Poem
George Szirtes
PETERSEN: KLEICHEN AND A MAN
PETERSEN: KLEICHEN EN EEN MAN
Ik heb de eeuwigheid gezien, die ziet er zo uit,een man en vrouw dansen in een café
in een armoedig straatje op een vuile vloer.
Het achtervolgt je, fascineert, verscheurt,
iets tussen heftig en neerdrukkend in,
tussen warmbloedigheid en agorafobie.
Laat me dit omkeren en de angst accepteren.
Wegdrukken wat ik heb tegen neerdrukkend
want leven zelf is verscheurd
en moet de ongeveegde vloer op,
voorzichtig, vol liefde, terwijl het café
zweeft in eeuwigheid. Zoals hier.
© Vertaling: 2009, Rob Schouten
PETERSEN: KLEICHEN AND A MAN
I have seen eternity and it is like this,a man and woman dancing in a bar
in a poor street on an unswept floor.
It clings and plots and is desperate,
at a point between violence and abjection,
between warmth and agoraphobic fear.
Let me reverse this and accept the fear.
Let me drop all objections to abjection,
since life itself is desperate
and has to tread the unswept floor
carefully, lovingly, while the bar
hovers in eternity. Like this.
From: In the Face of War
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Tarset
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Tarset
George Szirtes
(Hungary, 1948)
George Szirtes was born in Hungary in 1948, but fled during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 to England, where he studied at the art academies of London and Leeds before establishing himself as a painter. In addition, he wrote poetry. His first collection The Slant Door, written in his adopted mother tongue, appeared in 1979.
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Poems of George Szirtes
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PETERSEN: KLEICHEN AND A MAN
I have seen eternity and it is like this,a man and woman dancing in a bar
in a poor street on an unswept floor.
It clings and plots and is desperate,
at a point between violence and abjection,
between warmth and agoraphobic fear.
Let me reverse this and accept the fear.
Let me drop all objections to abjection,
since life itself is desperate
and has to tread the unswept floor
carefully, lovingly, while the bar
hovers in eternity. Like this.
From: In the Face of War
PETERSEN: KLEICHEN AND A MAN
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