

And the words become flesh, as a valley thicks with fruit

And the impatience of seasons turns them into lovers

 

And he will have her seated at table in the days to come

And he will tempt her with new dishes and cutlery

And blend the candlelight with adagios, and jazz

 

And still they will be there when autumn crumbles

And there they will be when all time ceases

And there they will be for the linen-white shrouding

 

And she will enfold the sighs of his poems in her flesh

And also the knife and the fork of eternal togetherness

And they will enjoy the words that became bread

Like bread they will keep feasting each other, and propogate

Because he decided upon tenderness

 

[co. translation: marcelle olivier]

 

Milkwood Beach

dunes put their bristly heads together.
listen listen to the clamour and soughing
of waves churned into milky streaks.

seabirds swerve to evade the wind
beating wings against the summery spray.
indiscernibly the dunes move their hips away.

from the distant swirling fog break free
vaporous joggers riders on their horses.
and all become a gallop across the beach against a sun

sinking his burning ship into fathomless waters.
gold turns the grey to a yoghurty cloud of rose-quartz.
a dog drags a seaweed limb across the sand.

to the left Table Mountain rises like a castle
from the encircling channels full of drifting smoke.
to the right stands Koeberg quietly nuclear
atoms singing unheard into the atmosphere.

facing a wide house shoots of maize thrust upward
from the patch of unduned sand.
the scorched leaves soon resemble sun-dried fish.

a housewife picks long-fingers of green beans
grills the Sunday yellow-tailed cod with lemon juice
laughs and drinks her peachy sparkling wine.

I stare at hazy figures dawdling peacefully with
kids and dogs in the lukewarm dusk
spilling in profusion onto homes already lit. another stallion
having rhythmically cantered through evaporates in cream.

windows and sliding doors stare back with dull
glassy eyes. the drone of a boat
fades. two small chairs are being folded up.

Koeberg is split darkly against the moon.

lovers embrace then tear apart.

in Table Mountain’s castle
someone is blowing out the candles.

[Translation: Pierre du Preez]

 

in memoriam: Lisbé

That’s when she stopped, she turned her face to the wind,
shut her eyes - Jorie Graham,
“Self-portrait as Apollo and Daphne”

steel needn’t have torn open her skimpy body
it was not necessary, such force hammering into her
repeatedly -
she’d already said her goodbyes, before entering the blood inferno
before the screwdriver hand of an intruder
threw her into water and fled

she’d already taken her leave before arriving back home
already greeted her children, in front of school
the colour of the boy’s shirt and the colour
of his watchful eyes
already straightened out her daughter’s gym-slip
against wear, such thin little shoulders
already taken a step back, into herself
into the cracked skull of a dream
a voice that would call
on the other side of the morning sun’s earthly cloak

she’d already died
when she greeted her husband at a station
taking him further along with nothing
but the weight of memories
of them
and especially of her
happiness balanced on a needlepoint
on every horizon glancing off the train window
the mountain growing bigger as it gets closer and her heart
so inexplicably light in his memory
the way breath rests on his tongue

her farewells already said
when she turned to go home
darkened in the last stillness of rest
without words without warning without any suspicion
far too early
the little communion
of her body
appallingly punctured

[translation: Leon de Kock]

 

woman in Afghanistan
after seeing the film Kandahar

the woman was on her way to Kandahar
the woman was on her way alone
in the sand in the dunes of blood
in the blood of the sun
to save her sister from suicide
before the coming of the great eclipse

alone on her way the woman was with her garment
a wave of blue a dissonant flag
across the yellow rivers of sand
etched against horizon upon horizon
like a person
with the shoulders of a woman
with the head of a woman
veiled against non-existence

the woman on her way to Kandahar
sways on the donkey-wagon
ignores the soldiers and landmines
the suffocating fire
listens fearlessly with her heart against a jar
sees men on crutches at the Red Cross Camp
hobble one-legged over a hill of stone
to be the first to grab the wooden legs
when they fall from the sky with parachutes

she gives her last money to a child
to take her to Kandahar
she refuses the gold ring which he
steals from a skeleton between sandbagged walls
and on the last day
just the other side of the last dune
in front of the yellow stone wall of Kandahar
in a procession of singers
and brides and wedding-guests
she is stopped by rebels
with the barrel of a gun against her cheek

she is pointed out as an unknown woman
uncovered behind her burka
by checkered shafts of light
she is turned away as the unwelcome one
who wanted to save her sister in Kandahar

before the coming of the eclipse
before her attempt at darkness
one sorrowful death too many in the sand
in the dunes of blood in the middle of the day
in the sunless night of Kandahar

[translation: Jacques Coetzee]

