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Poem

André Schmitz

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Original language

THE FLYING KITES

These are the souls that are put on earth
and these are the bodies that rise to the sky
shrouded in their suits of cheap wood.
So you sometimes see coffins float
on the air currents like big kites

(at which astonished dogs bark at night).

© Translation: 2007, Sarah Lawson

DE VLIEGERS

Het zijn de zielen die je ter aarde bestelt
en de lichamen die ten hemel stijgen
verpakt in hun armzalige houten maatkostuum.
Zo zie je wel eens doodskisten
als grote vliegers door de lucht zweven

(waar ’s nachts verbluft de honden tegen blaffen).

© Vertaling: 2007, John Fenoghen

LES CERFS–VOLANTS

Ce sont les âmes que l’on met en terre
et ce sont les corps qui montent au ciel
enveloppés de leur costume de bois pauvre.
Ainsi voit-on parfois des cercueils flotter
dans les airs comme de grands cerfs-volants

(auxquels aboient la nuit des chiens éberlués).

© 1994, André Schmitz
From: Les cerfs-volants
Publisher: Tétras Lyre, Ayeneux

André Schmitz

André Schmitz

(Belgium, 1929)

‘The poet is the surveyor of the invisible,’ writes André Schmitz, who was born on 17 August 1929 in Erneuville in the Belgian Ardennes. The poet seems to have at his disposal a sixth sense for things that are hidden in other things and for the meanings concealed in words. Because of that, in the gaze of the poet everyday happenings acquire something strange. Even the title of his main work, Le...

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On my honour I declare

It is too late. It is too soon

OBSCENITIES

One sees

EXPROPRIATION

REQUIEM

Meetings of disconfinement

The wind is passing through

THE FLYING KITES

THE PRODIGAL SON

Close

THE FLYING KITES

These are the souls that are put on earth
and these are the bodies that rise to the sky
shrouded in their suits of cheap wood.
So you sometimes see coffins float
on the air currents like big kites

(at which astonished dogs bark at night).

© 2007, Sarah Lawson
From: Les cerfs-volants

THE FLYING KITES

These are the souls that are put on earth
and these are the bodies that rise to the sky
shrouded in their suits of cheap wood.
So you sometimes see coffins float
on the air currents like big kites

(at which astonished dogs bark at night).

© 2007, Sarah Lawson

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