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Wilhelm Knobel – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

 

 

carry it carefully over the stony road

he’ll shift in the coffin just now

and try to sit upright with his crushed-in chest

it must be stifling to lie so still

without being able to breathe

and all that earth above you perhaps

only when it’s night

can he leave his quiet resting-place

and amble over the land

and allow his eye to go over the cattle

but before daybreak begins to glow over the yard

and the first sparrows begin chirping in the orchard

he must return

and assume the prescribed position

stately

stretched out

with his hands crossed over his chest

and only a grass seed on his pajama leg

as witness to his nocturnal wandering

 

 

 

Wilhelm Knobel (26.10.1935-06.01.1974)

Six translations for the 36th anniversary of his death

 

 

Interior

 

a small swallow flies around the room

the woman in the black frock sits at the machine and works

now that he is dead the house is still

the flowers on the grave have long since wilted

day by day visitors become fewer 

the small swallow flies round the room desperately

the woman in the black frock feeds material feverishly to the needle

just now she can drink a pill with her tea

but the day is so long

in the quiet house

the cherry tree in front of the window is almost stripped bare

by weaver birds:

one day soon it will be autumn

the telephone rings and rings

the woman in the black frock weeps

 

 

 

you didn’t have a great deal when you began

 

you didn’t have a great deal when you began

a dog a lovely girl and a horse

and then you got everything

through years of hard work too, yes,

but above all inspiration and promise

the lovely girl became a woman

and children filled your house

neither of you always understood each other

but insight really comes with the years

and then, on the day of your death, you were alone

more than in the beginning

or did there perhaps for one merciful moment

flash through your brain the comforting image of

your horse and your girl and your dog

 

 

 

I wear a suit a waistcoat and a tie of yours

 

I wear a suit a waistcoat and a tie of yours

If anyone complements me on the choice of the

dark green and ochre tie

then I think contentedly

we had good taste

my father and I

because didn’t I give it to him on his last birthday

and didn’t he wear it

And when I see the slightly darker spots on the pockets

of the suit

then it does me good to know:

sometimes you also put a sweet in your pocket . . .

for later

and then forgot it

until it threaded stickily through the cloth

But mornings

as I put on the beige waistcoat

and feel its warmth through the day

I wonder

how cold you are now

or does warmth still stream out

from the idea of the fabric tight against my body

 

 

 

Archilochos of Paros is sick

 

Archilochus of Paros is sick

of living on figs and fish

and then there’s his engagement with Neoboule:

her father has long known he’s a bastard

but still without warning he

sent him on his way one day,

(there was much talk of a richer lover

but no one bothers much about rumours)

would he storm into the house with his sword

and cleave the old man’s flabby belly open

or exit suddenly for some Far Eastern lands

to forget his heart’s passion with exotic women?

you don’t have that much energy

if you have to live on figs and fish

so only satire remains:

the beautiful Neoboule with her slender body

became, in his poems, a faded courtesan

whose charms bewitched no man any longer

and then as if this didn’t satisfy his piqued reputation

he turned her into a fat prostitute

who used cheap perfume too lavishly

Now her honour is avenged

- Neoboule and her father killed themselves

to escape his scathing pen –

life on Paros is even duller now

mornings he wakes with Neoboule’s name on his lips

and evenings the seagulls on the beach call, tormenting him

Neoboule! Neoboule!

