Saturday, February 1, 2020

GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT


GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT

The Goddess Of The Night

Threatening,
as a beastly being
hangs darkness above the earth
what moon
brings us a glimpse of light
what sun
- which does not threaten
gives us a sign?

***

REVERSIBLE is everything
but where lies the verge
who knows about the reversal
the darkening
the night?
***



WHERE did you come from
where will you go?
How long will last
your eternity
- planet?
***
TIME IS PRESSING, pushing the sand
Scratch the word
in the stone and hope
that it remains
-        not
as testament.


From “The Road” (TAO), POINT Editions, 1999






Doubt

Each poem
leaves greater void behind
and the fear
nothing will come anymore
this
has been the last fruit
the source is exhausted
but then again
promptly and unexpected
emerges from despair
a timid word
the first line
of a new poem.

From “In the Stream of time, Meditations in the Himalayas”







Shanghai

Unmoved flowing
between past and present:
the river

reflecting at dusk
the heaven-defying towers
the colourful, ephemeral glitter

nameless
the testament
the stone trace of men.







Searching For Light

To Hugo Mujica

Although the roots
searching for water
embrace each other
and the branches
searching for light
draw apart

the branches
will encounter the light
but the roots
nothing but darkness.

From: The Ephemeral Flower of Time







Poetic Morning

Read the glints
on the petals of dawn
span an airlift
with the colours of the rainbow
further than the horizon
plant roses
on the cliffs of dream.

From “In the Stream of time, Meditations in the Himalayas”







Don’t Count Me
Among The Almonds

Make me bitter,
count me with the almonds
—Paul Celan

Don’t count me among them,
don’t count me
with what was bitter
or too dark.
Don’t count me among the bitter almonds.
Give me,
when the night is too dark,
the light of the stars
and the hope of dawn,
the poppy of dreams.







The Forgetting
(Alzheimer)

The threadworm of oblivion
digs blind tunnels
in the soft flesh of the brain
important or unimportant things
it makes no difference

- they disappear

sometimes
they surface somewhere else

sometimes
they are lost forever.






Niglath

Be melting snow
wash you off yourself
Rumi

Is this of whatever source
the voice
which murmurs mantras
or any other psalm
between the lips
of the river’s bank?
Out of silence
emerges the well
 and becomes a stream
pure water
loaded with shadows
flowing to the night
- or who knows
towards a track of light.

From “In the Stream of time, Meditations in the Himalayas”


Eagle

The ravens fly in swarms
the eagle flies alone
   Luchino Visconti

So close to heaven
flies the eagle
lonely
as the poet
who patiently waits
the arrival of a verse
till the pen
scratches finally a few a few lines
still doubting
the sense
the idleness
of naming.

From “In the Stream of time, Meditations in the Himalayas”

GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT




GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT, was born 11 September 1944 in Rollegem, the Flemish part of Belgium. In 1987 he moved to the Mediterranean artist village of Altea and integrated in Spanish literary life. Germain Droogenbroodt is an internationally appreciated poet, translator, publisher and promoter of modern international poetry. He wrote short stories and literary reviews, but mainly poetry, so far thirteen poetry books, published in 21 countries. He translated – he speaks six languages - more than thirty collections of international poetry and rendered as well Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Persian and Korean poetry into Dutch. As founder and editor of the Belgian publishing house POINT Editions (POetry INTernational) he published more than eighty collections of mainly modern, international poetry. In 1996 he set up a new poetic movement, called neo-sensacionismo with the famous Chinese poets Bei Dao and Duo Duo. Germain Droogenbroodt organised and co-organised several international poetry festivals in Spain and since 2009 yearly in Altea, his hometown in Spain, The Poetic Evening Concerts of Ithaca. He is vice president of the Academy Mihai Eminescu, organizing the International Poetry Festival Mihai Eminescu in Craiova, Romania, co-founder and advisor of JUNPA (Japan Universal Poets Association), artistic advisor of the Italian movement Poetry & Discovery, and founding president of the Spanish cultural foundation ITHACA. He also collaborates with the Italian poetry publication Margutte. His poetic oeuvre is many-sided. After his début with “FORTY AT THE WALL” (1984), defined as neo-romantic poetry, he published “Do you know the country?”, Meditations at Lake Como (Italy), a collection of nature poems. In 1995 he was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship (Scotland) where he wrote “CONVERSATION WITH THE HEREAFTER”, poems about death, awarded in Belgium with the P.G. Buckinx-Prize and “PALPABLE ABSENCE”, a bilingual (Dutch-Spanish) collection of love poems. A critic of the Dutch Information Office for Libraries described his love poems as “virtuoso poetry”. At the end of 1998 appeared “BETWEEN THE SILENCE OF YOUR LIPS”, his collected love poems. During his sojourn at the Palace-Fortress “Neemrana” in Rajasthan he completed the poetry cycle “THE ROAD”, (read TAO) a poetic bridge between the East and the West, inspiring the Flemish artist Frans Minnaert and the Indian painter Satish Gupta, who enriched “The Road” with their drawings. This rather philosophical, mystical poetry is so far his most popular book, published already in 20 countries, translated by such famous poets as Bei Dao (Chinese), Fuad Rifka (Arabic), Jana Stroblova and Josef Hruby (Czech), Milan Richter (Slovak), Emilio Coco, Luca Benassi and Tiziana Orrù (Italian), Ganga Prasad Vimal (Hindi)…In 2001 he wrote in Spanish “AMANECE EL CANTOR” (The Singer Awakes), a homage to the deceased poet José Ángel Valente, followed by “COUNTERLIGHT” written in Ronda (Southern Spain) in 2002, published in Spain by Calima Ediciones, in Romania by ex Ponto, in Belgium by POINT Editions, in both Mongolian languages by GCompress Co., Ltd. Ulaanbaatar, in Arab by Albayat (Morocco), in Hong Kong by “Contemporary Poetry”, and in Taiwan by Poet Culture. Corp. The latter publication includes also “COUNTERLIGHT“. His poetry book “IN THE STREAM OF TIME, Meditations in the Himalayas”, was published in 2008 in Belgium and as part of “Selected Poems by Germain Droogenbroodt”, 2008 in Shanghai by the Shanghai Literature & Art Publishing Group and in Spain, laureate of the XXIX Premio de Poesía Juan Alcaide 2008.


No comments :

Post a Comment