A Poem by Joop Bersee

Damnation

Her hunger has no clothes.
Her shoulders offered, wreaths
the remains of a battle between
wind and wind, dull wind lying
on a stone, close to the high chair

of king and father, sweat like
pearls breathing into far fields,
a turtle o so slowly, away from child
and tree. The sky sings like a dog
shivering beneath its bony skin.

A daze of thoughts takes my arm
to a car full of remorse, just a few
words floating to the surface as
the world begins to move through
the black wooden gate of damnation.

Joop Bersee was born in the Netherlands in 1958 in Aerdenhout. From 1989 to 1996 he lived in South Africa where he began writing poetry in English in 1991. His poetry has been published in South Africa, England, Wales, Canada, Brazil, India (in a translation),the United States and Ireland. In 2011 he was one of the winning poets of the Dalro Award in South Africa. Currently he works for the library of a museum in Amsterdam.