 

 

 

in recognition of an old friend

for Doctor Con

 

there was a time you said

as I sat with a glass of jeripigo in my hand

on an autumn night in Stellenbosch

it isn’t the great agonies that gnaw at a person’s life

but every day’s small frustrations

have you forgotten the small joys?

the languid sparkle of rust-brown jeripigo

the music of Vivaldi in the Boland autumn

time and again

as a new love is smothered

or a deceitful friendship stuns the heart

the familiar music brushes the curtain softly

the fragrance of decaying leaves hangs in the room

and the taste of the wine revives the tongue

distilling the pain

 

[Nagelate Gedigte (1975). Johannesburg: Perskor-Uitgewery, p. 79]

 

 

 

we thank you for your application

 

we thank you for your application to be our representative

in Postmasburg

but we doubt whether in that god-forsaken dorp

we want to be represented again

our last representative’s oranges often shrivelled on the rack

and if one or other old maid got it into her head to make marmalade

and she hammered him about not being able to satisfy her needs

should it be us who are in for it and who must pay the doctor’s bills

if we may offer you some advice, keep some frozen concentrated

orange juice in cans

now the old maids must learn once and for all

a glass of pure diluted orange juice in the morning is almost as delicious

and healthier

and if you experience problems with sales early on

you can tell people about the health benefits of citrus

and how important Vitamin C is for the daily diet

and on big occasions

- like the opening of the new school hall or when the mayor’s wife has a baby -

serve citrus instead of wine with the cheese

it’s cheaper

and its refreshing taste exactly the right thing

for the blazing heat of Postmasburg

 

 

Breyten Breytenbach – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

26 November 1975

 

May trees remain ever green
and all the stars white,
and may there always be people
who without shyness can look
each other in the eye –
because life is only one breath long
and all the stars of the Nether Regions dark –

 

I shall die and go to my father

 

I shall die and go to my father
in Wellington with long legs
shining in the light
where the rooms are dark and heavy
where stars sit on the roof’s ridge
and angels dig for worms in the garden
I shall die and with little baggage
hit the road
over the Wellington mountains
between the trees and the dusk
and go to my father;

The sun will beat on the earth
the wind’s waves cause the joints to creak
we hear the tenants’
abrasive shuffle above our head
we will play draughts on the back stoop
– old father cheating –
and over the radio
listen to the night’s news.

Friends, dying’s cohorts,
do not hesitate; now life hangs
still like flesh on our bodies
but death does not disappoint
we come and we go
are like water out the tap so
like sounds from the mouth
as we come and we go
our bones will know freedom –
Come with me
in my death in me go to my father
to Wellington where the angels
angle with worms for stars from heaven
let us die and perish and be cheerful:
my father has a huge boarding house.

 

[Untitled]

 

and the poem is the meaning
of the poem

Boerneef – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

Six Songs for Yesteryear

 

1

The young green of an oak tree:

that is spring for me

add in a malachite sunbird

only then it is really spring

the profusion of the double green

is doubly glorious to the eye

it helps later for the sun’s burning

this green gladness for the eye

 

2

The rain pours at Koorsteenberg

the fig orchards and the karee trees drink

the rain greys at Koorsteenberg

the rain sieves down at Koorsteenberg

this year woolly sheep will plump up once more

and the buck wagon creak under the heavy load of wool

 

3

Listen to the partridges and the pheasants

singing partridgeandpheasant hosannas

first it was dry and the world grey

and dismal for pheasants and partridges

now it has rained

the veld is wet

the pheasants hoppityskip along my dear

all the partridges and pheasants

sing partridgeandpheasant hosannas now

 

4

My heart blossoms white

for the chestnut-haired girl

I pick heather of the reddest red

for this chestnut-haired girl

Bellabint my young girl

it is heart-blossom white

it is heather red

for you my chestnut-haired girl

 

5

Nothing hangs as red as vineyard leaves

at Hex River

nothing stands so yellow as the autumn poplars

along the Dwars River at Ceres

stand stock still hold your breath

and look long and reverently

as a person should look at such an autumn

let it burn in you for some later time

the warm yellow and red for times gone by

 

6

You are all alone

you live alone

and play your squeezebox on a Saturday night

some notes here

some notes there

a bit of pleasure on a moonlit night

no one knows a potion for loneliness later

you become quieter, quieter still

and later dead still

 

Wilma Stockenström – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

I gift you my walled-in days

 

I gift you my walled-in days
because they are all I possess.
For you my days, the retrenched ones.
You will build up some system from them.
You will bestow meaning on what stands
stubby like hewn trees. I
offer you my doleful wizenedness.

