GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT

GERMAIN
DROOGENBROODT

Striving For Survival

THE WORLD is full of ice and winter

through the open window becomes visible

humanity’s illness

under the smouldering ruins

scorch the fires of Sodom

the night wind

holds its breath

*

THE CLOUDS struggle

for a trivial kingdom

of water and wind

white and blue tendrils

strangling one another

sterile fertilization

of ferocious beings

in the mirror of the world.

*

INSCRUTABLE primary earth, substance

from which all was created

and goes on being created

dazzling mystery

spinning on its own axis

a top

someone released

abandoned to its fate

in the middle of the universe.

 

BUT THE FACES of the gods blur

the word became homeless

and extends to the pilgrim

in pursuit of the road

no guidance, no shelter anymore

the earth does not come to rest

the night

throws long shadows

breathes still

in such deep darkness

the light?

*

WISDOM

extends shelter no more

what light removes from the night more

than its obscurity?

who throws coppers

in the fountains of hope?

*

Prophet

Under a bare bodhi tree

sits a half-naked, blind man

not a sound

escapes his lips

only a crow

caws obscure proverbs

─ into the wind.

 

Prayer

Now that the night falls

closing the eyes of the day

grant us, star who lights up

the blind eyes

more lucidity

more light.

GERMAIN

DROOGENBROODT

GERMAIN DROOGENBROODT, is a Belgian poet living in Spain, translator and promoter of international poetry. He wrote short stories, literary critics, 14 books of poetry and translated over 35 collections of international poetry. His own poetry collections have been published so far in 22 countries. He is editor of POINT Editions in Belgium, president of the Fundación Cultural Ithaca (Spain), vice president of the Mihai Eminescu Academy (Romania) and co-founder of Japan Universal Poets Association. He publishes weekly (in 21 languages) the Poem of the Week, international poetry, sent to over 14.000 readers all over the world and published weekly in a dozen of international magazines and websites, probably weekly read by + 60.000 readers. His poetry has been compared with such famous poets as Rabindranath Tagore and Juan Ramón Jimenez. According to the Romanian critic Elisabeth Iosif, Germain Droogenbroodt is one of the greatest poets of the beginning of this millennium, the Droogenbroodt style opens for the reader a new spiritual perspective about the world. According to Chinese critics his poetry is TAO and ZEN, Sufi for Arab critics. He received many international awards and is yearly invited at the most prestigious international poetry festivals, nominated in 2017 for the Nobel Prize of Literature.