70

Selamat Ulang Tahun Goenawan Mohamad

Hari Terakhir seorang Penyair, Suatu Siang

Di siang suram bertiup angin. Kuhitung pohon satu-satu
Tak ada bumi yang jadi lain: daun pun luruh, lebih bisu
Ada matahari lewat mengendap, jam memberat dan hari menunggu
Segala akan lengkap, segala akan lengkap, Tuhanku

Kemudian Engkau pun tiba, menjemput sajak yang tersua
Kemudian hari pun rembang dan tanpa cuaca
Siang akan jadi dingin, Tuhan, dan angin telah sedia
Biarkan aku hibuk dan cinta berangkat dalam rahasia


1964

Pertemuan

Meniti tasbih
malam pelan-pelan
Dan burung kedasih
menggaris gelap di kejauhan
kemudian adalah pesona:
wajah-Nya tersandar ke kaca jendela
demandang kita, memandang kita lama-lama.

Demikianlah sunyi telah diturunkan
dan demikianlah Nabi telah dititahkan
dan demikian pula manusia
dikirim ke bumi yang terbentang,
dari sorga
yang telah ditutupkan. Dan kini tinggallah cinta
memancar-mancar dari sunyi kaca jendela.

1964

Interlude - Unofficial Book Cover

70 Puisi - Unofficial Book Cover

Through the Windows of the Bar

Call me melancholy, he said.
A trumpet aimed at a forty watt bulb.
A door, dry as leaves, slammed by the night.

Call me melancholy, he said.
Soul in the gloom of the room, singed by fireflies
of cigarettes chasing each other’s tail.

Call me melancholy, he said.

His faces plastered on a poster, his smile
the momentary tremble of wall paper
and his steps, his life, a heart
refrigerated.

Call me.
But I do not know you, I said to him.

He smiled, black man. And squirmed, a black man.
Look at my lungs, he said. An object from
outer space
sticky with pus.

Call me melancholy, he said again, and sang:
I hate to see…

1991

Translated by Toenggoel P. Siagian

Morning

Drizzle like needles
falling. On zinc
and dawn, a thousand knocked down
from a distant time.

A bat shrieking,
in pain; struck
in its eye. I have seen its blood.

And the shadows flee
though there is nowhere
to hide. Nowhere
to hide

1976

Translated by Laksmi Pamuntjak

I May Have Erased Your Name

I may have erased your name
With the sole of my shoes
As you have erased mine
From a war no more in the news

Maybe you have erased not my name
Maybe I have erased not your name
Maybe we were not even here before
Only the southern woods and a downpour

1973

Translated by the author

Poemster 6