 

 

Of all my bright yellow days

 

Of all my bright yellow days
I would write this one down;
that later I could know how swarms
of doves flutter from roofs
and that, if I wanted, I
could read of a bright yellow
day and of you here beside me.

Rosa Keet – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

a private thing

 

and if I had to die now
bury me on a sand dune
between bushes with a view of the sea
a litre coke a carton of cigarettes
and a book or two
I am not very flashy
but an eiderdown and a blow-up mattress
would also be welcome

and differently from the mass graves at ur or dachau
(where they cram the place full)
I think a grave is a private thing
and besides I am too egocentric
for an epitaph such as:
here lies pete and john and the world and his wife etcetera etcetera
besides when I feel lonely I can

always go and haunt someone as a guest.

Phil du Plessis – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 
To the printer

 

I

My verse
holds me fast
and offers no words
to break out
from there

II

Trapped,
I strip
my senses, but
remain impure

from incessant
rhyming
with death

III

please attenuate
my sorrow

with white.

Jeanne Goosen – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 
the morning comes with its tatters

 

the morning comes with its tatters
and its puzzles
there is nothing I am sure about
the lorry has stopped for the waste stuff
they congregate there, on the pavement
my shiny bags full of revulsion
paper and words
they are heaved shoulder high and carted away
there is nothing I want to save
the day glares; it will not rain
no, it will not rain today
the blind bird turns back to its shadow
he is still
despair has become more ferocious than the love song

George Weideman – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

 
It’s as if the flowers

 

It’s as if the flowers are crippled this year,
with unclear eyes; the plains dull and ashen-grey –
you must come in good time so that we can search
        deep gullies for wild flax and wild roses.

It’s as if the sunbird and the rain bird are silent
as stones in the desert, and stones do not grow either –
you must come, as long as my heart is still warm
        and my tears can still heal.

It’s as if the days fly by like migrant birds
after a summer that we no longer know –
you must come, because you can give me wings
        so that we can flee together.

It’s as if night is getting darker, sweetheart
and the stars dwindle; the moon is aloof –
you must come as long as there is light, and time
        – the almond tree is white with snow.

E. W. S. Hammond – Vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt

 

 

 
Spring in England

The sun has come back again
with the colour
of wild daffodils.

And swallows
in their tremulous flight from
my haemorrhaging South Africa.

 

 

Autumn

It’s the sun that is grieving.
It’s the trees that weep.

I just sit here.

Would anyone mind
if I became a tree?

 

 

To ground

Before this death
I stand with
a mouth full of teeth,
hands hanging slack
with nothing more
to break off
or to hold up.

Alone
as a fresh
grave in the rain.

 

 

Acceptance

My name is not
Job; although
I sit here
in sackcloth and ash
and look at
a world that
had once been mine

My name is not
Samuel either;
Who calls so:

Eli, Eli, lamma sabbachtani?

 

 

Self-portrait

 
That’s really not my face
I am staring at.
That’s not me
looking like that:
these fleshy cheeks
fat gut
drooping hands
old man’s titties.

Joan Hambidge - Vertaal deur Johann de Lange, Jo Nel & Joan Hambidge

 

 

 

T.M.T.L.T.B.M.G.

Joan Hambidge

 

 There’s more to love

than patterns: boy meets girl,

buying a Sterns ring, etcetera.

There’s more to love

than a beginning, middle or end.

Because you (and me) refuse to accept it.

 

Oh, meeting at first (let’s call it: exposition)

always rather briskly spills over into the highlight

(i.e.: climax of consummation,

coming without qualms). Both: trapped.

 

Who wants to hazard a further guess?

Since what goes up, must come down.

Ecstasy only lasts as long as sending flowers

or the sweet deceit of romance.

 

Dénouement: vide the glossary, an “unknotting

of complications”. A discovery that passion

- by one? or both? - is running out.

