Hugo Claus - Even Now

where you shrink. For all that the taste

of almond still shakes you up,

as much as you’re an ape in your delusions,

you here on three legs, give up the fight

and say goodnight to your children.

A seagull is already skimming the sea

to catch you up with salt and sand.

When the news came — no news came.

We drilled to the stream’s grave and carved

through the hyacinths that smothered its bed

when the news came.

And the news, translated and suppressed, pierced our chests

and broke the already motionless rock in our crotch.

It was a judgement on our customs,

a white law, scarcely explained:

“No more fumes, no pipes, no powders or herbs,

no sniffing or sucking the life-giving grass.”

Then we sat down and became the slush

in the sludge of the dredging machines.

With transplanted brains, banished to the blood-sapping cold,

we sat down by the foreign sea.

Strangled our parents with their queues, hung our children

in a bunch from the crane

and waited under the buzzards for the surging tide

to catch us in its cloud-sown waves.

My very dear friends,

Sometimes I tell a story (as one might expect of a poet)

About the winter which, in the white night,

Sends a flock of seagulls over the besieged city.

And then you nod, “Right, that’s a poet talking.”

And if in a romance I wish to record

The lamentations of the people in their gardens

You whisper, “Sure.”

Because I say so, because I am a poet.

But if I say, “Soon a gigantic wind will blow over you all,

A gruesome wind from God

And nothing will be left of any of you,”

Then you splutter and say, “He is a poet.”

(I.e., he should concern himself with books and broads,

but not with the delicate, fundamental, incalculable

cogs and wheels of politics and the intricate swinging system

of left and right, for and against, red or dead.)

My very dear friends,

On this winter’s day, the first of the year 1962,

There is much that I love, including, for example,

My wife, my three brothers, my father and my mother,

And there is much that I abhor, including, for example,

Those who have a lot of money when I have too little,

Writers who write badly and women without necks.

Well, of what I cherish and what I hate,

There will soon, after that wind, be nothing left.

Friends, God came to me and said,

“Claus, I made you out of nothing, what do you think of that?”

And I said, “Thank you very much, God.”

And he said, “And to nothing you will return. Huh?”

And I said, “Thank you very much, God. Just say the word.”

But then a man came up to me and said,

“I’d rather be dead than red,

And if I want to die then so do you.

I’d rather be one hundred per cent dead than just a little bit red.

All hands on deck, our ship will never sink.

None of us will ever be even a little bit pink!”

And I said, “Thanks a lot, man, but I pass.”

And he said, “Wars ennoble when they are noble wars,

fought for freedom’s holy cause.”

Then I said, “Thanks a lot, man, but I pass,

Because what’s going to come is no war

But a single gruesome, obscene wind from your God

And after that, nothing else.”

And I said, “I don’t want to see your God’s arse.”

Nothing else after that? Will all our eyeless

Toothless, chickenless grandchildren slough off

Their blistered skin down to the sixteenth toe?

Where in the blackest night does a blind man see a lighter black?

I hope that the gentlemen *

Will be able to explain that to you shortly.

I already know it all too well (I am a poet)

And it sickens me to realise

How I am making a fool of myself.

Because how can I make a fist?

One officer with a regulation truncheon

Would take care of the brainwork in my head in a jiffy.

Let alone: 3 police officers and 2,000 soldiers. Let alone the

Millions who would rather be red than dead.

There’s nothing to be done about it, so I do nothing

Except say these words, which also do nothing,

To you who also do nothing.

Admit it, it’s insane.

Because anyone who’s not spent and bent from hope and despair

Isn’t sitting here

But waiting in their warm house with coffee and cake

And calculating which corner of the cellar

Is best for the construction of a better, double, crossways cellar,

For later. When the wind comes.

My very dear friends,

When that wind descends over you tomorrow

And you are taken up in Gods’ fart

What good will hope and despair do you?

Let us head homewards,

Because don’t you see how paltry brittle fragile

This peace is,

When someone like me argues about it

And someone like you and you and you and you

With spent bent words and nicely flammable

Banners and books.

That is why, dear friends, there will be

No message from me on the first day of the year,

But an announcement for the population .

This is the announcement.

Go home. Later on television there will be

The Tales of Hoffmann, Eurovision.

Watch it.

Afterwards, once you have digested your evening meal

And your thought processes are a little slower,

Sit down in front of your mirror,

Pull out your breadknife,

Hold it against your throat, and recite

The prayer of those who order and rule your days,

The prayer of your governments on earth,

Who are the bowels of God.

Our Father

Who art in Heaven

Blessed be Thy Bomb

Your Kingdom come

Your Megatons ignite here on earth

As they do in Heaven.

Give us this day our nuclear weapons

And forgive us our provisional peace

As we forgive those who annoy us by moaning for peace.

And lead us not into the temptation of disarmament

That we may incinerate and disappear

For ever and ever

Amen.

*At Krasnapolsky, the speakers after Claus were the clergyman Kater, the biologist Van der Lek, the teacher H. Herbers and councillor Van der Sluis-Fintelman.

Where are you going? Why? Hollow questions, these,

and perfectly suited to fathers and judges!

We danced around their questions, spinning, swish, swish,

we, perfectly vacuous, we, ornate dolls.

“Just don’t get us pregnant!” the girlies screeched

and the menfolk held back meekly

between a squeal and a bounce, and a pounce.

Oh no, nowhere on earth

did we feel more at home

than under the maddest of skirts.

But God sent down a surly aviator

to sprinkle his ingredients among us:

virtues, wrinkles, solitude.

The nights grew older and longer.

And then, without a sign or word, a grumbling verdict

was passed. That’s right! Justice could be done!

How else can we explain that we

unnecessarily, improbably, unjustly,

were dancing slowly by the sea?

Now often, when the evening falls like snow,

a thing or creature moves towards us. And it