Poet Niels Hav:
 Niels Hav is a poet and short story
writer, living in Copenhagen with his wife, Pianist Christina Bj?rk?e. He has
traveled widely in Europe, Asia, North and
South America. His work has been translated into several
languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish
and Italian. His credits include five Volumes of poetry and three short story
collections. He's also been the Recipient of several national awards.
His forthcoming book is an English translation of Here
We Are, published by Book Thug. The original Danish
follows each poem.
Morocco Today is now opening a window of this creative
poet to discover his verses. We found his poetry
beautiful, his images and scenery alive, the title of
the poem attractive, and the themes new for the common
readers.
Epigram
You
can spend an entire life
in the company of words
not ever finding
the right one.
Just like a wretched fish
wrapped in Hungarian newspapers.
For one thing it is dead,
for another it doesn't understand
Hungarian!
Translation: Per K. Brask & Niels Hav
© Niels
Hav
In
Defense of Poets
By Niels Hav
What are we to do about the poets?
Life's rough on them
they look so pitiful dressed in black
their skin blue from internal blizzards
Poetry is a horrible disease,
the infected walk about complaining
their screams pollute the atmosphere like leaks
from atomic power stations of the mind. It's so
psychotic
Poetry is a tyrant
it keeps people awake at night and destroys marriages
it draws people out to desolate cottages in mid-winter
where they sit in pain wearing earmuffs and thick
scarves.
Imagine the torture.
Poetry is a pest
worse than gonorrhea, a terrible abomination.
But consider poets it's hard for them
bear with them!
They are hysterical as if they are expecting twins
they gnash their teeth while sleeping, they eat dirt
and grass. They stay out in the howling wind for hours
tormented by astounding metaphors.
Every day is a holy day for them.
Oh please, take pity on the poets
they are deaf and blind
help them through traffic where they stagger about
with their invisible handicap
remembering all sorts of stuff. Now and then one of them
stops
to listen for a distant siren.
Show consideration for them.
Poets are like insane children
who've been chased from their homes by the entire
family.
Pray for them
they are born unhappy
their mothers have cried for them
sought the assistance of doctors and lawyers, until they
had to give up
for fear of loosing their own minds.
Oh, cry for the poets!
Nothing can save them.
Infested with poetry like secret lepers
they are incarcerated in their own fantasy world
a gruesome ghetto filled with demons
and vindictive ghosts.
When on a clear summer's day the sun shining brightly
you see a poor poet
come wobbling out of the apartment block, looking pale
like a cadaver and disfigured by speculations
then walk up and help him.
Tie his shoelaces, lead him to the park
and help him sit down on the bench
in the sun. Sing to him a little
buy him an ice cream and tell him a story
because he's so sad.
He's completely ruined by poetry.
.
Transleted by Per Brask & Patrick
Friesen
 Invitation
Morocco is
a beautiful country, its literature is more beautiful but unknown.
Therefore, we are opening here a window on Moroccan literature,
specially that written in English. For most of you, it will be a window
of new, strange, unbelievable realities, yes, realities but
unbelievable, while in Morocco it is business as usual.
We invite
our readers, and lovers of literaturein general, to
provide uswith their comments aand feedback, to enrich
this page and to establish a cultural dialogue with
various parties.
Morocco Today Editorial Board
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I
have read the poems. It's the first time I have read a poem written
by
Poet
Niels
Hav.
i really
appreciated the work: the use of imagery, the rhythm of verses, the
choice of words and above all the simplicity of expression...
i appreciated
most the poem entitled "In
Defense of Poets" and i
feel ready to translate it into Arabic and publish it on the arabic
widely-read magazines , newspapers and electronic websites. i just
need permission and i am waiting for it.
best regards
mohamed said raihani
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 Women
of Copenhagen
By Niels Hav
I have once again fallen in love
this time with five different women during a ride
on the number 40 bus from Njalsgade to ?sterbro.
How is one to gain control of one’s life under such conditions?
One wore a fur coat, another red wellingtons.
One of them was reading a newspaper, the other Heidegger
--and the streets were flooded with rain.
At Amager Boulevard a drenched princess entered,
euphoric and furious, and I fell for her utterly.
But she jumped off at the police station
and was replaced by two queens with flaming kerchiefs,
who spoke shrilly with each other in Pakistani
all the way to the Municipal Hospital while the bus boiled
in poetry. They were sisters and equally beautiful,
so I lost my heart to both of them and immediately planned
a new life in a village near Rawalpindi
where children grow up in the scent of hibiscus
while their desperate mothers sing heartbreaking songs
as dusk settles over the Pakistani plains.
But they didn’t see me!
And the one wearing a fur coat cried beneath
her glove when she got off at Farimagsgade.
The girl reading Heidegger suddenly shut her book
and looked directly at me with a dirisive smile,
as if she’d suddenly caught a glimpse of Mr. Nobody
in his very own insignificance.
And that’s how my heart broke for the fifth time,
when she got up and left the bus with all the others.
Life is so brutal!
I continued for two more stops before giving up.
It always ends like that: You stand alone
on the kerb, sucking on a cigarette,
wound up and mildly unhappy.
the scent of hibiscus
It
always ends like that: You stand alone
on the
kerb, sucking on a cigarette,
wound
up and mildly unhappy.
© Translated from the Danish by Per
Brask & Patrick
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 Vi
Visit from My Father
By: Niels \Hav
My dead Father comes to visit
and sits down in his chair again, the one I got.
"Well, Niels!" he says.
He is brown and strong, his hair shines like black
lacquer.
Once he moved other people's gravestones around
using a steel rod and a wheelbarrow, I helped him.
Now he's moved his own
by himself. "How's it going"? he says.
I tell him all of it,
my plans, all the unsuccessful attempts.
On my bulletin board hang seventeen bills.
"Throw them away",
he says, they'll come back again"!
He laughs.
"For many years I
was hard on myself",
he says, "I lie awake mulling
to become a decent person.
That's important"!
I offer him a cigarette,
but he has stopped smoking now.
Outside the sun sets fire to the roofs and chimneys,
the garbagemen make noise and yell to each other
on the street. My father gets up,
goes to the window and looks down at them.
"They are busy", he says, "that's good.
Do something!"
Translated by Per K. Brask &
Patrick Friesen
Epigramme
Un
poem de Niels Hav
On peut passer
toute une vie
en compagnie
des mots
sans trouver
le bon.
Comme un
pauvre poisson
enveloppé dans
des journaux hongrois:
D'abord, il
est mort.
En plus, il ne
comprend pas
le hongrois. |
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