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.