From 'Prometheus Pinball,' part I, '57: time's dna'
Translated by Daniel Owen
CONTENTS (English / Indonesian)
Tape-Measure 2/3 of Jakarta / Meteran 2/3 Jakarta
Lesson to Remember Monday / Pelajaran Mengingat Hari Senin
jakarta left on a becak
that morning.
becoming the name of a day of the week.
that day.
the year 1957 in the quotient of 2/3.
a day.
something of a day.
someone of a day.
watch a morning walk in, arrive
with the residue of a used ceiling fan’s dreams.
stepping out from above and below. circulating
before going left. knocking on the door before
the firefighters put out the window.
whose back do you see from behind? that city,
jakarta, brings me everywhere in the same
place. sometimes like a river. sometimes like
a flood. crowds of numbers shift continuously
in its limits.
a fishhook wears the river like a mask
between food and death: ripples and the mouth
of a java tilapia inhales oxygen, folds of water
and sound after the hook tugs at its mouth. a
neighborhood of narrow alleys, offering
turns and dead-ends in the buy-and-sell of dreams. someone
with a voice in the scent of clove cigarettes tries
to sun dry their mother’s shadow.
“tell someone who’s already 60
years old about the lost city, the lost generation.”
imagine an illustration of space regarding left,
right, above, below, and the crushing force of words
enters the cardinal directions. Someone
like an alley that leads to a dead-end.
tanah tinggi[1]
planet senen
kwitang
the angke river
and the story of mat item[2]
these names sway over a potholed road
full of puddles:
matraman
paseban
cikini
kramat tunggak
and the last crocodile in the ciliwung river
not a hundred years later cars and trains drift
over the city.
i erect this poem installation as if
demolishing language’s building with a tape-measure
of forgetting. packaging words, putting them
inside a neurotic microbiology. starting to write
between word order and population. the scissors
still kept in their cuttings. a point
lost on language’s ruler. and you know,
no one can change the cardinal directions
outside of that ruler; or the word cut, which
tries to forget the scissors.
turn — go straight — pull a u-turn — keep going — stop
or .2% deadlock
i write this from memories that have
lost their thermometer and tape-measure. city
that spends 2/3 of the national debt. all
the provinces stare at it with black eyes. black.
bankrupt villages. i’m the baby born
as a corpse in mochtar lubis’s novel, twilight
in jakarta. 1957. the cabinet, unstable
in webs of corruption, turns into a savage insect
in meaning. like kafka in the metamorphosis of an
insurance agent ------ who is the comma, who is
the period, who is everyone that’s been given marks
and erased them.
“ , . ? / ! ()
(the asian flu pandemic, moving from china, singapore,
hong kong, america — kills nearly 2 million
people).
the sirs have vanished into bank accounts
and stocks. a last will and testament among
the distribution networks of imports. a
poem attempts to hold the voice of a cricket in
a museum of city sanitation and to forget
the ways a work of literature is written.
they began learning to remember monday. they liked
finding monday hidden in
saturday. meeting whoever never
remembers as a means to memorize. making
every made thing go away again, as if
their hands were always mistaken for erasers.
to believe and to unbelieve, both
entertain each other and believe and unbelieve
that there’s an eraser living between them.
(isn’t the war over already).
tokyo still suffers the fever of hiroshima’s devastation in
the image of a young girl survivor. her face
is a shadow-stilling museum. her eyes
hold the final white flash. a city
collapsed in the peeled skin of its smile.
eyes that glare at you from their passage
through christer strömholm’s camera. death you
could almost hug in that black and white photo. a century
full of adventure, gambling with unnumbered
dice. plak, they sound against the table.
on a tennis court, the young emperor akihito
is building a romance of the century
with michiko shoda. transforming the boundaries
between the gods and me, between love and a tennis ball.
preparing 12 cameras and tv broadcasts to send
the news to you: “are you alright?” (without
a military base). an industry is being
readied through a love story. transforming an atom
bomb into datsun, honda, toyota … sony.
in amsterdam, tjalie robinson (like edgar
du perron) is still searching for his homeland.
between the company and the natives. the nyais[3] who
carry the children of all nations who have
no homeland. sumatra, java, swamplands: monday
is still on vacation in alpeldoorn.
maybe they believe in those who
dream through a needle’s eye. the threads
make a bridge. become the freed, binding
and cutting each other loose again. they believe tomorrow
is monday. a day that makes a bridge for
the arrival of 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
their father will take them to the coffee shop.
carry them on his shoulders like fire
wood. introduce them to the truck drivers, the becak[4]
drivers, the jamu[5] sellers, the furniture store
owner, grilled sticky rice and a soft-boiled egg.
a sprinkle of black pepper on top.
