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Poetry by Saini K.M.

Professor Siani KM and Mr Ian Jarvis Brown reading poetry at
Malam Persahabatan Indonesia Australia, STSI Bandung.

Sisyphus

Dan batu kembali ke jurang menggelundung.
Bolak-balik beribu tahun: beribu tahun
Sisyphus mendorong batu ke puncak gunung
kau mendaki dan tergelincir, jatuh dan bangun.

Jatuh dan bangkit di Babel, Sodom dan Gomorah
Auschwitz, Hiroshima-Nagasaki dan Vietnam.
Dan dari dasar derita, dengan nafas tersengal
kau berseru ke langit: Apakah artinya ini?

Langit menjawabmu dengan biru, dengan bisu.
Kau pun bangkit lagi; pucat, berdebu dan luka
kembali mendaki dan memandang Angkasa. Mungkin
itulah artinya: Payah dan luka kau tak tunduk.

Sisyphus

Sisyphus pushed the rock to the peak of the mountain
and the rock returned crashing down into the ravine.
To and fro, for thousands and thousands of years,
you climbed and slipped, fell and rose.

Fell and rose in Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah,
Auschwitz, Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Vietnam.
And from the depth of suffering, with grasping breath
you shouted out to Heaven: What's the meaning of this?

Heaven replied to you with its blueness, its silence.
Again you rose, pale, dusty and wounded
you started climbing and gazed at the sky. Possibly
that's the meaning: Tired and wounded you never submit.

Rindu

Kata-kata bermimpi tentang diri mereka sendiri
dan jadi lebih cantik, lebih berwarna-warni.
Sementara kita kusut tergesa, diburu waktu
dalam udara bergolak, cemar dan kelabu.

Di kantor, kelas, atau kafetaria yang sesak
saya menghirup wangi kata-kata: Cuma sejenak.
O gunjing politik, kuliah slogan dan lelucon cabul!
Betapa kata-kata terbunuh dan layu di daun telinga.

Pada suata kali mungkin kita lolos dari sini.
Berbaring di suatu tempat, tertawa dan bercinta;
di antara kata-kata yang asyik bermimpi
tentang diri sendiri, dan jadi serumpun bunga.

Yearning

Words are dreaming of themselves
and become lovelier and livelier.
While we, crumpled and chased by time
in churning air, polluted and grey.

In offices, classes and crowded cafes
I inhale the perfume of words; just for a second.
Oh political gossips, sloganistic lectures, indecent jokes!
How words die, buried on the edge of your ears.

Maybe one day we might escape from all of this.
Lying down somewhere, laughing and loving
while words are dreaming of themselves
and change into a bed of flowers.

Rumah Cermin

Sebuah rumah cermin dan kita terperangkap di dalamnya
Sosok dan wajah pecah bertabur dalam bingkai
dan warna beribu kaca. Janganlah bertanya
karena kata-kata pun berubah arti, layu bagai bunga.

Layu dan pucat bagai bibirmu, pada suatu kali:
walau kini satu-satunya bentuk yang dapat kuhayati
dalam kemayaan semesta, antara mimpi dan kenyataan:
dua kerajaan yang sama-sama menolak kehadiran kita.

Cetak-biru kemanusiaan telah lama dimakan bubuk
bersama buku dongeng kanak-kanak.Beginilah kita sekarang
wajah yang berebut bentuk dengan bayang-bayangnya
dalam rumah cermin, tempat kita terperangkap di dalamnya.

A House of Mirror

A house of mirrors and we are trapped inside.
Our features and faces are broken and scattered
in a thousand fragments of glass. Don't speak
for even words change their meaning, fade like flowers.

Fade and pale like your lips will become one day
though now they are the only tangible forms I have
in this natural haze, between dream and reality
the two kingdoms that have driven us away.

Our human blueprint has long been moth-eaten, together
with the children's book of fairy tales. What remains
are just faces fighting with their shadows for their forms
in a house of mirrors, where we are trapped inside.

Kembali Ke Afrika

Deru genderang, debum tumba gempita
dalam relungrelung purbani di kalbu
dan dalam mimpi leluhur yang berguncang
bersam gurun, bersama rimba ribuan tahun.

Wahai putra-putri bumi hitam Afrika
walau warna kulit berbeda kita bersaudara
pada lapis paling dalam, pada kegelisahan
dan kerinduan akan bulan para penenung.

Bulan mambang, bulatan conga yang besar
yang bersama sejuta bongo akan mengguntur
membagungkan singa-singa dan zamanmu
memanggil arwah dan menyihir malam jadi siang.

Back to Africa

The rattle of tom-toms, the beat of drums thundering
in the abysses of my primordial soul,
and in the dreams of your ancestors that sway
with the deserts, with the throbbing ancient jungles.

Sons and daughters of the dark great continent,
though our skins are of different colours
we are related in a deeper layer, in our restlessness
in our longing for the moon of the spirits.

The demonic moon, the giant golden conga
that with a million bongos will thunder;
waking up the lions and the millennium, calling back
your ancestors and changing night into day

By Saini K.M. (Prof. Drs.)

These poems were read on the occasion of Malam Persahabatan (Friendship Night) launching the Bandung branch held at Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (the College for the Arts) in the Museum Artistik Patanjala. English Oral/ written translation was undertaken by Dr Ian Jarvis Brown, in conjunction with the author, who read the poems in their native Indonesian. Dr Ian Jarvis Brown can be contacted at: darian@indosat.net.id.