DEFECTIVE
This winter
I am as scary
as an escaped murderer.
On a defective radio
of the make Limbo de Luxe
I listen to morning services
from the cathedral in Copenhagen.
The minister takes his text
from the Book of Micah: People
you know what is demanded of you;
justice, love and humility.
——————————–
Translated by P. K. Brask
The Long-haired Lorries
September’s the month of the lorries
heavy with hay, and along the lanes
lie edgings of loose straw.
School has long since started
and time’s gone quiet and closed away
in dead nests summer has forgotten
in the enormous forest of the reeds.
The membranes shrivel in the eggs
and the half-hatchlings
abandon their own bones
to seep through the tiny pores in the shells –
a scent, a trace
of obituaries in the September wind
as it moves now forward up the road
to comb the lorries’ tangled hair.
Translated by Heather Spears
The dipper
Something tells me I’m lost
a bit like the dipper.
No one believes he exists!
He stands on his stone
midstream. Enigma
and mystery.
It’s a case of studying your element.
Having begun with humility,
you come to know the water.
Translated by Heather Spears
———————————— More poems by Niels Hav will be appearing in Issue #1 of Retort Quarterly
© Niels Hav 2010
Niels Hav is a full time poet and short story writer living in Copenhagen. A contemporary Nordic voice with poetry and fiction published in numerous journals and anthologies in e.g. English, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, Chinese.
A new English collection of his poetry, We Are Here is published by Book Thug of Toronto – translated con amore by Patrick Friesen and Per Brask.
Most recently a selection of Niels Hav’s poetry, U Odbranu Pesnika, has appeared in Serbian translation, published by RAD, Belgrade 2008.
