I will undress the world, Dust the map And dump the manuscripts of history, The lines of longitude and latitude, and boundaries. Mountains and springs, And gold, petrol, climate and clouds I will redistribute evenly. I will pass my feather duster Over tired faces For white, black and yellow to melt Into apricot colour. I will clear tongues of languages and idioms And melt them in my crucible Into a white thesaurus without evil, Purged of angry words ... Before I sit down on my throne, I will discipline the sun’s angles and the equator And adjust the rain system. My followers will applaud when I cut the tape: Spartacus, Gorky, Guevara And the cobbler’s daughter, whose dower was bigger than mine. Overwhelmed by joy I stammer: Architecture of the universe is my job! At the beginning of World War III I’ll look down for a moment And readjust the world to its former course. ___________ Translated by Kees Nijland