Our dénouement thus: discovery of your deceit.

 

There’s more to love

than patterns: girl meets girl,

invests in love, togetherness, understanding.

There’s more to love

than a beginning, middle or end.

Because you (and I) are caught up in symbols.

 

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)

 

 

Ariel

Joan Hambidge

 

To write poetry: you have

to be prepared to die.

- Theodore Roethke

  

The brilliant girl

of Smith College

Phi Beta Kappa

(later on even 

in the editorial

of Mademoiselle)

silently screams

her life frozen

in a bell jar.

 

The charming wife

of Ted Hughes

writes verses

 

before feeding

her little morningsong

- becomes inex-

plicably nauseous

cabbage burning

on her gas stove.

 

How bright the shards

of a broken jar; how

distant a finger

slashed open

by a knife; flowers

spurting blood

in the garden.

 

“Dying,

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.”

Thus the intellect

dissects after yet another

frustrated suicide attempt

poplars are trees of death…

copes with everyday tasks

an over-excited metronome.

 

Death an art

studied in its fibre and vein

- life the groundless

rhyme and reason

heartless copy cat.

 

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)

 

 

Arte poetica

Joan Hambidge

 

Homage à Neruda

 

In the afternoons when the bodies

of lovers become one in holy host,

whores pawn their bodies,

priests lose their faith slowly but surely,

women lament over abortions or children signed away,

mothers sigh over rebellious kin,

young sons strive against the father’s power,

and activists move underground,

the poet becomes one with the sacrament

of the word. Or not so?

No, the poet experiences something of the ecstasy

of love, the unscrupulousness of a whore

(anything but anything for the poem’s sake),

the desperation of the once oh so religious

person calling His God but hearing Him

no more (like a poem in a desert),

the lonely lament of a woman,

for whom the bell tolls annually, reminded

of a non-commemorative, non-happy birthday

moment (a voice smothered in a plastic bag),

a child who ends up on the front-page

or in a cell, a father who is listening,

but fails to hear, and the activist

calling out: “A luta continua!”

A lifeless poem commits suicide.

  

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)

 

My mannequin

Joan Hambidge

  

My mannequin

flaunts her emotions

prettily: she laughs, she pouts,

she’s always happy - as long as nobody

gets too close - and looking for more luck.

 

Moving mechanically, stiffly,

some notice - those who really look - that she

is sexless, frigid and dead:

marble eyes, fake eyelashes

and cold hands.

 

Do I imagine it, or is her mouth

at times defenseless like a bleeding wound.

 

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)

 

 

Programme verse

Joan Hambidge

  

The swallows are departing:

the souls of the dead;

silently, surely they leave

to an unknown, quiet imaginative place,

a region where the dead, according

to spiritualists, judge themselves;

the suicides and murderers

slowly, if ever, find peace

or come to terms with their deeds.

Clairvoyants can call them up;

highly sensitive mediums can sense their roaming

presence in old ransacked, spooky houses,

like trapped swallows in an airport terminal

flapping their wings searching for an exit,

blinded by damp, frozen windows,

anxious, panicky because this unknown area

restricts and fails to release

them on this obligatory journey without a passport

or an endorsed, special visa,

hand luggage or a heavy, overloaded bag.

Susceptible youths also have the ability to see:

set an extra place at the table

for the imaginary, roaming friend;

a messenger from the unreachable other side,

comforts a suffering person.

Mediums translate the oh so longed for

message to a guilt-ridden family member.

And us? The ones left behind? The mourners?

The inheritors of quiet, undecodable postcards?

They leave us with the seed

of what we wanted to feed, with the crumbs

of remorse, of I still-wanted-to-say, make amends;

closed off from this mysterious winter journey.

