The Way to the Museum
All eyeballs dipped in the vinegar of the bourgeoisie will become pickled eyeballs.
Tonight I embrace my homeland. Being blind would not matter as long as I could give my eyeballs to you.
I have embraced all the railways and all trains are still on the way to you. I have embraced all the oceans and all ships are still on the way to you. I have embraced all books and all histories are still on the way to you.
They seek my eyeballs so as to be able to see the second revolution.
For years they have been on alert, and the overflow of tears from their eyes has turned to vinegar. You are the tapper. You are the one who readies the holding vessels.
But why do you sharpen your spurs if not to pluck out my eyeballs?
If I become blind tomorrow, you will only be able to sell your vinegar to the proletariat.
Therefore, come this way. Be the eyes for our blind love, me and my homeland. Break your vessels at the Museum of the Revolution, which is only half completed.
Feature Date
- February 27, 2024
Series
- Translation
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
Copyright © 2024 by John H. McGlynn.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Nirwan Dewanto is a poet, essayist, editor, and arts curator who once wrote, in a note on his poetic quest, “Should a blind swimmer decide whether he is to stop in the middle of the sea or to swim back to the shore? But poetry doesn’t try to resolve the matter. It stops short of that so that emptiness as well as meaning echo between the poet’s blindness and his seeing.” His publications include Jantung Lebah Ratu (The Queen Bee’s Heart; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2008) and Buli-Buli Lima Kaki (The Five-Footed Jug; Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2010), both of which received the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa literary prize for poetry; collected prose poems Buku Merah (The Red Book; Penerbit Oak, 2017) and Buku Jingga (The Orange Book; Penerbit Oak, 2018); and collected essays Senjakala Kebudayaan (Culture’s Twilight; Penerbit Oak, 2015), Satu Setengah Mata-Mata (One and a Half Eyes; Penerbit Oak, 2016), and Kaki Kata (Footed Words; Teroka Press, 2020). His most recent publication, Dua Marga (Two Kin; Teroka Press, 2022) was named best poetry book of the year in 2022 by Tempo magazine. His poetry in English translation by John H. McGlynn is collected in Museum of Pure Desire (Lontar, 2017).
John H. McGlynn is Director or Publications at the Lontar Foundation, a Jakarta-based non-profit organization established in 1987 for the purpose of introducing Indonesia to the world through literary translations. Through Lontar, McGlynn has ushered into print close to 250 books on Indonesian literature and culture containing translations of literary work by more than 650 Indonesian authors.
July 2023
Taipei City
Editor-in-Chief
Lee Yew Leong
Assistant Managing Editors
Daljinder Johal
Malak Khalil
Marina Martino
Samuel Miller
Janet Phillips
Lindsay Semel
Poetry Editor
Lee Yew Leong
Winner of the 2015 London Book Fair’s International Literary Translation Initiative Award, Asymptote is the premier site for world literature in translation. We take our name from the dotted line on a graph that a mathematical function may tend toward, but never reach. Similarly, a translated text may never fully replicate the effect of the original; it is its own creative act.
Our mission is simple: to unlock the literary treasures of the world. To date, our magazine has featured work from 105 countries and 84 languages, all never-before-published poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, and interviews by writers and translators such as J. M. Coetzee, Patrick Modiano, Herta Müller, Can Xue, Junot Díaz, Ismail Kadare, David Mitchell, Anne Carson, Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis, Ann Goldstein, and Deborah Smith.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
