Danish poetry in English

Per-Olof Johansson in English:
Hydra for Equinox
New Year's - every day.
Painting.

Others
Allan´s poems

And from Allan´s Everything we get all this:

Peter Laugesen 

PiaTafdrup 

HYDRA

Am I the one 
or is it mankind. 
Today is in focus and one head begun: 
A hard day told in a strange language. 
Only the children I take care of 
help me to forget it sometimes. 
In the newspaper a reader feels badly: 
he tells me that the Danish language is disappearing 
and that we the Danes will be more invisible 
than chief Seattle and his tribe. 
Then you have to follow me on my bike 
on my favorite tour, greeting everyone I meet 
and those only I see: Egun with the same disease as I, 
we knew why we were biking, and now he is dead, 
but to me he still has his head on his shoulders. 
Then in the grass at the lake without the heron 
I see the sword, a child’s made of wood, 
but the child will grow. 
I see the apples ripen on the trees: 
but in the shop they are French, Spanish or from Belgium. 
The dove is from Turkey, the squirrel is not red but black - 
what is happening here? Yes a son, Mamma and Pappa, 
grandmother and grandfather, are in the churchyard: 
but 100 years ago the family came here 
and the language is still in my ear, this is our America. 
Home from work, I am met with the message 
that an old friend Erik is dead at 12 o’clock. 
His origin is like my own and we made jokes with 
the tongue of our mothers, with tears in our eyes. 
Hercules did find his weapon: 
this is my day, this is my head. 

Per-Olof Johansson

New Year's - every day

From where I am living, 
I see preserved forests to the northwest, 
and those to the east, 
and the residential suburb, itself a forest. 

I see the vapour from the gas-heated houses 
like smoke from fireplaces in the village. 
Peace and frosty weather New Year’s morning 
following the tremendous bangs and glorious star domes. 

Working intensely to spread the quiet 
with open eyes, I send a seagull off 
to Noah’s Ark with a green branch. 

PAINTING

When my father came home 
my mother had painted the floor red 
and he did not like it. 

Before Christmas she painted 
hundreds of splint baskets 
with a red handle and red flowers 
along the side, and a few green leaves, 
traditionally, as they did at home 
in her childhood. 

This painting is the one she bought in her youth: 
A woman standing before a farmers house 
with a yoke on her shoulder, 
carrying a bottle of water in each hand, 
one modern of zinc and the other 
made of wood, as my grandfather made them. 
With wooden shoes, 
she has a red skirt under the apron, 
white blouse with sleeves rolled up 
and the headskarf bound under her chin. 
I think she is on her way to 
the cattle and the horse in the field. 
Behind her, between her and the house 
a stone fence with flowers. 
The farmers house to the left, with a wooden gable, a triangle 
with a black hole in the middle to the interior, 
a thatched roof and a white chimney. 
To the right a tree, bad painted but  with symbolic values. 
I remember a photo with my mother 
smiling under this painting. 

The artist´s name unreadable, like unknown, 
no name known world-wide, the painting not bad, 
not especially good either, 
has no place in my view on art, 
but a painting my mother bought 
                              for some reasons 
I have to guess: 
the woman, 
the yoke, 
the water, 
the house, 
the chimney, 
the tree, 
the road, 
the work, 
the flowers, 
the triangle, 
all this at a glance: 
a red skirt.