TENGGARA 1 - 1967
Dep.of English - Univ. of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia
taufig ismail 's poems
TRANSLATED BY ADRIENNE BALFAS
These poems by Taufig Ismail were written under the pseudonym Nur Fajar. He is the young Indonesian poet who is a veterinarian .
Although his best poems written before the attempted coup d' état of September 1965 , the poems he wrote during the student demonstrations are best known in Indonesia. They were distributed under the name Nur Fajar by the propaganda section of KAMI. The directness and simpleness of his poems fitted in well with the students demonstrations.
The poems reprinted here come from two cyclostyled called Tirani and Benteng distributed by KAMI during the months of February and March of this year. These poems were received by three persons of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur, one of them my husband (M. Balfas, the novelist) . They appeared mysteriously on their desk one days, no one knows how. The above information about the poems was received from Mr. Peter Smart, a young Australian writer who came to Kuala Lumpur after a visit to Imdonesia recently.
Adrienne Balfas
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POEMS FROM INDONESIA
6. 30
In the centre of Harmoni
on the bill bord
( Castell watches )
are written the word " our world
needs the exact time."
Behind this is the morning sky
The quays of the river and barboo wire
The guard is on his post, in the palace.
Castell watches
say to everyone who passes
" our world
needs the right moment. "
(6, 30 : one hour before one of the sudent demonstrations took palace. Harmoni is
a place in Jarkata near the palace .)
SHADOW (1)
It drizzles
on the tired earth
and the wind blows
through the endless streets
there is no house
we have no house
we have no house
we are only shadows
SHADOW (2)
It drizzles
on the tired earth
and on the paintful bodies
we are hungry. We are hungry
Hungry shadows.
SHADOW (3)
It drizzles
on the silent earth
after the noisy procession (with big druims)
The wind blows through the endless streets
it blows through everything
it blows through the millions of shadows
SHADOW (4)
Under the shadow of a pillar
under the golden shadow
there are millions of shadows
crying because of the drizzling rain
crying because of the volcano
Grey clouds slowly caress
the forests in the south .
(golden shadow : i.e, of the national
monument, topped with 30 kilograms of gold, erected by President Sukarno.)
FLAG
Men in black
stop in front of a house
that flies a dropping flag
and force their way in
These men in black
take down the flag
while an old mother looks on
and they say to her " it was
not a hero who died ".
Men in black
with black hearts
leave the house in a hurry
Then the old mother
slowly raises again
the sad flag
on a sad pole .
MERDEKA UTARA
Two Saladin tanks
with heavy wheels
Barricade the rest in silence.
Two silent raod-bends
One man holds a bren
The blue morning sky
turns grey, turns grey.
( Merdeka Utara is where the palace
stand in Jarkata .)
HARMONI
Six roadblocks have been erected
this morning
At that moment the sky paled
over Harmoni
Weapons and battledress
In fronmt of the barbed wire
The suffocating town
becomes restles from waiting
The flag half-mast
on Gayatri
A mother looks up to it
wiping her wet eyes.
WREATH
Three small children
with shy steps
came to Salemba
that afternoon
" This is from us there
a black ribbon on a wreath
because we also mourn
our elder brother who was sho
earlier to day.
taufig ismail
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( TENGGARA 1 - 1967 - p. 105 -111)
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