Herman Hendrik ter Balkt
Herman Hendrik ter Balkt Poems
The ants moved into a house
right below ours;
our address did not become theirs:
a sand hill under the floor
...
Time was lacking,
yes, no doubt about it.
A black thrush was singing
shamelessly, poor
...
I saw four hanged people:
lights, spiders on their threads -
mind like autumn, old light
flickering on and off in cold spaces
...
At the time I lived in a country
where the potato-grading machine arrived.
From salted wood made with many rains
it worked as a monotonous brain.
...
For Anouchka and René Notenboom
St. Albans Grand Steeple Chase charged in here
Under trees that are not the living ones
On Singraven's waterside and in the autumnal woods
...
One day all the sties and burrows opened
And out came the cave-bear the mammoth the seafaring
cormorant, that poetic diving bird, the white-headed vulture
the rock-goat from the mountains, the sea unicorn
...
Herman Hendrik ter Balkt Biography
Herman Hendrik ter Balkt (17 September 1938 – 9 March 2015) was a Dutch poet. He won numerous awards throughout his career, among them the 1988 Jan Campert Prize, the 1998 Constantijn Huygens Prize and the 2003 P. C. Hooft Award. He was born in Usselo, Overijssel and died in Nijmegen)
The Best Poem Of Herman Hendrik ter Balkt
The ants
The ants moved into a house
right below ours;
our address did not become theirs:
a sand hill under the floor
The hessian road of the ants
ran from the kitchen cupboards
past the drainpipes, and vice versa
down to their factory shop floors
The stream of workers dressed in
shining black trotted to and fro
in an Asian rhythm
In their footsteps the song of substance
droned, ‘Matter, matter'
- There is nothing but matter
They transported strawberry particles
but dust flecks too and other burdens
to their underground warehouse,
their tinning factory
If I were to fall to pieces
by the kitchen sink,
then they would lift sweet portions of lip;
ant centurions would bear
my no longer functioning eyeball
How the conveyor belt would rattle,
there in the depths
The ants show no mercy
I wouldn't like to fall down
under the kitchen cupboards
alone with the ants
Translation: 2008, Willem Groenewegen
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