Maatstaf. Jaargang 23

[p. 30]

Michael Hamburger Poems

Vehicles

Every time I use the first person singular in a poem
It calls to mind that more than three quarters of the people on earth
Can no more afford an ego than they can a Cadillac,
Let alone a singular person. If one of them says ‘I’
He or she means the need that makes a baby cry;
And food isn't singular. As for the pampered few,
The luxury and autonomy of their egos can be such
As to bore them. In that plight they'll resort
To drugs or the forms of meditation practised
Where ‘I’ permutes from ‘anyone’ to ‘no one’; and may even toy
With the disciplines of self-abnegation, of poverty.
That calls to mind all these Yogis in Cadillacs.

Babes in the Wood

in memoriam E. and W.M

No, they didn't get out,
Nor did they die, then.
They grew up, learning
To live on what they could find,
To build shelters, fend off
Wild boars that rooted around them,
Inquisitive bears.

[p. 31]

 

They grew old, never knowing it,

 

Holding hands, lisping

 

Love's baby talk

 

Against buzzard and owl,

 

The half-light of day

 

And darker night -

 

Till the dawn when he lay dumb.

 

 

 

Come down, birdy, she said,

 

It's a cold hand I hold,

 

And hold it I must while he

 

Lies here for me to see.

 

I am weak, I am old,

 

The damp has warped my bones.

 

I cannot bury him.

 

 

 

It was ants that obliged.

 

But birdy said the woman

 

Who found her way out.

Dropped in

This time it wasn't burglars
Who had forced the door
When I returned after midnight
To my room on the half-landing.

I saw light, heard voices -
Low, uncommonly low
If one of them was
Irving's, my friend's,
As I thought, the other
His latest girl's.

Ah, well. I knocked before entering,
But needn't have done.
Not to borrow, this time,
Not for so much as a meal,
Not for small-talk either
They had dropped in.
No, they had brought me something -
A corpse.

[p. 32]

 

A young woman's he said.

 

Killed, yes, but not murdered,

 

Killed in a game they had played.

 

 

 

I did not look, did not ask

 

Who she was, but knew

 

That I knew her, knew

 

That the body was under my bed.

 

 

 

Dumped there, for me, why,

 

If she died in a game?

 

 

 

Quick, call the police,

 

The longer you wait

 

The less they'll believe you.

 

 

 

The longer we argued

 

The more she was there,

 

The more she was mine

 

To be hidden or moved

 

And hidden again, to be touched

 

And, worst, to be recognized.

 

 

 

Take care, he said, going.

 

Of yourself - and her, said the girl.

 

One day you'll understand.