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Alfred Schaffer (The Netherlands)
day(dream) #207
When I think back to the city with all that water it’s night-time.
I’m standing on the street I can’t say where.
I have to go home, hoping for the best I follow the canal.
Just as I’m thinking I’m almost there
a gazelle comes running across
the black water, snorting with fear.
Three hyenas are chasing it like an alarm
fountains of light bursting under their feet.
The natural disaster turns left after the bridge
out of sight, then it’s quiet. In the daytime
the water doesn’t stink, boats glide through the centre
filled with tourists who wave at cyclists
and at everything that moves, even that man there
who wants to fly away, it seems
arms spread, darkened by shadows
a wounded bird in panic – it cannot be coincidence
that man is me, however frantically I flap
I just don’t leave the ground.
And by now I really do want to go home.
It must be here somewhere, I can hardly believe
what I saw in the pitch dark.
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson
When I think back to the city with all that water it’s night-time.
I’m standing on the street I can’t say where.
I have to go home, hoping for the best I follow the canal.
Just as I’m thinking I’m almost there
a gazelle comes running across
the black water, snorting with fear.
Three hyenas are chasing it like an alarm
fountains of light bursting under their feet.
The natural disaster turns left after the bridge
out of sight, then it’s quiet. In the daytime
the water doesn’t stink, boats glide through the centre
filled with tourists who wave at cyclists
and at everything that moves, even that man there
who wants to fly away, it seems
arms spread, darkened by shadows
a wounded bird in panic – it cannot be coincidence
that man is me, however frantically I flap
I just don’t leave the ground.
And by now I really do want to go home.
It must be here somewhere, I can hardly believe
what I saw in the pitch dark.
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson
