Excerpts from
Poems
By Johannes V. Jensen
At Memphis Station
Half-awake and half-dozing,
rammed by a clammy reality but still off
in an inner sea-fog of Danaid dreams,
I stand here my teeth chattering
at Memphis Station, Tennessee.
Itīs raining.
The night is empty, dull,
and the rain flogs the ground
with a dark witless energy.
Everything is clammy and impenetrable.
Why is the train held up here hour after hour?
Why has my destiny come to a halt here?
Have I fled from the rain and corrosion of soul
in Denmark, japan, and India
only to be rainbound and rot in Memphis,
Tennessee, U.S.A.?
And now the dawn. Joylessly the light
filters in over the wet prison.
The day ruthlessly exposes
the cold rails and the masses of black mud,
the waiting room with its candy machines,
the orange peels, the stumps of cigars and matches.
The day grins with spewing gutters
and an eternal grille of rain.
Rain, I say, from heaven and to earth.
How deaf and immovable is the world,
how talentless the creator!
And why do I keep on paying my dues
to this plebian Kneipp-cure of an existence!
Quiet! Look how the engine,
that mighty machine, stands there calmly seething,
wrapping itself in smoke - it is patient.
Light your pipe on an empty stomach.
Curse God and swallow your pain!
All right then, stay in Memphis!
Your lifeīs not anything but a sour rain
anyway, and it was always your destiny
to hang around delayed in some
miserable waiting room or other
Stay in Memphis, Tennessee!
For in one of those poster-howling buildings
happiness waits for you, happiness,
if you can only swallow your impatience.
Here, too, sleeps a shapely young virgin,
her ear buried in her hair.
She will come to meet you
on the street one fine day
like a wave of fragrance
with an air as if she knew you.
Isnīt it spring?
Doesnīt the rain fall lushly?
Doesnīt it sound like an amorous murmur,
a long, hushed love-chat,
mouth against mouth
between the rain and the earth?
The day dawned so sorrowfully,
but look how the rainfall brightens!
Will you not give day its right to battle?
Anyway, itīs light now. The smell of mould
sets in among the rusted iron braces of the platform
mixed with the rank breath of the rain-dust
a premonition of spring
consoling, isnīt it?
And now look, look how the Mississippi
in its bed of flooded forests
wakes to the day!
Look how the huge river revels in its turnings!
How royally it gushes in its bending and swings rafts
of trees and battered driftwood in its eddies.
Look how it sweeps a gigantic paddle-wheeler
in its deluge embrace
like a dancer who is lord of the floor!
Look at the sunken headlands - oh, what overwhelming primeval peace
over the landscape of drowning forests!
Canīt you see how the currentīs morning water
dresses itself for miles in days simple light
and wanders hale and hearty under the pregnant clouds!
Now, compose yourself, you implacable man!
Will you never forget that you were promised eternity?
Will you begrudge the earth your meager gratitude?
And then what will you do with your loverīs heart?
Pull yourself together, and stay in Memphis,
show up in the square as a citizen,
go in and insure yourself with all the others,
pay your premium of sleaziness
so they neednīt fear anything from you,
and you wonīt get toned out of the club.
Go court that virgin with room and ring of gold
and start a sawmill like other men.
Hitch up your rubber boots in peace ...
Gaze out, puffing your wise pipe
in sphinx-forsaken Memphis...
Ah, here comes the wretched freight train
for which we have waited six hous.
It comes in slowly with shattered sides,
it whistles weakly, the cars staggering on three wheels
and the shattered boks-cabins dripping earth and mud.
But on the tender among the coal
foour still forms are lying
covered by bloodwet coats
Then our huge engine snorts,
edges forward a little and stops, deeply sighing,
and stands crouched for the lap. The track is clear.
And we travel on
through the flooded forests
under the gaping sluices of the rain
From: Contemporary Danish Poetry An Anthology
Gyldendal, Copenhagen, Denmark / Twayne Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A
1977
Translated by Alexander Taylor
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