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Tomas Tranströmer
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UNDER PRESSURE
The blue sky’s engine-drone is deafening.
We’re living here on a shuddering work-site
where the ocean depths can suddenly open up
shells and telephones hiss.
You can see beauty only from the side, hastily.
The dense grain on the field, many colours in a yellow stream.
The restless shadows in my head are drawn there.
They want to creep into the grain and turn to gold.
Darkness falls. At midnight I go to bed.
The smaller boat puts out from the larger boat.
You are alone on the water.
Society’s dark hull drifts further and further away.
NATIONAL INSECURITY
The Under Secretary leans forward and draws an X.
And her ear-drops dangle like swords of Damocles.
As a mottled butterfly is invisible against the ground
so the demon merges with the opened newspaper.
A helmet worn by no one has taken power.
The mother-turtle flees under the water.
Tomas Tranströmer
Published in "New Collected Poems", C by Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robin Fulton, published by Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon
Tyne, 1997
Used by permission of the poet.
Note on the author: Tomas Tranströmer, born 1931 in Stockholm, is the
leading contemporary poet from Sweden and one of the most important poets
of this century. His poems has been translated and published by the most
prestigious publishers in Swedish, Dutch, English, German, Hungarian,
Polish, Slovak,Spanish etc.
