They call me the Kraken
because I like cracking
the hulls of their ships
in my tentacles’ grip.

A monster of the deep
I drift into their stories
once a century, I think.

They shudder and scream
when we meet in their dreams.
I scare them half to death –
I can feel it in my ink.

Cradled softly by the pitch-black
water in my seabed home,
I’m hiding where they cannot go.

This is how it’s always been:
them, up high and dry,
me, asleep down in the deep.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.

But an ancient legend goes,
a fish of steel turned up one day
disturbing my repose.

A seaman came who had no name,
no wish of ever going home;
full of bitterness and hate,
he was tired of the world.

Peering through the porthole he
spied one of my giant eyes:
larger even than his head.

‘The Kraken, help!’ he cried,
and we got into a fight.
The story then goes on to say
that he murdered me that day.

Let them believe it if they like…
Here where it is always night
I am safely out of sight.

Waiting patiently until
they will all have gone extinct.
I can feel it in my ink –
tomorrow maybe, or tonight.

Judy Elfferich | © vertaling: Vivien D. Glass

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Gepubliceerd in BoekieBoekie sketchbook:
‘The Amazing Adventures of Jules Verne’.

Nederlandse versie: De Kraak.

Met dank aan Vivien Glass (klik) voor haar toestemming om de vertaling hier te posten.