 

archaeologist

you walk at the hour of ox-red dusk
with the wild dogs
you sleep in your tent next to hippopotami
who noiselessly chew each blade of grass every night
or perhaps a buck that moves stealthily
past the bull-rushes
where danger might be lurking

your journey follows the footprints of Zambia
washed out by the Luangwa River
on the banks of a lake
in the dirt road of a reserve

by day your fingers play in the earth
sweep the ground away with little brushes
lay bare within boundaries the cracks of a time
when clay was still a story
and you can only decipher shards here or later
for future generations
enclosed in dissertations and museum halls

child, you are an artless archaeologist
lovely and alive in a safari suit
hesitant with your small hands
gloved in soft suede

until you come to this place
where all your years lie embedded
between shards
of memory underneath the skull
of my prehistoric heart

[translation: Jacques Coetzee]

 

 

horses

horses are sovereigns of summits
and the wheat crowns of dunes and fire steeples
horses are kings cloaked in blue
ocre almond dappling like grey
blacker than ovens whiter than talc
manes tangling in eddies of wind
horses are kings with high hats and hooves
hurtling over mountains rivers and reefs
savannah and cliffs and rifts with fervour
oh sovereigns of stone with
hooves draped in banners
drumming on amethyst amethyst
hooves in stone simbal
dolomite dolomite

ruby are the orbs of horses
ruby like stars against the dusk
where the dust-devil turns where sands
circle like powder into nothing

brown are the eyes of horses
brown like mould on mud
where the sun lies down softly
in pans of summer water

horses are sovereigns who snort and gallop
across town squares and plateaus of people
horses carry cargo of children and noble riders
or clutches of old folk like huts on the back
horses neigh alone and rapt among rhythms of trees

horses are fish in fata morganas
swishing from the left and to the right
returning to the light as if gods
want to catch their heads in their nets
with hooves draped in banners
drumming drumming amethyst amethyst
hooves in stone simbals
dolomite dolomite

horses are princes decanting the galaxy
ash of the morning the tardy pace
horses are princes in a hand-held trot

with prancing muscles
dancing through the land
drumming drumming amethyst amethyst

horses are women who discover
secrets in the road
women with flanks that shimmer
in the sweat of day
camping among moons and in snow
in vapour and grass
lying down in a stable like a star in our pass

horses are kings and princes and fish and women
horses are more than salpetre of breath

[translation: Charl-Pierre Naudé]

 

 

Warnings

I have to warn you about the wind that moves
the wind that moves the hair of curtains
I have to warn you about the scattering of feathers
the guineafowls dropped in our yard
I have to warn you about the moles that gnaw
the juicy roots the moles who blindly whore around
in the burrows of ambrosia o I have to warn you
about the shells of stars that hang in trees
because they shine in vain

I have to warn you
against the moon’s misty eye
the sun’s creamy cheek against your face
I have to warn you about the lamb with its back turned on us
with its broken paw and woolly head turned to the stove

I have to warn you
about the lamb that flap its ears in the fan of air
about the dogs barking down the street as they hunt for food
in rubbish bins
about the black rags of birds on the washingline
I have to warn you about my little box of rose paper
with all my jewels the earrings the pendants
and the topaz rings

I have to warn you that all this means nothing to love
less than words less than water less than bread
because love only has eyes for each other
love is without glasses in each other
love is eyes blown against each other

love is without everything without
love is a pine forest
love is a heaving pine forest
where the woodcutter
incessantly cuts

I have to warn you

[translation: Martjie Bosman]

Marius Crous - vertaal deur / traduit par Pierre-Marie Finkelstein

 

impression

 

les barbares du cru passent la journée accroupis

devant les murs blancs de soleil

ils apprennent - outre le catéchisme

l’alphabet

les bases du calcul

l’hygiène intime

l’art de boutonner un chemisier

de repasser un pli de pantalon

de nouer des lacets de chaussures -

toutes choses pour eux infiniment étranges

et aussi à tendre la main

chaque fois que passe un étranger

 

la nuit les gens dorment les yeux ouverts

pour se protéger des regards cupides

qui transpercent leurs fenêtres

 

Titre original: indruk ; extrait de Brief uit die kolonies,

Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria 2003

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, avril 2011

 

 

prions ensemble

 

prions ensemble dans une langue

qui porte en elle le péché

des enfants torturés des femmes mutilées

des hommes mis à mort des disciples endoctrinés

une langue qui jamais n’a voulu amadouer

jamais du haut des chaires dans les amphithéâtres

les salles de classe les journaux

n’a voulu crier contre l’injustice

que cette langue soit purifiée

qu’elle devienne une langue de grâce

qu’elle devienne pure et nue

qu’elle parle de l’injustice d’une époque de crânes

qu’elle se libère telle une victime

attachée de force à une chaise

quelque part dans un immeuble de bureaux sombre

qu’après toutes ces années dieu

la comprenne à nouveau

 

