Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Vertaling van Engels in Afrikaans. Vert. deur Waldemar Gouws
In memoriam Lawrence Ferlinghetti 24 Maart 1919 – 22 Februarie 2021
In Goya se grootste tonele
In Goya se grootste tonele lyk dit asof ons
die mense van die wêreld sien
juis op die oomblik toe
hulle vir die eerste keer die benaming verwerf het van
‘lydende mensdom’
Hulle krimp ineen op die bladsy
in ‘n ware raserny
van teenspoed
Opgehoop
kreunende met babetjies en bajonette
onder ‘n lug van sement
in ‘n abstrakte landskap van uitmekaargerukte bome
skewe standbeelde vlermuisvlerke en snawels
glibberige galge
kadawers en karnivoriese hane
en al die allerlaaste uitskreeuende monsters
van die
‘verbeelding van rampspoed’
hulle is so verskriklik werklik
dit is net asof hulle regtig nog bestaan
En so is dit wel
Maar net die landskap is vervang
Hulle is steeds te vinde langs die paaie
geteister deur legioensoldate
valse windpompe en waansinnige hoenderhane
Hulle is dieselfde mense
net verder van die huis af
op snelweë vyftig bane wyd
op ‘n kontinent van konkreet
met gespasieerde lieftallige advertensieborde
wat idiotiese illusies van geluk illustreer
Minder vulliswaens is op die toneel
maar meer verminkte burgers
in geverfde motorkarre
en hulle het vreemde registrasienommers
en masjiene
wat Amerika opvreet
***
In Goya’s Greatest Scenes
In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the moment when
they first attained the title of
‘suffering humanity’
They writhe upon the page
in a veritable rage
of adversity
Heaped up
groaning with babies and bayonets
under cement skies
in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
bent statues bats’ wings and beaks
slippery gibbets
cadavers and carnivorous cocks
and all the final hollering monsters
of the
‘imagination of disaster’
they are so bloody real
it is as if they really still existed
And they do
Only the landscape is changed
They still are ranged along the roads
plagued by legionaires
false windmills and demented roosters
They are the same people
only further from home
on freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness
The scene shows fewer tumbrils
but more maimed citizens
in painted cars
and they have strange licence plates
and engines
that devour America
Uit: Corso, Gregory; Ferlinghetti, Lawrence; Ginsberg, Allen. 1970. Penguin Modern Poets 5:
Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books (pp. 43-44).