Poem

Hanny Michaelis

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Original language

The I who

The I who
loses and recovers herself
in your embrace, is not
the one who walks out
of your life with leaden feet
nor the one who
convinces herself that you
were never here at all.

All three locked
inside my skin, they have
come to blows in a war
to the death.

© Translation: 2009, Judith Wilkinson
Publisher: Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net, , 2005

De ik die zichzelf

De ik die zichzelf
in je omhelzing verliest
en terugvindt, is niet
dezelfde die op loden voeten
je leven uit loopt
en een ander dan de ik
die zich wijsmaakt dat je
er nooit bent geweest.

Alle drie opgesloten
binnen mijn huid zijn ze slaags
geraakt in een oorlog
op leven en dood.

© 1996, Hanny Michaelis
From: Verzamelde Gedichten
Publisher: Uitgeverij G.A Van Oorschot, Amsterdam

Hanny Michaelis

Hanny Michaelis

(The Netherlands, 1922 - 2007)

Hanny Michaelis was born in 1922 in Amsterdam, and her small but distinctive oeuvre has been awarded numerous literary prizes. Michaelis established a reputation as a poet of contained lyricism, and her work is characteristically tempered by an almost wry awareness of limitation. While her poems are often marked by an epigrammatic conciseness and an element of detached and analytical reflection...

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Poems

Poems of Hanny Michaelis

This evening I learnt

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A morning

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Slowly but surely

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Love rolled away

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Tantalising uncertainty,

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What it would have been like

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Sometimes like gems

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Stretched out on your back

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In an unguarded moment

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Years later

Hanny Michaelis

Close

The I who

The I who
loses and recovers herself
in your embrace, is not
the one who walks out
of your life with leaden feet
nor the one who
convinces herself that you
were never here at all.

All three locked
inside my skin, they have
come to blows in a war
to the death.

© 2009, Judith Wilkinson
From: Verzamelde Gedichten
Publisher: 2005, Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net, Amsterdam

The I who

The I who
loses and recovers herself
in your embrace, is not
the one who walks out
of your life with leaden feet
nor the one who
convinces herself that you
were never here at all.

All three locked
inside my skin, they have
come to blows in a war
to the death.

© 2009, Judith Wilkinson
Publisher: 2005, Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net,

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