Friday 30 October 2015

Helena of Heerlen by Manuel Kneepkens


Helena of Heerlen

Last night I found myself on the patio of the Heesberg Tennis Club
And also she was there, the gold-blond long-legged
who we, grammar-school students full of craving, called Helena....
Friendship, Love were as a dream ought to be....
Only.. now we drank Champagne
no longer orange squash or grenadine
Pupils from the Fifties turned out to be Gods....
Athanatoi with tennis rackets
And, look, the blond hair of the First Lady of Troj
was still as lustrous long as it used to be
and also the same smile coloured her cheeks
In between our Homer books, red-brown jacketed
the hills of the Chalk country looked
like our future, endless jade
How was it possible.... after so many years of the Carboniferous period
united in the dream
on the Olympus of Heesberg's Tennis Court
with Menelaus' wife, Paris' concubine
and soot-fingering Heerlen left for so long...!
Oh, Mining town of my memory
black Hellas
by a marlstone-yellowy sea!

Manuel Kneepkens [1942]
(photo Internet)


Original title: Helena van Heerlen

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