Kill the radio

Dorothea Rosa Herliany

The Legend of the Owl and the Moon

is that your lover’s face? hanging lonely in the sky
sad and weeping year after year: walking through
the threads of a thousand overcast legends.

alone there, playing with the children
a long time ago combing the grass and bamboo, smelling
the mountains and scattered villages.

behind the pages of the story: a woman,
her face phosphorescent, reflected in a lake
bruised by solitude, wallowing in the mud
cast by sudden, unavoidable old age.

woman, what are you searching for in your strange loss?
why do you record your pain and blood, when each story
only lasts a little while.

why don’t you scream and resist this arrogance.
there is no virtue in your modest surrender.

fetch your bayonet, and castrate all the man who oppress you
-- in a single whisper, kill them all!
then throw them away as if they were trash!

2000

cited from Kill the Radio, page 22-23

Hikayat Bulan

itukah wajah kekasihmu? bergantung dalam kesepian!

bertahuntahun menangis dan muram: berjalan dalam
seutas legenda buram.

di sana ia sendirian. menemani anakanak bermain
di masa lalu, menyisir semak dan daun bamboo. mencium bau
pegunungan dan desa desa.

di balik halaman kisahnya: seorang perempuan bercermin
danau.
wajahnya berpendar dan ditonjok kesunyian.
berkubang dengan usia yang bergegas dan tibatiba.

ada yang kucari dalam kehilangan yang aneh, perempuan?
mengapa mencatat dengan perih dan darah, kerna
setiap kisah akan berjalan singkat.

tapi apa salahnya kau berteriak dan memberontak
---dalam satu bisikan mematikan!
lalu, campakkan umpama sampah!

Posted in: PUISI