Titre original: kom ons bid saam ; extrait de Brief uit die kolonies,

Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria 2003

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, avril 2011

 

lettres des colonies 

I

messieurs de la métropole

permettez-moi - moi qui jadis fus votre messager -

quelques mots      comme vous le voyez je manie la plume avec aisance

                                        ma langue s’est considérablement améliorée

                                        j’écris même sur les lignes    

                                        (la prochaine fois je vous le taperai à la machine)

messieurs

vous qui connaissez les parties de chasse

les domaines les antiques rituels pour chevaliers sans épée

dégustez des choux de bruxelles du saindoux des cuisses de grenouilles

rajoutez de la crème fouettée sur le gâteau à la crème

vous qui avez défriché le paysage à la machette

tracé sur une carte vos frontières

coupé une tribu en deux une rivière en trois offert une montagne

à l’empereur pour son anniversaire

mis à nu la forêt vierge construit des routes

qui mènent à vos palais situés au beau milieu d’un territoire tribal

des ports où vous avez chargé notre or emporté nos diamants

débarqué vos soldats afin qu’ils poursuivent leurs pillages plus au nord

 

nous avons eu c’est vrai une clinique ou deux - où nous avons le droit d’entrer par la porte de service -

des écoles pour apprendre votre Langue vos Beaux Atours vos Belles Manières

un magasin ou deux remplis d’étranges marchandises

 

nous avons dû cacher nos jeunes filles

comme gouvernantes domestiques bonnes d’enfants

une colonie à posséder entre leurs cuisses

nos fils chair à canon d’une guerre dont nous n’avions que faire

dans vos clubs et vos cafés

vous vous gaussez de nos lacunes

de notre ignorance des colonnes de chiffres des calculs des doubles comptes

de notre insolence idiote du viol de votre Langue

des routes des ponts qui s’effondrent des immeubles qui s’effritent

des mouches des ordures du délabrement

 

messieurs de la métropole

puissent vos noms vivre à jamais

souvenez-vous toujours -

sur les grandes places du monde

où coulent les fleuves sur les territoires des tribus, où flamboient les montagnes,

où des sorciers vêtus de parures conjurent les maladies,

où les femmes retournent la terre à mains nues pilent le maïs portent l’eau

où la lune indique le chemin qui mène au grand sommeil,

où les insectes disent la volonté des dieux

- aucun dieu marin à trois têtes ne nous effraie

aucun ne nous menace du puits de soufre dans les nuages -

tel un virus inconnu

vous vous êtes insinués dans les corps par tous les orifices

vous avez muté et tout contaminé

puis faisant un pas en arrière vous avez regardé les blessures enfler

sur le corps usé         et lorsque la puanteur est devenue trop forte

vous vous êtes réfugiés

dans vos clubs aseptisés vous tâtez avec des gants

vos visages bouffis

vous secouez la tête

rassemblez l’argenterie (le bronze aussi fera l’affaire)

offrez des sacrifices expiatoires à vos êtres suprêmes imaginaires

non ne nous demandez pas pardon nous pardonnons nous pardonnons

nous tendons les deux mains pour recevoir l’argent

 

II

c’est ainsi que sous les tropiques

enroulé dans une couverture chaude et humide

je vous écris ce matin

neige-t-il déjà sur les montagnes

la cheminée les verres de porto

ici c’est à peine si l’on sait quand le jour devient nuit

si l’été un jour fera place à l’hiver

je fais l’inventaire:    ni papier ni plumes.

pas d’éventails en état de marche. toits qui fuient.

immeubles délabrés. routes recouvertes par la végétation.

nous respirons tout à la fois les maladies et l’oxygène.

paniers à provisions remplis de serpents. nous secouons au matin les scorpions de nos chaussures.

vue sur un jardin planté de croix de bois faites à la main. tas de pierres.

rivière où grouille la bilharziose.

 

 

dans cet homme terrassé par la fièvre

ce crocodile qui retourne un être humain et lui arrache les entrailles

je reconnais un sens de l’humour cosmique

je vois dieu grimacer sur le visage d’une charogne

les fourmis et le caillot de sang séché sur son museau

les vautours qui s’envolent emportant des lambeaux de tripes de poumons

l’herbe sauvage qui pousse entre ses griffes

 

III

madame mère des nations

vos soldats ont apporté

les maladies

atlas tient toujours le globe terrestre

au-dessus de sa tête sur le toit

de l’ancien bordel

vos soldats le soir 

guettaient les femmes dans les cours d’eau

attiraient les petites filles

et se vautraient comme des lézards à demi nus

dans un nuage de fumée et d’alcool

vos soldats disaient à nos fils

qu’il était bon qu’un homme se couche

devant un homme comme une femme  

vos soldats ont laissé derrière eux la couleur morte de leur yeux

dans les banlieues des ghettos noirs

voyez tous ces enfants aux cheveux jaunes qui jouent près de la rivière

 

madame nous vous voyons sourire sur nos timbres

votre visage orne les murs de nos bureaux

vous êtes paraît-il mère de quatre enfants

venez consolez-nous

des coups des soldats

des taches violacées sur nos visages

de nos jeunes filles qui n’ont plus que la peau sur les os

de l’odeur de la diarrhée qui chasse le parfum de la nourriture

les traces des bottes que vos soldats en partant

ont laissées sur le sable humide

sont toujours là

pleurez pour nous madame

ici il n’y a plus de larmes

 

Titre original: briewe van die kolonies ; extrait de Brief uit die kolonies,

Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria 2003

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, avril 2011

 

(Hierdie vertalings het ook in 2011 die Franse tydskrif Confluences poétiques (Nr. 4, April 2011) verskyn.- Red.)

