Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Charlotte Van den Broeck

Night Stirring

Evening
and the glow stick’s in your eyes and you are looking
its orange snapped into your eyes the liquid light
in which I knew what I would never know again
the way a word

can come to mean another word
just like that and how it all

outside the evening’s heavy in the air, stale and already late
the sluggish smoke irresolute between you and me, and you
looking and what that stirs in an evening, in me, bright red ants
hundreds for a second before the light shrinks, the itch
the raging itch of your eyes that won’t get less

not even now the light

because on the slipway between now and later
a room awaits with neither doubt nor mosquitoes
how else could it be with your hand dangling over me

not touching but giving me the possibility
of pushing up against it the boundless possibility
of pushing up against a hand that is not touching
me, but giving me the possibility to

waiting and swelling
are almost the same, bleeding into each other
at the tipping point of what I want
what I know in the fluorescent light

the spectrum in a puddle for a moment
it was true and bright orange
sometimes it can’t be any other way

in my mind I expand the hand with an evening
a mouth a shoulder a crotch
and that it all

and you don’t let the ants and the swelling colours
that colour is only dust and light that the light can hardly
the evening still bright orange

leave it a while

until the light no longer until the looking too
is only the direction of your eyes

Nachtroer

Nachtroer

Voor Remco Campert



Avond
en het breeklicht in je ogen en je kijkt
het breekt oranje op in je ogen het vloeiende licht
waarin ik wist wat ik later nooit zou weten
hoe een woord zomaar

een ander woord kan gaan betekenen
en dat dat alles

buiten hangt de avond steriel en laat al, de lome rook
besluiteloos tussen ons in en je kijkt
en wat dat oproert in een avond, in mij, rode glanzende mieren
honderden, even nog, voor het licht krimpt, de jeuk
de laaiende jeuk van je ogen het laat niet af

ook niet nu het licht al

want op het hellingsvlak tussen nu en straks
wacht ons een kamer zonder muggen of aarzeling
het kan niet anders want boven mij hangt je hand

die me niet aanraakt maar me de mogelijkheid geeft
om mezelf ertegen op te drukken de tomeloze mogelijkheid
om mezelf op te drukken tegen een hand die me niet
aanraakt, maar me de mogelijkheid geeft om

wachten en zwellen
zijn bijna hetzelfde, bij de kniklijn
loopt het in elkaar over wat ik wil
en wat ik weet in het neonlicht

het kleurenspectrum in een regenplas even
is het waar geweest en feloranje
het kan niet anders soms

denk ik nog bij de hand een avond
een mond een schouder een geslacht
en dat het alles

en dat jij de mieren niet en de zwellende kleuren niet
dat kleur maar stof en licht dat nauwelijks nog het licht
de avond feloranje even nog

laat het nog even

tot het licht niet langer tot ook het kijken
niets meer dan de richting van je ogen wordt

Close

Night Stirring

Evening
and the glow stick’s in your eyes and you are looking
its orange snapped into your eyes the liquid light
in which I knew what I would never know again
the way a word

can come to mean another word
just like that and how it all

outside the evening’s heavy in the air, stale and already late
the sluggish smoke irresolute between you and me, and you
looking and what that stirs in an evening, in me, bright red ants
hundreds for a second before the light shrinks, the itch
the raging itch of your eyes that won’t get less

not even now the light

because on the slipway between now and later
a room awaits with neither doubt nor mosquitoes
how else could it be with your hand dangling over me

not touching but giving me the possibility
of pushing up against it the boundless possibility
of pushing up against a hand that is not touching
me, but giving me the possibility to

waiting and swelling
are almost the same, bleeding into each other
at the tipping point of what I want
what I know in the fluorescent light

the spectrum in a puddle for a moment
it was true and bright orange
sometimes it can’t be any other way

in my mind I expand the hand with an evening
a mouth a shoulder a crotch
and that it all

and you don’t let the ants and the swelling colours
that colour is only dust and light that the light can hardly
the evening still bright orange

leave it a while

until the light no longer until the looking too
is only the direction of your eyes

Night Stirring

Evening
and the glow stick’s in your eyes and you are looking
its orange snapped into your eyes the liquid light
in which I knew what I would never know again
the way a word

can come to mean another word
just like that and how it all

outside the evening’s heavy in the air, stale and already late
the sluggish smoke irresolute between you and me, and you
looking and what that stirs in an evening, in me, bright red ants
hundreds for a second before the light shrinks, the itch
the raging itch of your eyes that won’t get less

not even now the light

because on the slipway between now and later
a room awaits with neither doubt nor mosquitoes
how else could it be with your hand dangling over me

not touching but giving me the possibility
of pushing up against it the boundless possibility
of pushing up against a hand that is not touching
me, but giving me the possibility to

waiting and swelling
are almost the same, bleeding into each other
at the tipping point of what I want
what I know in the fluorescent light

the spectrum in a puddle for a moment
it was true and bright orange
sometimes it can’t be any other way

in my mind I expand the hand with an evening
a mouth a shoulder a crotch
and that it all

and you don’t let the ants and the swelling colours
that colour is only dust and light that the light can hardly
the evening still bright orange

leave it a while

until the light no longer until the looking too
is only the direction of your eyes
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère