Imtiaz Dharker Poems

You are nothing more than yourself,
not a message sent to change the world,
not here to save mankind or even me. You are,

like a snail or mollusc, only there;
like a leaf among thousands on a tree,
like the sea or the smallest of its creatures,

just there. And yet, and yet I watch your face
and see a star waking in your eyes
like sap-rise to a leaf, tide-rush to the moon.

I try to live the life inside your head, think
what you are thinking, feel what makes
your heart beat fast, small body, small weight

in my arms. More than my self, I want to know
you. This is the gift you give. Cradling you close
I feel the world and all its waking life.

Holding you, I hold the world,
wishing it for ever safe.
...

Du bist nicht mehr als du selbst,
kein Eilbrief, geschickt, um die Welt zu ändern,
um die Menschheit zu retten, oder mich. Du bist,

wie eine Schnecke, ein Weichtier, einfach da;
wie ein Blatt unter tausenden an einem Baum,
wie das Meer, die kleinste Kreatur darin,

einfach da. Und doch schaue ich in dein Gesicht
und sehe einen Stern in deinen Augen wachen,
wie Nährsaft für das Blatt, Gezeitenrausch dem Mond.

Ich will das Leben in deinem Kopf leben, denken,
was du denkst, fühlen, was ein Herz schneller
schlagen lässt, kleiner Körper, leichte Schwere

in meinem Arm. Mehr als mich selbst möchte ich dich
erkennen. Das ist die Gabe, die du gibst. Wenn ich dich
umschlungen halte, fühle ich Welt, ihr waches Leben.

Wenn ich dich halte, halte ich Welt,
wünsche, dass sie immer sicher wär.

aus dem Englischen von Uljana Wolf
...

This music will not sit in straight lines.
The notes refuse to perch on wires

but move in rhythm with the dancer
round the face of the clock,
through the dandelion head of time.

We feel blown free, but circle back
to be in love, to touch and part
and meet again, spun

past the face of the moon, the precise
underpinning of stars. The cycle begins
with one and ends with one,

dha dhin dhin dha. There must be
other feet in step with us, an underbeat,
a voice that keeps count, not yours or mine.

This music is playing us.
We are playing with time.
...

We are waving to you from up here,
from the fourth floor to say
don't worry about us, we are fine.
We may be strung out, trousers vest blouse
sari skirt on this washing line
but the sun is being kind to us.
Better here than down there
where you are passing
on the Number 106, crammed
into a hot window frame
with your loud loneliness.

We are floating here,
our hearts filled with soft evening air
and the sound of conversations
in the rooms behind us,
in love with the shape
of each other and the dance
we make together,

waving to you, sending a sign
that you would see if
you were looking but

you are not.
...

Victoria and Elizabeth, Ada and Phyllis
swoop in from the ends of the city to marvel
at the newly unearthed find. The tunnel
has seen it all before. It yawns, and at its open mouth

these people have materialised like words
it has just spoken, a speech balloon
that blossoms out of darkness. The tongue
is black and can only stutter, starless,

I lived on your street, this baby fed at my breast.
We had names, we sat where you sit to drink and eat.

Between the City and the pit, the builders
and the diggers are speechless, staring into
no-man's land, its accidental inhabitants
written out in rows. The earth knows

the world is many-layered and must be used
and used again. It throws a blanket over them,

but we are the ones who are shivering.
We remember their passing as if it were our own.

We will always be aware of them
coming and going in our neighbourhood.
They are with us, hurrying
to the market, or standing side by side

on the platform, holding hands,
hoping we will turn and say their names.

They have been here all this time,
waiting for our train.
...

All these girls are waiting
in this city and every city
for something to begin,

holding their thin bodies in their arms,
hissed at by cars that pass
in the rain. They are contained

behind the barricade that draws
a metal line between them
and the freezing vans.

At the meat market across the road,
busy men in white coats are dancing
their daily load of carcasses

into patient rows.
Later in the night their coats
will be smeared with blood.

Later in the night
when Sailing By is done
and the shipping forecast has begun

thinking of all those souls
out in the dark and cold, thinking
of the ones alone, the others

lying side by side, holding hands,
I remember the young girls
who are younger every day

the ragged line they make,
how their legs are blue
and their faces

lit up before they reach
the light inside,
in anticipation of the dance.
...

(Theatrum Orbis Terrarum)

So this is how it is done, one hand inching
round the coast to map its ins and outs,
to mark the point where ink may kiss
the river's mouth, or blade make up
a terra incognita, an imagined south.

This is where the needle turns to seek
a latitude, where acid bites the naked shore
and strips the sea till it is nothing
more than metallic light. The lived terrain
comes face to face with its mirror image

on the page, the world made up
and made again from sheets of ore, slept in,
loved in, tumbled, turned until the copper
buckles. You see it clearly in the print,
the place where metal

has been wounded, mended, where the hand
attempts to heal the breakline in the heart.
...

Wär ich ein Haus,
gestützt wie dieses
durch uraltes Gerüst,
das Fenster eine Gitterdrohung,
feuchtes Dach und Tür aus Blech,

würdest du innehalten,
durch mein Gesicht treten,
von Raum zu Raum gehen
und den ruhigen Ort finden
an dem ich beginne?

Wärst du versucht,
hineinzukommen?

aus dem Englischen von Uljana Wolf
...

There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.

Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space

and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.
...

Es gibt einfach nicht genug
gerade Linien. Das
ist das Problem.
Nichts ist flach
oder parallel. Balken
hangeln schräg auf Stützen,
die aus Vertikalen ragen.
Nägel klammern sich an offene Spalte.
Die ganze Struktur kippelt gefährlich
Richtung Wunder.

In diesen rauen Rahmen
zwängte jemand
seinen Lebensort

und traute sich sogar, diese Eier
in einen Korb aus Draht zu legen,
weiße, zerbrechliche Rundungen
baumelnd am dunklen Rand
eines schiefen Universums,
die das Licht sammeln
in sich selbst,
als wären sie
die hellen, dünnen Mauern des Glaubens.

aus dem Englischen von Uljana Wolf
...