Carina Stander - vertaal deur/translated by Leon de Kock

 

Carina Stander was born on 20 November 1976. She grew up on a farm in the Waterberg. After obtaining an honours degree in Fine Arts from the University of Pretoria, she worked for a few years for sculptors in Cambridge and the Scottish Highlands and participated in various art exhibitions. She completed a masters degree in Creative Writing (cum laude) through the University of Cape Town. She had two volumes of poetry published by Tafelberg: die vloedbos sal weer vlieg (2006) and woud van nege en negentig vlerke (2009). A number of these poems have been set to music by Herman van den Berg, Souldada from the Netherlands and cellist Ha!Man. Stander’s poems and short stories are prescribed for secondary schools. Since 2005 she has been working as a freelance journalist for five magazines, twice receiving the Media24 award for Article Writer of the Year at Lééf. She lives in a coastal forest with her husband and sons.

  

 

The pyjama pants

 

by the time we get home the blood on your pyjama pants has dried

but, like wounds, the windows are sticky and slimy;

brutality hovers like a wolf

in our house

its aftertaste

revealed in the darkening dusk -

these walls will surely collapse

under the weight, the memory of our honeymoon

in Mozambique:

 

it must be said you did not then want me to bleed -

the hand-stitched seam of your pyjama pants

bulging giddy white

like a year-old lamb

 

that’s how I want to remember you:

standing like that in the door of the hut

with the cloth of Bazaruto around your hips

as you stretch your arms upwards,

your shoulders the colour of dunes

your supple back compelling me to write

 

but now death has broken through our front door

now your pyjama pants are bloodied like a virgin

and to expel this fog of fear

won’t be easy;

that iron smell, the sweat of terror

that sound of a coming death

 

look, the jackals crossing the hills

are changing into street curs

now they’re crawling into anteater-holes

they eat bird-eggs and buck;

there was even a flamingo-wing

somewhere in the fog

 

cowardly foxes running off, tails between their legs

greedy hyena-chops, drunk with blood

 

there is a beauty that the pack

will never take from us:

even if they were to catch you

you would send a bushbuck to console me

or a steenbuck with little Bambi-feet

or a waterbuck grazing in the evening air

on berrybush and wild fig

 

but you have not been taken away

you are here in flesh and blood

your swimming body rimples the island seam

you laugh at the lourie

who lives in my armpits -

I am just crazy for you

 

tonight we’ll leave the front door open

and light up some lamps;

you go fetch your pyjama pants from the chest;

beneath my night dress, like fish

my breasts are swimming -

you stroll freely

through the acres of my sleep

 

mercy falls to the earth like a poem

because you are here you are here

 

listen how our fears

slumber on the windowsill

 

(From: die vloedbos sal weer vlieg, Tafelberg, 2006)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

the hot berg wind of your name

Tsitsikamma

 

the hot berg wind of your name

echoes across the coastal forest

of the south

 

while the forlorn plantation

in the valley

prunes its hanging moss,

you blow through the gnarled

bush of a white milkwood

 

you let fruit rain down upon me

in splashes of dark purple;

you caress the yellow-wood’s flaky bark

and you feed the bats yellow fruit                       

from the highest branches

 

sometimes you’re everywhere and here

you wind-whirl me like a man;

you lean against the carbuncled stem

of a wild red currant, you stare at me;    

the veins on your arms

expand like roots through earth;

your skeleton shifts in the wind

like the threaded stem of a forest elder

my cheeks turn to the colours

of clattering stones

on an unknown beach;

lilac or off-pink

like the eyes of a cave-fish

 

still, you go out and bring me

finest cream flowers in winter

and the winged seeds of a kamassie¹;

our bed is knitted

from the secret leaves of a birch

 

come, let us walk on naked feet

through the dripping forest,

let us go see, at daybreak,

how the waves spray wild lace              

up against the horizon

where you can almost hear whales mating

in the filmy blue expanse

of the ocean

 

that is where I shall give you my version of love

 