 

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)

 

 

Ode to her

Joan Hambidge

 

Homage à the poetry of Erica Jong

  

I cannot forget you    your breasts

above all

haunt me   like two headstrong detectives

in pursuit of a culprit throughout the night

never-ceasing   until I turn on the light

       merely a phantom experience

                                 yet

I cannot forgive you    how you deliver

my body to another

above all your eyes   everything begins with the eyes   your laughter

        the crow’s feet

around the corners

                  that

I cannot forget     your tongue   why

didn’t I steal your tongue  tiny

oyster    now available to everybody

like canned fruit at the local supermarkets

                         at night

your sweater touches my shoulders   the same one

which used to hug my body   I write messages

like I love you need you    suddenly the sweater

escapes my arms

 

                      to return

free of any further claims return  return

to forgive or forget   is in vain.

  

(Vertaal deur Johann de Lange)    

 

My sweet old etcetera

Joan Hambidge

 

It’s through Latin

Etruscan becomes comprehensible -

and even Egyptian hieroglyphics

are effortlessly deciphered

by experts; now explicable.

But who will someday grasp

the alphabet of our ruins?

 

Mysteriously you construct

a plastic model ship

of the Titanic - while I drift

on the Dead Sea

anticipating deliverance.

Archaelogical research

cannot simplify

the destruction

which you multiply.

 

(Vertaal deur Jo Nel)

 

 

 One night-stand

Joan Hambidge

  

The scène is always the same:

intro-drink-seduction-bed.

 

The next day constantly a mind fuck:

guilt-silence-longing

and regret.

 

To fall in love is like placing a bet.

 

(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)

 

 

 Writing as fucking

Joan Hambidge

 

To write a sapphic verse

close before midnight

leads to many problems

(ignoring “vicious mathematics” …)

to find a non-off-beat image

for our for(ever)ness:

the pen is mightier than the sword:

does not work; too phallic, sexist,

sounds like penis-envy…

when two lips speak together:

does not reveal much of our softness/tenderness;

rubyfruit jungle:

is false, fruit-

less romanticism;

dark labyrinth:

too desperately literary;

bitter lemons:

cute poetic cunninglingus.

 

To write a (love)poem

like this, creates

coldness/logic/guilt

about that which merely is.

  

(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)

 

  

Domanda

Joan Hambidge

 

For Margaret Rosabel Mezzabotta

  

Untimely, premature your exit

to an unknown region.

The soul, I remember this morning,

needs the slow maturation of wine.

If hastily uncorked or poured

wine suffers bottle shock.

You would have been able to verify

this for me: an obscure reference

to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

But to comprehend your death

is an undecodable hieroglyphic

in a dark impassable alleyway.

Death reverses the order of words,

it makes us look back, remember, even

seize small moments of chance -

like my cleaning your glasses once,

discussing dark symbols with you.

For this funeral oration, or rather declamation –

as a poet I am completely unprepared,

no, undeclared, undeserving…

The so-called consolatio or comfort

of a medium (Look, she sends you a rose)

or the flickering of a candle,

undoes nothing. What does “passing away”

mean? That you had to leave - in my book

anyway - far too rapidly

for heaven? That your soul was forced out

seemingly without warning. That roses fade,

candles cease to flicker…

Still I wanted to ask:

“Who scratched out Nefertiti’s one eye

so that she was blinded on the other side?”

 

 (Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)

 

 

My parents

Joan Hambidge

  

i

 

From my birdlike mother,

I inherited my unhappy, dissatisfied, unpleasing nature:

Yesterday, was a better day.

From my forceful, burly father,

my dreamy, romantic, undaunted disposition.

 

The one can place words like blocks;

the other’s dreamy nature almost blocked

by others…

 

And me?

Their heirloom?

The one part of the Janus head

looks back to what was;

the other half to what words

may unblock.

 

ii

 

Oh it was always so effortless, so easy

to turn away from you my parents,

the eternal addressees

of this poem and my prayers.

 

This is an elegy

before you leave for the other side

and because a funereal poem might be inappropriate

at this time of deadly silence.

