Saturday 20 February 2016

Villanelle by the Swedish writer Majken Johansson

Villanella på en spik

Spiken syns ömsom krokig ömsom rak
genom det fluidum som fyller livets skreva.
Vem hoppas inte kunna ändra soppans smak?

Hopfösta sörplar under samma tak
tyckmyckentrutarna och de som skapts att sleva.
Spiken syns ömsom krokig ömsom rak.

Hopfrysta guppande i samma vak
drivs likväl alla att mot varsin iskant treva.
Vem hoppas inte kunna ändra soppans smak?

Liksom nu nåd och nöd syns vara samma sak
så genom ögonspringans omilt fläkta reva
syns spiken ömsom krokig ömsom rak.

Hur än du vrides bär du ryggen bak
hur du än vrider dina ögonlinser skeva.
Vem hoppas inte kunna ändra soppans smak?

Ännu för sista flisan av vart vrak
lyder “naturens första bud”: att sammanleva.
Spiken syns ömsom krokig ömsom rak.
Vem hoppas inte kunna ändra soppans smak?


Villanelle made on a nail

The nail seems sometimes crooked sometimes straight
through the secretion that life’s cleft fills with its juices.
Who would not dearly wish to make the soup taste great?

Crammed here beneath one roof slurp from their plate
the picky and the shovellers down open sluices.
The nail seems sometimes crooked sometimes straight.

Jammed in one ice-hole in half-frozen state
for separate edges they must grope before it fuses.
Who would not dearly wish to make the soup taste great?

Just as pure need and mercy now seem to equate
so through the peering eye’s rent chink one thing bemuses:
the nail seems sometimes crooked sometimes straight.

Twist as you may, your back’s behind your pate                                               
though you subject your lenses to all kinds of ruses.
Who would not dearly wish to make the soup taste great?

Even our wreck’s last splinter shares this fate:
‘Nature’s first law’ – to co-exist – brooks no excuses.
The nail seems sometimes crooked sometimes straight.
Who would not dearly wish to make the soup taste great?


1 comment:

John Irons said...

For information about the expression 'to make soup on a nail', go to:

http://www.socialdoc.net/magnus/2011/09/19/making-soup-on-a-nail/