(From: die vloedbos sal weer vlieg, Tafelberg, 2006)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

wilderness

Bergfontein, Limpopo 1968

 

at the age of 32 ma granted love

like the gift of a story-book

to pa

 

she slept beneath scorpions,

other constellations too

 

one at a time, leopards

spotted along their flanks

with shapes like roses

prowl the night kraal                                    

cracking calves’ skulls -

pa travelled two hundred miles to fetch them

on horseback, grazing as they went

 

a rifle cracks and a hoarse cry

expires on the mountain -

ma inherits two cubs

from the belly of a predator

 

the house is rough and ready

and any tree a lavatory

but at night

by candlelight

she marks essays

in Afrikaans and German

in a kitchen of stars

nurses poems like chicks

in crocheted blankets

 

they use her teacher money

to plaster up a fireplace

from slate floor to wooden roof

 

and still the wild evades their embrace

 

beneath the farm-line phone

a black mamba lies hissing

atop her eggs:

upper body erect

mouth stretched wide open

head long and flat

like a coffin

 

ma writes letters to her mother:

cubs geckos

and lizard plus mate

rest up on the afternoon stoep

huddling tighter at her feet

 

eight years later a child is born

from the words of a ma

and the wildness of a pa

 

(From: woud van nege en negentig vlerke, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

messages from above
Giant Forest, California

 

through my fingers snow sifts in ornate handwriting

under my boots snow cracks a code

over a waterfall snow screams soundlessly

 

white poems on blank paper, everywhere

 

here, where prairie wolves loom

and squirrels drive each other away

through a dead-quiet oak forest

- tree-branches like flamboyant frills          

on a gypsy’s dress -

 

here, spoor² is the voice of an animal          

 

when I touched the giant sequoia,

felt like braille its brown, rutted trunk,

flakes like blossoms fell

fell from this deserted cathedral

strings blow like sentences from Above - 

red-hot murmurs, plosive-soft

 

every story begins with these words:

a Stranger’s wooden leg

makes mad marks in the snow

 

everywhere, white poems on blank paper 

 

(From: woud van nege en negentig vlerke, Tafelberg, 2009)

(Tr. by Leon de Kock)

 

 

---

¹ Kamassie: Gonioma kamassi. In Tsitsikamma area, Southern - Cape, SA.

² Spoor: trace, track, footprint, footmark. From :Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

Translator:

 

Leon de Kock is a writer, translator and scholar. He has published three volumes of poetry in English (Bloodsong, 1997, gone to the edges, 2006, and Bodyhood, 2010), a novel and several works of literary translation, including the novel Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk and a collection of poems, Intimately Absent (Intieme Afwesige) by Cas Vos. Translations of Etienne van  Heerden’s novel, In Stede van die Liefde, and Vos’s Duskant die Donker (Before it Darkens; selected poems). De Kock holds a chair of English at the University of Stellenbosch. He has won several prizes for his translations.

 

Phil du Plessis - vertaal deur / traduit par Pierre-Marie Finkelstein

 

 

Pour Catherine

 

Trois enfants

 

 

Il est venu chez moi

m’emprunter un instrument,

ce jeune violoniste

au visage sombre,

à l’air bourru.

 

Sans travailler dans un orchestre

il voudrait donner des concerts.

Son vieux violon a rendu l’âme -

il est chez un nouveau luthier

après des siècles de réparations bâclées.

 

Ce prêt c’est un peu comme si je

confiais un enfant

à quelqu’un d’autre

mais il faut bien

obéir à la muse.

 

Le soir à Stellenbosch, après la chaleur

du musée des beaux-arts

nous voici dans Dorpstraat

sous la véranda

du théâtre délabré

 

Le vin est frais,

le repas agréable

et le serveur,

un don juan maladroit

étudiant en première année.

 

Le luthier d’aujourd’hui

j’espère

saura faire des miracles

mais avant le concert

je me ronge les ongles.

 

Roelof attaque

avec les Mélodies tsiganes de Sarasate

et soudain résonne

l’âme d’un Tsigane

dans un corps de petit paysan.

 

Le chant de son violon a rajeuni :

un ténor clair sur la grosse corde

un mezzo enchanteur et suave sur le ré

un soprano velouté sur le la

et des canaries sur le mi.

 

C’est la renaissance d’un soliste

et aussi d’un violon

mais dans l’arrière-cour

grand remue-ménage.

Un enfant noir

de deux semaines

braille à fendre l’âme,

on l’a trouvé dans le jardin.

Les femmes se précipitent, chacune

voudrait avoir du lait.

 

Plus tard dans l’ambulance

un homme obèse assis

- en uniforme rouge -

serre le bébé

emmailloté dans une vieille serviette grise

contre sa poitrine,

comme si c’était le sien.

« Dépêche-toi de

te faire pousser les seins, lui dis-je,

il a faim, ce petit. »

 

Ma femme et moi

regagnons notre voiture.

Je tiens mon bébé à moi,

mon violon tout juste retrouvé,

bien au chaud dans mes bras,

enveloppé dans le châle de Catherine.

