Good news. A very fine young Dutch poet, who also writes and published in English, Nikki Dekker, has translated several of Mark Boog's poems from the Dutch for Eyewear. Boog is one of the most popular and criticaly appreciated poets currently writing in The Netherlands. Here they are, published here online for the first time.
It seems it will rain
It seems it
will rain.
In silent
anticipation the grey morning,
which just can’t
help being dry, little.
Somewhere the
relief of expectations
that come true,
no matter how bleak. Not to rain
is unacceptable.
The other,
accomplished, and the shortcomings,
they complete
each other. Illustrations,
nothing but
illustrations.
On the bed, in
the room that looks colourless, bled to death,
a colourless
figure. White, scrawny and forthcoming
the facade and
the linens.
What is the bed
doing in the living room?
The bed lives
in the living room.
It will rain,
it is dry.
Nowhere
Fish
How can
something not exist
of which we
harbour a presumption?
Such are the
questions that keep us going,
that keep us
standing, tenuous as a heron
brooding at
that waterside,
feigning,
chasing,
the clear water
a horrific mirror –
find a fucking
fish like that,
we only see
ourselves, presume ourselves
in the
bewitched wrinkling.
Concerning Profit
Because profit
and loss
are so hard to
distinguish,
we do not
distinguish.
Then what do we
see?
How the same
repeats itself?
It does not
repeat itself. Even we can see that.
The weather?
The weather! Predicted by those better than us
it nonetheless
withdraws itself. Overwhelms, overthrows,
overflows.
Threatens.
And high,
higher than we thought possible, birds.
There
is always hope
This is the way
in which I wish to waste my life,
not the way in
which you wish to waste your life.
No matter how
much I value feedback, shut up.
Let the fish
question, along the surface search for breath,
give them the
bowl they wish for: have. Catch them only
for hunger or
by way of gentle pastime. Or just because.
Still unexpected. That they didn’t see it coming,
of course
surely saw it coming, that they until the end,
until the
early, redeeming, way too early redeeming end,
hoped.
And
gods
And somewhere
gods, amount unknown,
who for example
hover and stay unruffled.
It lightens the
path to the supermarket
barely, to know
that the path is unlit.
We lose
ourselves in blissful rationalizing,
which is
thoughtlessness but then lovelier.
We guard the
unsaid bravely, fanatical,
as fuming dogs
their prison.
Behind us the signposts
The fact that
decisions have already been made
before we make
them, ought to reassure
but does not, as
is decreed,
and bearable is
merely the knowledge
that we know
everything, or at least nearly everything,
in any case
enough. We reason ourselves a way
through the
raging landscape,
which would
immediately be overgrown
with asphalt, if
it existed. Still we twist
the pompous
signposts behind us. At the loss
of them who
follow us. Our example,
after all, can
hardly be called exemplary.
Among the people
Wide spreading
himself he goes.
The streets
empty, actually empty.
Others? As
little as possible.
They hinder the
wide, the being.
Nonetheless:
the stars, somewhere the stars,
recognized by
street lanterns.
In other
seasons too, there are problems,
but now they
particularly catch the eye.
Day
Teeth bare, hair
erect, froth
in the corners
of his mouth – facing us,
the Other, who
makes us what we are.
It is finally
Spring, still a bit chilly,
bright weather.
Wasn’t it a long winter?
Sun, birds,
coffee, news, no news,
children, body
that won’t co-operate.
Hat off. Rolled
up sleeves. Deep and
dark growling.
Cautious orbit.
To shake the
outstretched hand,
the smile and
the greeting. The day. The day!
The above poems were translated from the series Nergens Vis (Nowhere Fish) as published
in Het Liegend Konijn (The Lying Rabbit) issue 2, October 2011. They will be
included in Boog’s latest collection, Maar
zingend (But Singing), is
forthcoming from Publisher Cossee in January 2013.
Nikki Dekker (Amersfoort, 1989) writes and translates in Dutch
and English.
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