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Translated and read by Karen Byers.
Londinium
Læg dit øre til jorden
og lyt til råb af rådnet kød,
klang af smedje og hjuldrejer,
snoning og stræk of tovmager.
Dine øjne vil smerte af lugten
af røg fra træ, løbe af svien fra
amoniak fra forgæret urin.
Langt under alt dette løber
sporet af Boudicca’s hævn
i den tynde, røde skive af brændt jern;
skærer en linje mellem aske og ler,
lagt i sten og kakler, træ,
gamle ildsteder og knogler.
Nu klemt mellem nord og syd
indenfor sin mudder-bløde kanal;
førhen ernærede floden Neanderthal,
Homo Sapiens; ensome omrejsende
der har draget forbi et halvt million år.
Den første hytte for 15,000 år siden,
nu en stad med en vrimmel af tunger
som lader ind alle der kommer –
jæger, bonde, hjemløs.
© Anthony Fisher, March 2016
Danish. Translated by Karen Byers
Danish
About 5,400,000 speakers world-wide
In 2001 there were just under 6,000 Danes living in London.
North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in Denmark and in the region of Southern Schleswig in northern Germany. There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language.
Danish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples that lived in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. Danish, derives from the East Norse dialect group.
Translator Karen Byers, was born in Denmark and worked in Europe as a multilingual secretary and is now a business woman based in England.