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Poetry

[If later, or sooner, it is]

Translated from Dutch by Francis R. Jones

If later, or sooner, it is,
or becomes, sayable—this is the most
thingable it will be; best of all,
let my text encircle someone who foists it on himself,

or by whom it’s fobbed off with itself;
if smoke fails to announce the outcome,
I might as well go to sea:
to let oneself be blown away.

From Springvossen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2000). By arrangement with the estate of Hans Faverey.

English

If later, or sooner, it is,
or becomes, sayable—this is the most
thingable it will be; best of all,
let my text encircle someone who foists it on himself,

or by whom it’s fobbed off with itself;
if smoke fails to announce the outcome,
I might as well go to sea:
to let oneself be blown away.

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