Oldtimer by Manuel Kneepkens

Oldtimer And in Arcadia my father in his cult cabriolet, a Joyce Jupiter The Bronze Age of Romans and Celts overshadowed by the joycean hat brim of his Borsalino And always in Valkenburg, on the top of the Cauberg at the height of Klant's Zoo (closed for ages) he called to me over his shoulder ''Are we rising, Sunny Boy?'' The entire Chalkland gushed green over my tongue In my stomach the swirling Styx came to a stop Ah well, I wanted to belong to the Army of Hellas' able-bodied men, however carsick I was before Troy.... ''On the contrary we                                D                                   E                                     S                                       C   E                                           N                                             D                                               Darth Father!'' And our escape from South Limburg's labyrinth had not yet begun...... (No way green hills! No way Deirdre! No way Sons of Usnach: Foolhardy IRA-members, all of them!) Poor daddy Engineer Daedalus Bloody Belfast

Manuel Kneepken (1942) [photo Internet]

Original Title: Old Timer

Interrupted interview with Shakespeare by Willem M. Roggeman

Interrupted interview with Shakespeare On a midsummer night when I had had enough because even being alone can sometimes last too long I put a chair in front of me and on the chair a portrait of Shakespeare. I talked to him at length and he listened patiently so he turned out to be a great listener too, and thereafter asked him questions to which he responded enthusiastically, with comprehensive answers, because it was a long time ago that someone had asked him anything. He talked nineteen to the dozen about how he was obliged to marry the much older Ann Hathaway and about his friendship with the Count of Southampton for whom he wrote the poem 'Venus and Adonis', all he went through in the grubby alleys and slums of London and the blue colour of longing for the trees and lawns of Stratford. He had just begun to explain what he had projected of himself in Romeo and who actually was his Julia when a man entered the room. Without saying a word the man peered around and with a short sharp movement put an egg amongst Shakespeare's hair as if it were a birdsnest. Then he began loudly and with great conviction to call cuckoo, cuckoo. Shakespeare took the egg out of his hair and looked at it with sadness. He shook his head with disapproval or misunderstanding, and then tinkling loudly fell apart into hundreds of colourful pieces of glass.

Willem G. Roggeman (1935) [photo Internet]

Original Title: Onderbroken interview met Shakespeare - From: De Tweede Ronde - Tijdschrift voor literatuur - Herfst 1989 - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker BV, Amsterdam.

Bergambacht by Albert Jan Govers

Bergambacht Driving west of the village I saw the complete picture, as from a magic lantern: the unbending church tower with houses around it lumped together, peepers swarming around the hen, Bergambacht. My ex-Calvinist friend says: there must also have been a hole in the clouds, with a slanting sunray, a must: the finger of God, pointing at the fate of a village, pushing the people down to the earth. I didn't see that at all, the blanket of clouds was unbroken.

Albert Jan Govers (1922-1999) [no picture available]

Original title: Bergambacht - From: De tweede ronde, Tijdschrift voor literatuur, Zomer 1982 - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker BV, Amsterdam.

Bergambacht by Ulrich Jeltema

Bergambacht I wander along the Lekdyke and smell Bergambacht, herbs from the past. Polderwind blowing along the mills Bachtenaar, Den Arend, grinding for water and bread beyond the Vlist, beyond the last sin. And there the church inexorably large between upward-looking dwarf-like houses. Autumn in the sky: a piled-up mass of clouds secretly blows open for holes to the sun, for fingers of light. That's God's vindictive hand, pressing against the shire's land, against this bare soil, the people who are goddamned afraid to die.

Ulrich Jeltema (1923-2005) [no picture available]

Original title: Bergambacht - From: De tweede ronde, Tijdschrift voor literatuur, Zomer 1982 - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker BV, Amsterdam.

Boekhandel J. van den Bos (voorheen De Boekenbeurs)

1e Middelandstraat / Witte de Withstraat 

Rotterdam

The Netherlands

1937 > 1997

Scene from a video made in 1994

Cristina Branco sings ‘Os Solitários’ / The lonely

Poem by J.J. Slauerhoff [1898 -1936]

Original Dutch title ''De eenzamen IV''

From the collection ''Al dwalend'' [voorheen ongebundelde gedichten 1947]

Portuguese translation 

Mila Vidal Paletti

English translation 

Hans van den Bos

My aunts by Manuel Kneepkens

My aunts My aunts the Goddesses, gigantic pumpkins thus descended, well scrubbed, from the Olympus into Troy's mahogany drawing rooms Under slapstick hats they demolished cream cake after cream cake In summer they resided uninterrupted on picnic plaids chequered red & white The chocolate éclairs of black trousered bottoms bruised buttercup & daisy. The harpsichord of skylarks was soon drowned out. Each produced a voice of solid Limburg oak or smacked their lips! Well, there I sat. In every corner a cow-eyed goddess ('Who wants the apple?) skirts pulled up, thighs improperly bared Ah well, decayed are all those downy pouting lips all those proud pounds of peach flesh Withered are the red cheeks of that juicy dispute About: Liqueur-pink gossip Iliad & Odyssey!

Manuel Kneepkens [1942]

Original title: Mijn tantes - From the collection: Tuin van eetlust - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam - 1st druk 1976.

Saudade/Nostalgia by J.J. Slauerhoff

Saudade/Nostalgia I have so many memories, As leaves rustling on the trees, As reeds murmering near streams, As birds singing into the azure, As song, murmering and rustling: So many and more amorphous than dreams.	J.J. Slauerhoff [1898-1938]
Original title: Saudade From: Verzamelde gedichten, Uitgeverij Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 's Gravenhage-Rotterdam - 1961 - 10e druk - blz. 671

Desolate by J.J. Slauerhoff

Desolate Desolate and grey the sea surges, Yet other ships are sailing there; Desolate and yellow the moon errs Through the so much larger sky. There is no harbour where she is bound, No roadstead in the Milky Way; The earth views her with disdain, And for the stars she does not count.	J.J. Slauerhoff [1898-1936]
Original title: Eenzaam en grauw golft de zee From: Verzamelde gedichten, Uitgeverij Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 's Gravenhage-Rotterdam - 1961 - 10e druk - blz. 723

Orpheus on the Breton coast by Job Degenaar

Orpheus on the Breton coast On an idle afternoon, when my lyre was hanging on the willows, I ripped off tens of mussels, threw them alive in boiling local wine, destroyed a lobster with a tongs and speared snails out of their bunkers heroically my hands soaked afterwards in lemon juice That night I rowed on the sea and came into a gully that took me to the Styx Hades, with a soft heart, gave me another chance to fetch Eurydice - If only I had looked round - she was already almost above ground - at the nymph that passed me the first rays of the sun just caught Poseidon's sardonic look of triumph.

Job Degenaar [1952] photo Internet

Original title: Orpheus aan de Bretonse kust From: De tweede ronde - Zeenummer - Tijdschrift voor literatuur - Winter 1988, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam