Job Degenaar was the RIXT poet of the month in September. You can read his original Frisian poems from that month here. The translation of one of his poems – ‘Fall’ – is published below.
Fall
Sometimes other worlds trundled by: Weird Al
with his handcart and shovel for horse manure
the proud display of patriotism on Queen’s Day
and the ice cream man under shade trees
who rang his creamy temptation, cutting through
Radio Luxembourg, the one and only pop station,
the reception of which continually distorted
into a tinny sound, falling away on your transistor
just to make a comeback, after which the decline
started anew, just like you now, where little remains
of the emptiness of back then, the lazy days, your
lonely orgasms, the slow seasons, the low clamor
of a city family finding its way through
the clay, where a father ruled, a mother
sighed and children tested their limits
The world included many harbors –
A rowing boat rocks through the reeds
man under the moon plus son
traveling through the years, surrounded
by the glittery spray of onyx
he, who had become a distant shade, only brightening
from time to time, and you, the last of the tribe,
who has taken over the oars, trying to preserve
the memory of your lives against the flow of time
© Job Degenaar
translation: Trevor Scarse