Nellie oversat hjem til Amerika, almost

Jeg har modtaget en canadisk udgave af Niels Franks digtsamling Èn vej, 2005, mundret oversat til engelsk under den nye titel Picture World af Roger Greenwald.

At long last!

Niels Franks poesi har altid - eller i hvert fald siden  Tabernakel, 1996 - kun af nød formuleret sig (mesterligt!) på dansk, så meget hellere vil den tale engelsk eller rettere amerikansk, ikke for ingenting er Niels Frank vores førende New York-skolede digter, og så er det jo bare solid poetisk ironi, at bogen er udgivet i Canada og ikke USA. Prøv at høre, hvor sirligt bittersødt konverserende RIGTIGT dette digt, nr. 21, lyder i Greenwalds agile oversættelse:

Chlorprothixene. Ketobemedin. Diazapam and so on.
Did I really say that?
Cortisone. Bricanyl and so on.
Nitroglycerin for angina pectoris
- choking chest.
Chlorprothixene and Ketobemedin for the goddamn despair.
Diazepam for a flicker in the nervous system.
Cortisone for I don't know what.
The weak flesh?
Bricanyl for lungs cross-hatched in small and large squares
- scorched balloons without the last bit of air.
Hellish wheezing.

The rhetoric revealed the secret.
Our secret. Our.
The rhetoric that always says too much.
The rhetoric that always wants to quote the truth but
cannot.

Hm. What else can I say to perk you up?
Today I haven't masturbated (also known as Spanking It)
for lack of pictures. The dick so incredibly distant.
Merely an appendagge. A mollusc.
What else? Today I'm washing the bed linens in hot water.
The eye of the machine foams cheerfully
What else? I could swing in the keyholes
if you'd like
I could throw myself at the huge cactuses
in the garden behind the pink castle
if you'd like
I could paint the oranges black in Naples
if you'd like
I could do all that with my eyes closed. And maybe
that's all I know how to do
Show every person's defeat by time
if you'd like.
If.