Monday, June 1, 2020

GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT


GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT

Lonely Goodbye

for those who, wherever, have to die lonely

Chilly the room
the white walls
audible only
the echo of loneliness.
Not a tender word anymore
no warm embrace
just the time,
a leaking tap,
ticking.
None knocking at the door
nobody you expect,
no one, except death.
GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT
Altea, 2.4.2020








Todesfuge *
(Corona virus)

Death, we drink you,
we drink you with our eyes,
we drink you with our ears
we drink you day by day
Deaths
no time is left to say good bye,
no time to dig your graves
The leaders paved the road
with hypocrisy and dazzling lies
Death, we drink you,
we drink you with our eyes,
we drink you with our ears
we drink you day by day.
GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT

Altea, Spain, 28.3.2010

*Todesfuge (Fugue of death),
poem by Paul Celan about the Jews being cremated by the Nazis






Untimely Leaving

When a sun
which knows no more dawn
dies away
in its own light,
and the night
blots out its stars,
snaps the stem,
tears the leaf.









Borrowed Dawn

With its hand of shadow and darkness
unravelled the evening,
the defenceless light
unravelled the future,
the magic,
the borrowed dawn,
pulled out of the wick,
shed the oil,
extinguished time.

TRANSLATION BY STANLEY BARKAN
 IN COOPERATION WITH THE AUTHOR


GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT

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