Milk and Insanity

I drank milk,

the world awash in insanity.

The room illuminated by the frosty sun,

the sun coming up on the left

& going down on the right.

I am sitting in a chair

where I can reach the medicine,

the water & the glass,

drops & matches

by reaching my hand out to the table.

I drank milk,

the world awash in insanity,

the sun proceeding across the sky.

I divide the sun with my hand

& the country is awash in insanity—

the country seen through the sanitarium’s windows,

which need washing.

I repeat the words and

swallow the day’s first pill,

a large sedating tablet

I break in half

& wash down with a mouthful of water.

Then I set afloat a broken match,

slosh the water

to dissolve the red sulphur.

Then I eat two raw eggs

(instead of flowers)
and a slice of fresh bread.

I am reprimanded by the psych nurse

who comes to take my glass away—

“Now I have to change the water!”

I am surprised by the nurse’s care…

At noon I hear a sigh

from the sanitarium’s hallway.

Everyone is waiting for the big ride in the chairs.

We get tied down

and rolled out in turn,

howling impatiently,

ten times around the fountain

in all kinds of weather &

rolled back again into the rooms…

Now I am tired & so are the others.

After two hours sleep in the middle of the day,

I wake to the boiled eggs & the medicine.

I put my hand on my heart and

count its beats down to normal—

I can do it myself and

the aide would rather not…

 

 

A Place in no Place

If I always have to listen to information

coming to me from the outside—

without a doubt I would lose the ability

to sense things from the inside!

 

When I lost you (I don’t know when)

I lost you multiple times,

and I lost you multiple places—

but when I finally lost you,

 

it was to see a deeper you in me…

 

I had a dream

that I was eating glass without spitting blood.

And I ran from my pursuers

through gray, dismal woods and slums at the city’s edge.

 

You were there (as always)

under my protection, since you are part of me,

although you were not together with me here,

as I hid you behind every wall and every tree,

 

in every word, where they sought our tracks…

 

And they will never find us.

They have hidden us so far away

in our own nature (through ongoing manhunts).

Constantly closer to everything—one solution and one mission.

 

Nearby and distant to the whole world,

to real life,

these essential and actual days,

we are continually forced to look back on:

 

A place in no place, where everything lives.

Mælk og vanvid

Jeg drak mælk,

verden flyder i vanvid.

Værelset er oplyst af frostsolen,

solen står op til venstre

& går ned til højre.
Jeg sidder i en stol,

hvor jeg kan nå medicinen,

vandet & glasset,

dråber & tændstikker

ved at række hånden ud mod bordet.

Jeg drak mælk,

verden flyder i vanvid,

mens solen rykker over himlen.

Jeg splitter solen med hånden

& landet flyder i vanvid—

landet betragtet gennem asylets ruder,

der trænger til at blive pudset.

Jeg gentager ordene og

sluger dagens første pille,

en stor beroligende tablet,

jeg brækker over midten

& skyller ned med en mundfuld vand.

Så isøsætter jeg en knækket tændstik,

skvulper med vandet

for at opløse det røde svovl.

Så spiser jeg to rå æg

(i stedet for blomster)

og en skive frisk brød.

Jeg bliver irettesat af sygeplejeren,

der kommer for at hente glasset—

“Nu skal vandet skiftes!”
Jeg undrer mig over sygeplejerens omsorg …

Ved middagstid lyder der suk

fra asylets gange,

alle venter på den store tur i stolene.

Så bliver vi spændt fast

og rullet ud på række,

hylende utålmodige,

ti gange rundet om springvandet

i al slags vejr &

rullet på plads igen i stuerne …

Nu er jeg træt & det er de andre også.

Efter to timers søvn midt på dagen

vågner jeg til de kogte æg & medicinen.

jeg lægger hånden på hjertet og

tæller dets banken ned til normalt—

det kan jeg selv og

plejeren er helst fri.…

 

 

Et sted i intet sted

Hvis jeg altid må lytte til informationer,

der kommer til mig udefra—

mister jeg uden tvivl evnen

til at sanse tingene indefra!

 

Da jeg mistede dig (jeg ved ikke hvornår)—

jeg mistede dig mange gange,

og jeg mistede dig mange steder—

men da jeg endelig mistede dig,

 

var det for at se dybere dig i mig …

 

Jeg havde en drøm,

hvor jeg spiste glas uden at spytte blod.

Hvor jeg løb fra mine forfølgere

igennnem grå triste skove og slum i udkanten af byen.

 

De var til stede (som altid)

under min beskyttelse, da du er en del af mig,

og dog var du ikke sammen med mig her,

hvor jeg gemte dig bag hver en mur og hvert et træ,

 

i hvert et ord, hvor man søgte vore spor …

 

Og de finder os aldrig.

Så langt borte har de skjult os

i vor egen natur (igennem stadige forfølgelser).

Stadig nærmere alt—én løsning og én opgave.

 

Tæt og fjernt på hele verden,

det egentlige liv,

disse væsentlige og egentlige dage,

vi stadig tvinges til at se tilbage på:

 

Et sted i intet sted, hvor alt har hjemme.

Translator's Note

After reading two of his poetry books which I bought from used book stores in Denmark, I contacted Rolf Gjedsted in early 2022, with an eye towards translating his writing. He and I met at his home in Nyhavn, Copenhagen that May. After a tour of the restaurant on the first floor of his building, which was decorated with Rolf’s large, colorful abstract paintings, we sat by the canal among the tourists and cafes. I shared a few sample translations I had done, and he gave me a bag with copies of what he thought were his ten best poetry collections, all now out of print. We shared not just similar interests in music, eastern philosophy, and poetry, but we also had a dear common acquaintance in the recently deceased Danish national poet, Benny Andersen. We discussed other Danish writers that we had known, and he revealed to me what he had learned was the secret to writing poetry: musicality. Rolf was also a translator, bringing into Danish the poetry of Baudelaire, Poe, and Rimbaud. It was a shock to learn that just two months after meeting him, Rolf died suddenly in July, 2022. 

It is an unusual and lengthy process, reading what grew to become fifteen poetry collections, then selecting what I feel are the best poems from each volume. As I read each poem, I am listening for a deep voice, uncommon truth, fantastic description, compassionate treatment of human episodes, a dense craft that follows from first to last lines. I ask a lot of a poem. But then, it will also ask a lot of me in return. As I translate them, I attempt to recreate each poem as I feel Rolf would have written them, if he had written in English. I try to maintain the same register, flow, craft, and musicality. I hope to disappear, that my translations become a window through which the original is read with as little distortion as possible.

The first poem, Milk and Insanity, engaged me from the first words with its strong voice, its unusual setting, and its subtle conflicts. I find this persona poem totally convincing, as it juxtaposes the general state of the world ‘awash in insanity’ with the specifics of the matchstick, the medicine, the eggs, and, of course, the milk.

The second poem won me over with its attempt to describe the impossible – how our relationships with everything are both outward and inward simultaneously. An ambitious poem that reminds me how all things in my life are happening inside my brain, though I am used to sensing them outside of myself, ever since I can remember.

I hope readers enjoy these poems, and can appreciate the voice that wrote them forty to fifty years ago, through the translation.

Unfortunately, Rolf will not see his work appear in translation. This feels bittersweet to me, as I know it would have made him happy, to see his writing be read by audiences far from Denmark.

I appreciate partnering with the editors at Exchanges, so that Rolf’s voice continues to reach readers with its message of deep awareness, living with paradox, and the musicality of language.


Michael Favala Goldman

×

In the Classroom

×