 

For her my crooked old mother

for him my burly father

something which is shorter than a letter

worthier than a legacy

more lasting than a gravestone

more reliable than an insurance policy

more worthy than a family ring.

 

Every poem which stems

from me with affection

due to them.

 

Her voice the metre of my verses

his hand the form of my words.

 

iii

 

They are the salt of the earth

yes, the salt of the earth

because their tears

their tears

stream like salt

like salt

over their cheeks

They are the salt of the earth

my parents

lamenting in silence

over their children’s tears

streaming like salt

like salt

over their cheeks

 

iv

 

Mother:

tonight I recall a letter to you

written in my niggling handwriting

from a faraway country:

 

It is winter in New Haven

at night I hear the silence

of the snow falling

like the wings of departing swallows

 

O Mother

I carry the heavy burden

of feeling the descending words

the feathers of a departing swallow

 

O Mother

O Mother

I carry the heavy burden

of words descending on me

like black swallows.

 

v

 

Tonight I suddenly recall

how you called

out: “Everything is against me!”

and about three decades later

I realise

Dad

how you struggled

to fit us all in

on your 30 Day Old Mutual

calendar.

 

Another policy

another late shift

an extra work load.

 

And I?

 

I keep myself busy with a policy

with almost no investment value.

It fails to fit on a normal calender,

it prefers the unpredictable hour

and yes, it does not protect you

against disillusion

or similar feelings

as a published poem betraying the poet.

 

vi

 

When I was younger

and oh so unsure

 

they were merely in the way

 

but now I return

incessantly to them

my parents so sure

and understanding,

prepared to stand surety

 

Does a pun lurks there

in being “sure” and “stand surety”

if merely in a poem?

 

vii

 

Dad

I carry you

a graft on my body.

I dreamt of you last night:

you are playing in an orchestra

with your old cronies

at a small, village wedding

with many dirty, stacked plates.

You hand me a glass of wine…

 

How real, tangible

the dream feels which according to Cirlot

might indicate an approaching death.

Yes, my father presents me with a glass

from which I pour life

with full abundance.

 

viii

 

My mother prefers

Not to be mentioned in my verses.

Yet my first searching, rambling poem

written in a faraway USA

in cold winter snow, was addressed to her.

 

Previously I spoke to her through

other woman poets in my letters.

Poetry learnt by heart

now written from the heart.

My mother prefers

not to be mentioned in my verses.

Yet all words stem

from the restrained, confined mother womb.

 

Oh mother forgive me this tres-

pass, this intrusion

of your privacy,

due to the unsevered umbilical cord.

 

ix

 

Look at them, my parents,

sitting as a young engaged couple

on a sofa in a Jewish studio.

You smile with a little hat on your head

holding Dad’s hand.

Many decades later I realise:

we choose undoubtedly our parents

prenatal and astral.

 

Here they are, my parents,

waiting

the two old wrecks

in a poem by their second eldest.

I see them after being 50 years together:

on that day I phone them up

from a faraway place.

 

I place them neatly

- as if for a photo shoot -

for a final analysis,

for an unharmed version,

in a thankful cadeau.

A coup de chapeau!

 

(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)

 

 

Rome

Joan Hambidge

 

Although I lost my religion long before my virginity

 

yes it was traumatic   to copy others

in this process   me I copycat    could I understand in Rome

the first original shall we say, most original city

of the arts understand why artists create

represent passion in a painting hanging upside

down from roofs   everything for art’s sake

I must confess: I even cried

 

when I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta

 

as it becomes more than a mother

not comprehending the death

of her beloved firstborn   look at the fingers

they are stretched out   searching    

the son’s cold broken knee

the head backwards   the loin cloth unravel-

ling  how long will it take before the body de-

composes?  the muscles breaking down

  

Even the holes in hand and foot

recalled in breathtaking detail

(Remember: He was pierced)

 

For me death here becomes colder than marble

 

(Vertaal deur Joan Hambidge)