 
Titre original: Drie kinders ; extrait de Woordweer, Éditions Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria 2004

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, 2009

 

 

Nord-est

 

Je crains

que ni ma maison ni moi

on ne résiste à ce vent.

 

L’air aspire par-dessous les portes

la chaleur

de mes pieds

 

et tout claque

et tout vole en éclats :

les portes, les volets

 

les fenêtres dont les targettes

ne sont plus depuis longtemps

que poussière rouge.

 

La nuit je ne ferme pas l’œil

je veux réinsuffler

vie et sécurité

 

là où une saison pas de saison

veut tout détruire.

 

Dans le vieux bois

du toit, du plafond,

des poutres

 

j’entends les termites

ronger dans le froid.

De l’argile des murs suinte un liquide brunâtre :

 

Le sang d’une vieille maison.

 

Lorsque passent les trains de dix tonnes

tout dans la maison est de guingois -

 

surtout les portraits de moi.

 

Titre original: Noordoos ; extrait de Herakles by Valsbaai, Éditions Kalliope, Kalkbaai (Afrique du Sud) 1999

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, 2009

 

 
La vie avec trois violons

 

            1

 

Le vent du sud-est claque

les rochers de vagues toujours plus hautes,

siffle à travers les volets,

les portes qui ferment mal

et gronde dans la cheminée.

 

Et moi, la nuit, dans la maison

je fais gémir mes trois violons.

 

            2

 

Mon premier amour est tyrolien

fabriqué en 1694 à Absam,

par Jakobus … (illisible sur l’étiquette)

souvent réparé au fil des siècles,

tel une roulotte tsigane.

 

Pour obtenir le sombre murmure

sur les cordes du bas,

le registre moyen, à la douceur de confiture,

je gratte sur ma boîte à musique toutes les vieilles rengaines

des nuits de vin et de bonne humeur

des temps anciens :

le Souvenir de Drdla, la csárdás de Monti

le Liebesleid et le Schön Rosmarin

envoûtants de Kreisler.

 

Les connaisseurs se plaignent : les notes les plus aiguës

sont trop légères, mais à son âge

cet instrument

a parfaitement le droit

de sortir de la stratosphère.

 

            3

 

Le deuxième amour est une copie :

un Guarneri del Gesù plutôt jeune,

non daté, en bois clair

où court une onde jaune foncé.

 

Le son est équilibré,

mais manque parfois de personnalité -

 

Les blondes qui ont du tempérament

sont souvent des idiotes

et ne chantent pas toujours le même air

lorsqu’on les caresse.

 

            4

 

Mon instrument de premier violon

N’est plus tout jeune, mais peut-être a-t-il été fabriqué

par un luthier célèbre

à l’extérieur le vernis

typique couleur de miel doré

sur la table les ouïes

ressemblent aux boutonnières

d’un gilet d’apparat,

rouge tomate à l’intérieur.

 

Négligé, privé de cordes

pendant vingt ans,

il s’épanouit désormais pleinement

(après avoir joué sans interruption

près de trois mois d’affilée)

comme les hibiscus rouges

dans mon jardin sur la mer.

 

Ma femme de ménage se plaint :

« Ca grince là-haut. »

Mais Bach et Brahms

sont pour moi tout aussi harmonieux

 

et le son

flottera au-dessus d’un orchestre,

et renverra mille couleurs

tout au fond de la salle.

 

            5

 

Le vent

a desséché les capucines.

Les fleurs vont et viennent

et la musique - dit-on - est bonne pour les plantes.

 

Le vent et les violons

ont peut-être parfois le même son,

mais avec mes amis, c’est sûr

je fais le jardin s’épanouir.

 

Titre original: Die lewe met drie viole ; extrait de Nagjoernaal, Lindlife Publishers, Muizenberg (Afrique du Sud) 1996

© Pierre-Marie Finkelstein, 2009

 

Le traducteur remercie l’auteur et son épouse, Mme Catherine Lauga du Plessis, de leur relecture et de leurs suggestions.

Petra Müller - vertaal deur/translated by Charl-Pierre Naudé & the author

 