(max dauthendey, a german poet who died
in malang, 1918, wrote a letter from garut. he
found heaven on java. the intoxicating sound
of the gamelan. instruments of the angels,
beyond the senses. “all the colonial rulers are
thieves and tyrants,” he wrote. “they will
perish with their colonies, as did rome
and athens,” he wrote).
they will all say:
“did you know, tomorrow is monday”
a cart will come delivering two gallons of clean
water. they’ll go to the dentist, because there’s always
bika ambon[6] ruining their teeth at night.
buy frog’s eggs to treat their boils:
slimy when wet, absorbent when dry.
little spheres of black eggs, a fishy stink
when they hatch in puddles of water.
what sprouts and what splits sometimes come
from the same slip.
jakarta telah pergi dengan sebuah becak
pagi itu.
jadi nama sebuah hari dalam seminggu.
hari itu.
tahun 1957 dalam bilangan 2/3.
sebuah hari.
sesuatu hari.
seorang hari.
melihat seorang pagi berjalan, datang,
dengan sisa mimpi dari kipas angin bekas.
melangkah dari atas dan bawah. menyebar
sebelum ke kiri. mengetuk pintu sebelum
pemadam kebakaran memadamkan jendela.
punggung siapa terlihat dari belakang? kota itu,
jakarta, membawaku ke mana-mana di tempat
yang sama. kadang seperti sungai. kadang seperti
banjir. kerumunan angka yang terus berubah
dalam batasnya.
kail mengenakan sungai sebagai topengnya,
antara makanan dan kematian: riak dan mulut
ikan mujair menghirup oksigen, lipatan air dan
suara setelah kail menyeret mulutnya. sebuah
kampung dengan gang-gang sempit, menawarkan
belok dan buntu dalam jual-beli impian. seseorang
dengan suara dalam bau kretek, berusaha
menjemur bayangan ibunya.
“ceritakan pada seseorang yang sudah 60
tahun, tentang kota dan generasi yang hilang.”
membayangkan gambaran ruang tentang kiri,
kanan, atas, bawah, dan kuasa kata melibas
masuk ke dalam arah mata angin. seseorang
seperti sebuah gang pada ujungnya yang buntu.
tanah tinggi
planet senen
kwitang
kali angke
dan kisah tentang mat item
nama-nama itu goyang di atas jalan becek
berlubang:
matraman
paseban
cikini
kramat tunggak
dan buaya terakhir di kali ciliwung
sebelum 100 tahun mobil dan kereta melayang-layang
di atas kota.
saya membangun instalasi puisi ini seperti
membongkar bangunan bahasa dengan meteran
tentang lupa. membungkus kata, memasukkannya
ke dalam mikrobiologi neurotik. mulai menulis
antara tatakota dan populasi penduduk. gunting
masih tersimpan dalam potongannya. titik yang
tersesat dalam penggaris bahasa. dan kau tahu,
tak seorang pun bisa mengubah arah mata angin
di luar penggaris itu; atau kata potong yang
berusaha melupakan gunting.
belok — lurus — balik — terus — berhenti
atau 0,2% mentok
saya menulisnya dari kenangan yang telah
kehilangan termometer dan meterannya. kota
yang menghabiskan 2/3 hutang negara. seluruh
daerah menatapnya dengan mata hitam. hitam.
desa-desa bangkrut. akulah bayi yang lahir
sebagai mayat dalam novel mochtar lubis, jakarta
dalam senja. 1957. kabinet yang goyah dalam
jaringan korupsi, menjadi serangga buas dalam
makna. seperti kafka dalam metamorfosis seorang
pegawai asuransi ------ siapakah koma, siapakah
titik, siapakah semua yang diberi tanda dan
menghapusnya
“ , . ? / ! ()
(wabah flu asia, bergerak dari tiongkok, singapura,
hong kong, amerika — membunuh hampir 2 juta
manusia).
tuan-tuan telah hilang ke dalam rekening bank
dan saham-saham. sebuah surat warisan di antara
jaringan distribusi barang-barang impor. sebuah
puisi berusaha menyimpan suara jangkrik dalam
museum tentang kebersihan kota, dan melupakan
cara-cara bagaimana karya sastra ditulis.
