A Poem Translated from the Dutch

[rfmcdonald]

Gerrit Komrij, "The Language-Forger"
Language's consonants and vowels portray
The orset and the flaccid belly's spread.
A poet's one who's able to display
An ease when boning them that seems inbred.

Obese or slim, his word without delay
Unite, in fluid couplets sweetly wed.
His secret's effortlessness, not to lay
A smoke screen. He takes language off to bed.

His flask is language--A to Z.
And when half-drunk--albeit just in play--
He spawns a child, an epic or quartet,

Or something in-between--a sonnet, say.
His fight with blubber, though, and whalebone stay
The reader never knows is left unsaid.

- Originally from All Poems up to Yesterday (Alle gedichten tot gisteren). Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1994. Trans. John Irons.