Petra Müller was born in 1935 in the small enclave of Botrivier, where her father was the village policeman. One of five children, the family moved to Swellendam when she was ten years old, and her father turned to farming, on the farm Eenzaamheid. A hugely prolific and fully bilingual writer of short stories, novels, children’s books and poetry, Petra Müller’s book of love poems, Die Aandag Van Jou Oë (2002) was voted one of the ‘top 30 African reads’ according to an informal poll run by the Centre for the Book in collaboration with the Cape Town Book Fair in 2007.In 2005, Müller was awarded the Herzog Prize by the South African Academy for Science and Art, the highest honour for Afrikaans poetry in the country. Although the bulk of her output has been written in Afrikaans, with four grandchildren living in North America who don’t speak Afrikaans, she decided to write a collection of poems for them.”I set out with a good heart to write a book for them in English,” she explains. The result was Night Crossing (2006), which, Müller acknowledges, “is not suitable for children. Maybe when they’re older. In the mean time, I’m still trying to write a collection of poems for my grandchildren.” Nonetheless, Night Crossing was the first English-language poetry collection to be published by publishing house Tafelberg. The manuscript was sent to poets Ingrid de Kok and Patrick Cullinan (previously featured on Poetry International Web, South Africa), and they made a glowing recommendation. In fact, her first published poetry, featured about 40 years ago in Contrast magazine, was a series in English and Afrikaans on the death by drowning of her younger brother. Reflecting on her choice of language when writing, she says, “It makes no difference. I don’t always remember which language I’ve written in.” Among her poems featured here on Poetry International Web is ‘David’s Hands’, a poem about a visit to Florence. Müller explains, “I was transfixed by the statue. My husband took a photo of me, staring at David. I stood with my fingers in my mouth, like a child. Later, looking at the photo, I imagined David discovering speech.” ‘Michelangelo’s Marksman’ picks up on themes in that first poem. “If you want to make poetry,” Müller tells us, “you need to do it with the simplicity and self-sufficiency of a pebble, or a drop of water - an object as perfected by nature.”  

 

Go, lovely rose

 

 

The white rose has been shouting calamity

all afternoon

 

as it opened itself

to the night

 

And its lingering perfume

of musk and remembrance

 

is this old tale, this hesitant poem

which would have saved you

if it could, rose

                        Rose

you should go back to your poet

and tell him:

 

all has not been lost.

 

(Uncollected)

(Tr. by the author)

 

 

His lunch

 

She wipes her tears from her lower lip

and eats her bread with salt.

 

What do you want from me,

she demands, as the crust of the ciabatta

goes into the bad wine

and the virgin oil.

 

There is a bubble of air that escapes upwards

as slowly as an answer

in cartoons.

 

This also she eats, devouring

its complicated flavour of rosemary

and rue,

 

And from her fingertips

she licks the

residue.

 

(Uncollected)

(Tr. by the author)

 

 

Three travellers in Anatolia: a letter

 

“The local Christ is undestroyed

in crucifixion; his blood is rich,

and the starry world is present:

green, green, green.

 

We saw Him in passing. Black mud stuck

to our sandals - creation at work, all right.

By night, at the fire, we prised it loose,

using hard local thorns. Around us,

a shadowy circle, sat Anatolian children,

amazed at our coming. Their dogs bayed

at our spicy smells.

 

Basil had been harvested that day,

by bigger boys with sickles. It scented

the valley as far as we went.

We saw a crop of bulging, bloodred pomegranates

being cracked open, by a clutch of crones

with whittled sticks; they snapped

as they split. They offered us a dish

of garnet pips, and a new-born pup.

 

Music fell from our camper at evening,

cloaking the ancient apple trees with Bach.

We slept all night in the fertile crescent,

hushed and holy; the mother dog

stayed with us till dawn.”

 

(Uncollected)

(Tr. by the author)

 

 

High noon, Manenberg

 

the supercool sniper takes the street

for his aim

his sight slides straight down the barrel

 

he eats life in gulps: his mouth is snickered,

like cat to bird

 

dead silence greets him,

a flaring noonday hush

 

one by one the houses relinquish

their pitiful shadows to him

they look deserted; but they’re not

 

their corrugated roofs pant with heat

they do not know precisely how to bear

bright-burnished death; it is something

like birth gone wrong

 

inside, on the hard linoleum,

people are prostrated

in attitudes of prayer, while

 

the thin, white dog crosses lines,

quite unharmed,

for the moment alone

 

(Uncollected)

(Tr. by the author)

 

 ***

 

Other poems with the kind permission of the Poetry International website.

 

Caliban’s Island

 

I remember what this island looked like, before, with its pliant lianas
from which I swung with my whole weight,
strong green ropes looping green trees, one after the other,
                                                  and far below, behind the intricate shadows,
                                                  my hut in the sun, as blond as a young
                                                                weaver’s nest
and how I could drink from all the waters
and could devour all fragrances,
and above me, always, dappled birds who called me by my name,
where I fed their nestlings - and they ate from my hand,
because, remember, they are blind till they see.
And I had a mother then, encompassing and kind.

There was nothing that was clumsy about Caliban, then.
I was an apish emperor, hairy, yes, but filled with an explosive speech,
my lips curved around everything that I had found to say for myself.

Then came that day when the little toy-boat came ghosting into the bay.
From it emerged a string of beings clad in mottled velvets and lace -
textures, colours, and occasions - I was taught these very words in time
by that lisping magister who performed his play here, using spacious
gestures, and then left without a trace for better audiences in other places.
                                                                                       
I remember what this island looked like before I became solitary here,
I who flow now like pale water from monkeyrope to monkeyrope
longing for those precious primates who left me prattling
of their tempests and books . . .
                                                       The wooden skeleton of their theatre still
stands upright in the levelled dell. I visit it every day. I sniff around it.
             I enter it.
At night I roll myself up in the remnants of its plushy curtains

to keep warm.

