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Bob Vanden Broeck: Debris Making – vi.

By Bob Vanden Broeck, translated by Paul Vincent
30 October 2019 2 min. reading time Friday Verses

This week’s Friday Verses are written by Bob Vanden Broeck. We translated Brokstukken maken (Debris Making – vi.). This poem was first published in Dutch in Het Liegend Konijn, a magazine for contemporary Dutch-language poetry.

Bob Vanden Broeck (b. 1993, Duffel) writes poetry and had a temporary post as an assistant-curator at the Free University of Brussels. Bob’s poetry has appeared in magazines such as Het Liegend Konijn, DW B and the Internet Gids. In 2017 he took part in the Paris residency of the Flemish-Dutch organisation deBuren. In addition, he writes texts on contemporary art and poetry for, for example, rekto:verso and De Reactor. He has collaborated on art publications at home and abroad. In 2020 he will be participating in Artefact, an annual festival of contemporary art at the STUK art centre in Leuven. Bob is involved in a talent-developing course at De Nieuwe Oost – Wintertuin and is attached as an Independent Poet to the Antwerp Artist-Run School.

Debris Making

VI.

with poetry
I want to fill the gap in the market’s gap

and find Drexciya, the town founded
by the descendants of pregnant African women
who were thrown into the ocean and under water
gave birth to children with gills

I know now
that if I let myself fall from the boat I
won’t fall outside the boat
that bruises can become places
where fungi leave spores
myths, mouths, possibilities

I shall organise reunions in capitalist ruins
of people who look strikingly like me
gently bump into them in market squares
strike up a conversation with them

together play a guitar with plaster strings at full volume
create slow avalanches
on a windy day shift a huge dune
with small shovels

I shall put head and tail on this body
feel a thousand delighted dolphins
tumbling in my belly

houses in barns with scales

(Dutch version below the photo)

Brokstukken maken

VI.

ik wil met poëzie
het gat in het gat van de markt dichten

daar Drexciya vinden, de stad opgericht
door de nakomelingen van zwangere Afrikaanse vrouwen
die in de oceaan werden gegooid en onder water
kinderen met kieuwen baarden

ik weet nu
dat als ik mij uit de boot laat vallen ik
niet buiten de boot zal vallen
dat blauwe plekken plaatsen kunnen worden
waarin paddenstoelen sporen nalaten
mythes, monden, mogelijkheden

ik zal in kapitalistische ruïnes reünies organiseren
met mensen die sprekend op mij lijken
op een marktplein zachtjes tegen hen aanbotsen
met hen een gesprek aanknopen

samen op gipsen snaren snoeihard een gitaar bespelen
langzame lawines creëren
op een winderige dag met schopjes
een reusachtige duin verplaatsen

ik zal kop en staart aan dit lichaam krijgen
duizend dolgelukkige dolfijnen
in mijn buik voelen tuimelen

huizen in schuren met schubben

website Bob Vanden Broeck

Bob vandenbroeck marianne hommerson

Bob Vanden Broeck

poet
photo
© Marianne Hommersom

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