Pelajaran Mengingat Hari Senin
dia mulai belajar mengingat hari senin. dia senang
menemukan hari senin bersembunyi di dalam
hari sabtu. bertemu siapa pun yang tidak pernah
mengingat sebagai cara menghafal. menjadikan
setiap yang dibuat hilang kembali, seakan-akan
tangannya selalu tertukar dengan penghapus.
percaya dan tidak percaya, keduanya saling
menghibur dan saling percaya dan tidak-percaya
ada penghapus yang menetap antara keduanya.
(bukankah perang telah usai).
tokyo masih demam hancurnya hiroshima dalam
potret penyintas seorang gadis muda. wajahnya
museum yang membekukan bayangan. matanya
menyimpan sinar putih terakhir. sebuah kota
yang runtuh dalam kelupasan kulit senyumnya.
mata yang menatapmu dari dalam melalui
kamera christer strömholm. kematian seperti
bisa dipeluk dalam potret hitam-putihnya. abad
penuh petualangan, bermain judi dengan dadu tak
bernomor. plak, suaranya di atas meja.
di lapangan tenis, kaisar akihito yang muda,
sedang membuat sebuah romansa abad ini
bersama michiko shoda. mengubah batas antara
dewa dan aku, antara cinta dan bola tenis.
menyiapkan 12 kamera dan siaran tv, mengirim
berita kepadamu: “apakah kamu baik?” (tanpa
pangkalan militer). sebuah industri sedang
disiapkan melalui kisah cinta. mengubah bom
atom jadi datsun, honda, toyota … sony.
di amsterdam, tjalie robinson (seperti edgar
du peron) masih mencari tanah airnya.
antara kompeni dan inlander. para nyai yang
menggendong anak semua bangsa yang tidak
punya tanah air. sumatra, jawa, rawa-rawa: hari
senin masih berlibur di apeldoorn.
dia mungkin percaya kepada mereka yang
bermimpi lewat lubang jarum. benang-benangnya
membuat jembatan. menjadi yang lepas, saling
terkait dan meretasnya lagi. dia percaya, besok
hari senin. hari yang membuat jembatan untuk
datangnya jam 5 sore.
ayahnya akan membawanya ke warung kopi.
memanggulnya di atas bahunya seperti kayu
bakar. berkenalan dengan supir-supir truk, tukang
becak, penjual jamu gendong, pemilik toko
furnitur, ketan bakar dan telur setengah matang.
taburan bubuk merica di atasnya.
(max dauthendey, penyair jerman yang mati
di malang, 1918, menulis surat dari garut. ia
menemukan surga di jawa. suara gamelan yang
memabukkan. alat musik para malaikat di
luar indera. “semua penguasa kolonial adalah
perampok dan tiran,” katanya. “mereka akan
runtuh bersama koloninya, sebagaimana roma
dan athena,” katanya).
mereka semua mengatakan kepadanya:
“tahukah engkau, besok adalah hari senin”
gerobak akan datang mengirim dua drijen air
bersih. pergi ke dokter gigi, karena selalu ada
bika ambon yang merusak giginya di malam hari.
membeli telur kodok untuk mengobati bisulnya:
berlendir ketika basah menghisap ketika kering.
butir-butir kecil telur berwarna hitam, bau amis
ketika mulai menetas di genangan air.
yang tumbuh dan yang tumbang kadang datang
dari jatuh yang sama.
1. Tanah Tinggi, Planet Senen, Kwitang, Matraman, Paseban, Cikini, Kramat Tunggak: Areas of Central and East Jakarta, all of which have complex, storied histories.
2. Mat Item: A legendary thief and martial arts master known for his invincibility. Mat Item is said to have terrorized West Jakarta in the mid to late 1940s until the secret to his invincibility was discovered and he was killed by an army squad.
3. Nyai: During the Dutch colonial period, nyai referred to native Indonesian women who were housekeepers and mistresses to European men.
4. Becak: A bicycle rickshaw. While still in use in many areas of Java, becak were made illegal in Jakarta in the late 1980s.
5. Jamu: A general term for various kinds of traditional Indonesian medicine, often made from herbs and rhizomes.
6. Bika Ambon: A sweet, spongy, custardy cake.
An introduction to the work of Afrizal Malna
Edited by Daniel Owen