Poem
George Szirtes
ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: LATRINE
ANDRE KERTÉSZ: LATRINE
1.Vier soldaatjes, simpel poepend in een bos.
De dood bekijkt ze lachend, trekt er op los.
Leven is eerst een schreeuw, dan vreugderoep.
Van voren lichaam en van achter troep.
2.
Klonk in dat bos die zachte klak
van de sluiter als een brekende tak
of alsof een kritisch moment aanbrak?
3.
Als de vier winden. Als een sluipscheet die deelt
de schone lucht in twee, als een plas in ‘t struweel.
Vier hurkende krijgers bij het Laatste Oordeel.
4.
Kus ze zachtjes, blaas met licht gerucht,
wees hun zweetdoek, hun opgeluchte zucht.
Laat ze maar lozen richting zwarte plaat
van onontsloten toekomst, veel te klein en veel te laat.
© Vertaling: 2009, Rob Schouten
ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: LATRINE
1.Four poilus in a wood austerely shitting.
Death watches them, laughing, its sides splitting.
Life is a cry followed by laughter.
The body before, the waste after.
2.
Could one hear in that wood the gentle click
of the shutter like the breaking of a stick
or the safety catch on its climacteric?
3.
Like the four winds. Like a low fart that rips
clean air in two, like urine that drips.
Four squatting footsoldiers of the Apocalypse.
4.
Kiss them lightly, faint breeze in the small leaves,
be the mop on the brow, the sigh that relieves.
Let them dump and move on into the dark plate
of the unexposed future, too little and too late.
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.
Poems
Poems of George Szirtes
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ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: LATRINE
1.Four poilus in a wood austerely shitting.
Death watches them, laughing, its sides splitting.
Life is a cry followed by laughter.
The body before, the waste after.
2.
Could one hear in that wood the gentle click
of the shutter like the breaking of a stick
or the safety catch on its climacteric?
3.
Like the four winds. Like a low fart that rips
clean air in two, like urine that drips.
Four squatting footsoldiers of the Apocalypse.
4.
Kiss them lightly, faint breeze in the small leaves,
be the mop on the brow, the sigh that relieves.
Let them dump and move on into the dark plate
of the unexposed future, too little and too late.
From: In the Face of War
ANDRÉ KERTÉSZ: LATRINE
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