You hold me in the palm of your hand like a bird,
but take heed, for I live in your poems, every word.
To you they're pages bound in glue, without a voice.
And yet, they speak of love to me, your veiled bride,
timidly asking, "Do you wish to change your mind?"
I wait for your answer, whispering, "This shall not be,"
holding my breath and hoping to make you see
that behind my smile, life is but a single word, "You..."
My flowers are withering; my eyes hold back tears,
while you hesitate to say, "Until death do we part."
You hover between truth and a lie as I meekly say,
"My heart knows it will always be you and I."
Here I stand, in a wedding dress, telling my story,
while your eyes search mine as I murmur our vows.
I know you can hear every solemn word I speak,
but I wonder... do you hear what I feel?
December 1, 2021
Inspired By A Translation Poem Contest
Sponsored by Malabika Ray Choudhury
Based on the translation by Henry A. Smith,
of 'The Poetess ' by German Poet, Gertrud Kolmar.
for Gertrud Widmayer, my landlady at Heidelberg
Why in pensive ticking, silent thoughts
You wile your time away
When all around huge swelling bells
Toll the days away!
Every hour that announced may go
Your silent hands take hold
And though the ages chimed in ears
Yours they never behold.
If all the clocks the world had known
Had struck one strong big note,
They would never still your plodding tone
Nor the working hearth you alert.
Do you wonder, wonder, little clock
What makes the grandfather tick!
Or his aching belly in the depth of sorrow
Cries to the world it's sick!
Thirty million years and Pleistocene dark,
They are one split second short!
And whimpering suns that rise and flop
Have scarce stolen your tick or thought!
So, my little clock, my faithful clock
When I hear the tall town bell,
I'll shrug my shoulders, one tiny moment
And know that all is well.
© T. Wignesan, 1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)
for Gertrud Widmayer
I am a coal-truck
Carrying gold dust.
Someone threw some
Coal-dust upon
My gold-dust.
I am a coal-truck
In a gold mine.
Someone struck a coal vein
And piled me full in vain.
I am a coal-truck
Covered in subterranean dust.
Someone shovelled my soil
And found an ancient bone
All coiled.
I am a coal-truck
Waiting for the rain.
The sun is my rail
The night my shed.
I am a coal-truck
Rumbling all the way.
Wash me in the rain-storm
And fill me full of coke
Until I choke.
© T. Wignesan, 1957 - Pub. in "Forum Academicum", Heidelberg University, 1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)
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