An international poem

This very moving poem came through on my email this morning and I wanted to post it up. I think the poet is from Belgium, but his thoughts are universal and cross all geographical boundaries. Here it is courtesy of poetryinternational.org

Pushed out with worn-out furniture
her sprung insides show
the joys and woes of an old mattress.
The kapok suddenly releases secrets
and in its lumpy burls
refrains and duets stick:

Come my love, don’t withdraw
yet. Feel me over to see
if I’m a stranger once again
asking you the way to today –
I want to disappear inside
a raw body flap
as in a cave beneath the sea.

So bird-swift, with quick jerks,
this duet sounded like a duel
when in the middle of a kissed-away silence
a voice, almost choked, sprang up:
“If you die first, then I will surely follow . . .”

Come my love, pull me in
like a snail does its feelers:
I do not want to see the light
that whistles in my ribs –
Quickly set my coil-locked
body on fire: just one more sigh
and the bloom is gone.




© 2001, Lucienne Stassaert
© Translation: 2008, John Irons