I need a ghost To manage my wardrobe The clothes of the departed on one side And henna on the other ... I need a ghost To arrange the books that betrayed me This pile deserves punishment For ruining my peace I will not forbid to fill its ears with straw and petrol. ... The ghost will understand my joy Over burning their covers With Nazi sangfroid And laying the paper under fried chicken To keep clean plates Clean After impotent people smeared them with their substandard figures of speech ... I need a ghost To remove the keys of my keyboard And move the mouse over the cracked skin To lick its pimples and pustules And the marks the lover made On the thigh of his beloved. ... Ghosts are honest And silent They direct their guns at dwarfs Who smear walls with blood Bumping their head against them on Saturdays As they are without shadow The wandering bird Perches on a poet’s head only And dwarfs Ward off. ... Ghosts are gauzy They do not occupy space And spare air and time They are learned, Hide the sun from shorties As their undersized feet Spoil the picture of shadow and light They have wisdom, They listen in to a girl and a boy Near the old waterwheel: – if you weren’t mad at me, I wouldn’t care – He said: I am mad And went off to the hut. She cried The younger ghost Consoled her with a rose And caressed her plait The older one Lifted his finger and warned: Don’t wreck the hut There’s a poet inside. _____________ Translated by Kees Nijland