Hendrik Marsman, The Zodiac

Bron: Adriaan J. Barnouw (ed.) Coming After. An Anthology of Poetry from The Low Countries. New Brunswick, 1948: 273 (blijkens een aantekening: Reprinted from the spring, 1947, issue of the Sewanee Review).

The Zodiac

I

The man of whom I tell this narrative
Returned, some time ago, to his native land.
He has since lived, for nearly a full yaer,
Over the peaceful broker's offices
Which, at the corner between two canals,
Front on the square that, starfish-shaped, ejects
Its corridors into the city's mine.
To the right his window sees the shrinking line
Of narrow bridges building an approach
To feudal doors - a row of mansions
Whose cellars stand in water masonried,
On the left the skimming searchlight of its glance
Touches the tops of trees that rooted stand
Deep in the sagging quays of the canal.
The square lies, like an empty crater bowl,
Amid the agonized obscurity
Of the dead city's hellish neon light.