Wednesday, 26 February 2025

Three Poems by Germain Droogenbroodt

 



 

Petrified 
 
 

At the town square 
stands the statue 
of a war hero. 
 

He looks ahead 
as if he looks to the future 
as if he looks for a time without wars 
a time of worldwide peace 
but his eyes are petrified. 
 


Cogito ergo sum 

 
For the first time in human history,  
technologies suggest us, advise us, give us orders...  
Eric Sadin 

Socrates claimed 
that one thinks first, then lives 

Descartes confirmed it centuries later: 
"I think, so I am". 

But if artificial intelligence 
will think for us, will advise us, 
will tell us what to do 
will we then still be humans or robots? 
 


A VICTIM 

 

 

Not yet closed 

but wide-eyed 

and full of horror 

the eyes 

 

pursed the lips 

because time was too short 

for a farewell greeting 

for a last prayer. 
 


Germain Droogenbroodt, was born 11 September 1944 in Rollegem, t he Flemish part of Belgium. In 1987 he moved to the artist village of Altea and integrated in Spanish literary life.

Germain is an internationally appreciated poet. He wrote short stories and literary reviews, but mainly poetry, so far 17 poetry books, published in 30 countries. He is also translator, publisher, and promoter of modern international poetry and translated – he speaks six languages – more than thirty collections of German, Italian, Spanish, Latin American, English and French poetry, including anthologies of Bertolt Brecht, Mahmud Darwish, Reiner Kunze, Miguel Hernández, José Ángel Valente, Francisco Brines and also rendered Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Persian and Korean poetry into Dutch.

As founder and editor of the Belgian publishing house POINT Editions (POetry INTernational) he published more than eighty collections of mainly modern, international poetry organised and co-organised several international poetry festivals in Spain. He is co-founder and advisor of JUNPA (Japan Universal Poets Association), general counsel of the Chinese cultural Association Huifeng, International Shanghai and founding president of the Spanish cultural foundation ITHACA. He also collaborates with several international poetry associations.

His poetic oeuvre is many-sided. After his début with “Forty at the wall” (1984), defined as neo-romantic poetry, he published “Do you know the country?”, Meditations at Lake Como (Italy), a collection of nature poems. In 1995 he was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship (Scotland) where he wrote “Conversation with the hereafter”, awarded in Belgium with the P.G. Buckinx-Prize and “Palpable absence”, a bilingual (Dutch Spanish) collection of love poems. A critic of the Dutch Information Office for Libraries described his love poems as “virtuoso poetry”. At the end of 1998 appeared “Between the silence of your lips”, his collected love poems.


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