 

 

© Translation: 2005, Petra Müller
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2008

 

***

 

DAVID’S HANDS

 

You have the hugest hands and feet,
artefacts from spacious times.
Fire must have made you in a hectic moment
and along a swift trajectory.

You stand upright in museums, almost
at rest, veins bulging all over.
The Goliath’s boast
            - which called your wrath into being -
has fled, but you listen still, your lids
drawn up from the bulbs of your eyes
while you fathom your reach.

When you were still locked
in that abandoned marble behind the Duomo
you were called giant.
Now you walk the city, compact and resolute,
looking for your next task.
When night falls, you emerge under streetlights
humming with your own strength,
flicking the little thong in your right hand.

And always the pebble goes round and round in your mouth,
like a man at the point of discovering speech.

I saw you there.

I ran home and rewrote
what I had written before.

 

 

© 2006, Tafelberg
From: Night Crossing
Publisher: Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2006
ISBN: 9780624044642

 

***

 

GAUGUIN: AFTER THE SERMON

 

Everything turns to flame so suddenly - I can
hardly keep up with the reds, the burnt browns,
the various terracottas. Siënna. Ecstatic green flares
rising from the red . . . a green that bleeds
but also blooms. And the trees, in the background,
the trees at first appear abstracted like icons,
then twined again, and braided together.
Into what? With whom? For days I’ve seen
a cripple and an angel wrestle each other down into
the browns of an earth. In the far invisibility
something shimmers - there must be water nearby,
I can smell it, one could use it to sanctify.
But the hunched nuns tighten their wimples
around their withdrawn faces. They lower the lids
on their eyes. And I had wanted to look into the hoods.
Scrutinise the unseen. There must be browns there, even
possibly, blue. Visions, maybe . . .

 

 

© Translation: 2008, Charl-Pierre Naudé
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2008

 

***

 

MICHELANGELO’S MARKSMAN

 

Those were fully worked words
which you held in your hand; in your hand you weighed
them for their density. All pebbles are round.

When you lugged them
they broke the skull which caught them
neatly in two.

Out poured the soft grey stuff
from its fragile web
which had contained that century’s best boast
up to that moment.

No, you said to the giant, I had not intended
to kill you, merely to make things
perfectly clear. What a lad you were!

Now I keep remembering how you worked
that spillage, and you a poet, at that.
I should have noticed how your eyes bulged
in their sockets.

When I get up in the morning, in my century,
I am translucent like alabaster
with what you would call notforgetting,
Ruonarotti.

I am porous where the light strikes me -
a milky interrogation.
I begin to see through myself. I know
that word, that piëta.
Very close to my own - are you
my sculptor or my stone?

 

 

© 2008, Petra Müller
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2008

 

***

 

ON WAR AND EXCITEMENT

 

Harald tells me: We were lads then, Shrumf and I, we
lived in burnt-out tanks outside Hamburg. We
each had our own tank. By day we clambered about, by night
we slept in pitch-dark bunkers, with no thought of home.
My mother was already dead and dad was a soldier on a front.
We ate with our hands what we could find on the fields,
potatoes we dug from the ground, and doves we’d grill
on an open fire just like your farm boys here, and with our teeth
tore the meat from the bones. It was tough, and good.

There were more of us, underfed, agile and sly.
Authority was no more - we were altogether almighty
where we were. And mechanised - coated
in a rusty scabbiness, from the old metal.

We ate war. We knew: whose aeroplanes were overhead,
what type of bomb . . . we had code names for ourselves
gleaned from a half-burnt history book. There was a Jewish
amongst us - who understood Russian. Verbissen we called him
but his code name was Titan. After the war
he became a metalsmith. One day
with a whitehot iron he burnt
the Star of David into his arm,
lest he ever forget.

 

 

© Translation: 2008, Petra Müller and Charl-Pierre Naudé
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2008

 

***

 

SLOW MOTION

 

You await me always at the end of my sentences.
You are like death: I am
always moving towards you,
an infinity of inches.

Surfaces count. I will get to know you
in blindness and slime, like a slug
when it knows the earth at last,
that is, from belly up.

There is a moment, not due yet,
when I shall turn you into me
with a gentle, inward gesture.

Now that I have taught my eyes to read
my own meandering script
I see that I carried your name in legible letters
from the bloody slew of birth.
It was a long time coming.

There is something about time
which I must describe here with my hand
clutched round a pen: It can happen to one
in the shape of a man.

 

© 2006, Tafelberg
From: Night Crossing
Publisher: Tafelberg, Cape Town, 2006
ISBN: 9780624044642