CHIENG MAI: THE FORTUNE-TELLER

Whoever he may constantly remind me of;
his gaze appears to hold more life than mine.
Although, I read in many languages, our fortune
matches the sum that has been paid.

He counts my numbers next to hers, divides
and then subtracts once more, treaces my palm,
links Aries and Goat on their allotted paths.
Compassion’s alien to this temple.

His interpreter enquires if I’m a surgeon.
Copper clatters in an ancient wind. I nod.
“He see. You not good faith. You know.”
I return the smile, give him more of the same.





E-zine Two drops of ink, USA, August 2017
From the bilingual collection ‘Tropendrift / Tropical Drift’, 2003. In de Knipscheer, Haarlem





QUARTZ

Here, on this acid-washed expanse of peat moor
where clans, smeared with clay, once
stood screaming across at each other,

snatches of silence now reign.

No difference any more between the rain
and the wind, nor between the youth
full of dreams who you took into the refuge hut

and the gruesome man who subdued you.

Your language blooms briefly like heather,
mine rips itself open on granite
for what we share does not conceal

what our forefathers rightly suspected:

the depth of the lochs and the height
of the hills are only connected
by the prayer scratched down in the annals


by the predecessor, as bleeding as love.





E-zineTwo Drops Of Ink, USA, August 2017
https://twodropsofink.com/2017/08/07/neil-leadbeater-interviews-dutch-poet-albert-hagenaars/
August 7, 2017
The Dutch version appeared in the anthology ‘De Hooglanden’, Demer Publishers, 2014