Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2025
Unexpected happiness, poems by Niels Hav.
Unexpected happiness
My poems are still as ugly
as the scratched bus shelters
along deserted country roads
where schoolchildren and seniors
are waiting for transport.
They hardly improve the landscape,
and people are pissing on them
just because they are here – decorated
with anonymous curses and the new
slogans. Here hangs the timetable.
In May some stay outside listening
to the songlark who sweetens the wait
with a frivolous concert
about summers zephyr wind
and morning diamonds.
But when winter’s melancholy vampires
wander freely about in the wilderness,
and a kiss in the suburbs is less common
than a UFO, my ugly shelters
gladly stand there waiting with you –
Till the bus arrives. I, too, am longing,
desperately to find the enigmatic words
that redeem my soul
– a mystery of unexpected happiness
in the middle of the winter timetable.
When We Were Alive
We drank lots of wine,
bottles were lined up.
Do you remember?
We yelled and laughed
blissfully ignorant of most things,
but we understood what’s important
to one hundred percent.
Love was the only legal tender,
national borders had no meaning.
Violence, war, greed – indeed, stupidity
of any kind was outlawed.
All humans are born equal
with valid expectations and rights.
Strangers were greeted as new friends
we exchanged smiles, kisses and cigarettes.
Whoever laughs deserves a kiss.
Whoever weeps needs love.
We sided with the poor.
We were pacifists and against any war.
We decided to vagabond the globe
and make the world our homeland.
We swam under the twinkling starry sky
in the luminous dusky night –
our skin was firm,
warm and smooth,
when we were alive.
Do you remember?
Happiness and unhappiness are twins.
Sorrow arrives, limping.
We drank the light, we drank the darkness.
We dreamed and sang,
when we were alive,
do you remember?
Translated by Per Brask, Patrick Friesen and the author
What are we to do, Mallarmé?
The undefined space behind the filling station
where they put scrapped cars to be plundered
for parts.
To stand in shelter there
a black night with the moon like a loose UFO
among ragged clouds.
My steaming piss
a frayed flag waving over grass and thistles
in the dark.
What are we to do, Mallarmé?
Translation by Martin Aitken
© Niels Hav
Niels Hav was awarded the Danish Literature Prize 2024 from Ragna Sidéns and Vagn Clausens Foundation. He is the author of ten volumes of prose and poetry. His books are widely translated into languages including e.g. Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, Turkish, English, Serbian, Kurdish, Albanian and Farsi. Frequently interviewed by the media, he has travelled widely in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America and participated in numerous literary events. His poems and stories have been published in a large number of journals, magazines and newspapers around the world. His new English poetry collection Moments of Happiness is published by Anvil Press in Vancouver.