Poem, LONDON
Feb 09, 2024
Happiness
by Astrid Alben
As soon as I slept Poet rose up and stood over my body
he saw me weak & weird with metallic blue toenails tiny
toucan beaks that wanted to fly off into the universe made it
out of the window. I stretched out in a treetop to rest.
The stars were inquisitive eyes. I was plankton in a cave I was
a pack of lies I was being somewhere else I was finding
answers Poet craved. I woke up stranger to my body surrounded
by feather boas reindeer moss a handful of the afterlife.
note
- From Plainspeak, Prototype, 2019.
- Japanese translation by Yumiko Koizumi, a post-doctoral scholar (American poetry).
しあわせ
アストリッド・アルベン
訳 小泉由美子
わたしが眠るやいなや詩人は目をさましわたしのからだを見おろすようにたたずんで
弱々しく変なものとしてながめた。わたしの足にはメタリックブルーのネイル ちいさな
オオハシのくちばし それらは宇宙のもとへと飛んでいきたくて窓からまんまと
やりおおせた。わたしは木のてっぺんでゆっくり休むためにからだをのばした。
星々は目をキラキラさせていた。わたしは洞窟のなかのプランクトン わたしは
ひとそろいの嘘 わたしはどこかべつのところにいる存在 わたしは詩人が焦がれた
こたえを見つけていた。わたしは見知らぬひとを起こし フェザーボア ハナゴケ
ひとつかみのあの世のものでかこまれたわたしのからだにいざなった。
注
和訳: 小泉由美子。ポスドク（アメリカ詩）。
Astrid Alben
Astrid Alben is a poet, editor and translator. She is the author of Ai! Ai! Pianissimo (Arc, 2011), Plainspeak (Prototype, 2019) and the forthcoming Little Dead Rabbit (Prototype, 2022). Her poems, essays and reviews are featured in a wide range of publications, including in the Times Literary Supplement, Granta and BBC Radio 4 Four-Thought.
Alben is the editor of three art/science anthologies published by Lars Müller Publications and was awarded a Wellcome Trust Fellowship in 2014 for her work across the arts and sciences with PARS. She is Chair of Poetry London and lives in London.
www.astridalben.com / @AstridAlben
