Two seagulls by H. Marsman

(Original title: Twee meeuwen – from: Verzameld werk -poëzie, proza en critisch proza – 3^de druk 1972 – E.M. Querido’s Uitgeverij N.V., Amsterdam)

 

H. Marsman
[1899-1940]

Two Seagulls
 
September evening; twilight
had tinted the infinity between the waves
and the high sky into a transparent gray;
the sea was still, almost asleep;
its surging waves had with rustling breath
the world of that evening vaguely filled
with dreams. I lay below
at the foot of the dunes, where the beach
curves – the sky glowed a hazy violet;
but towards the distant end it darkened
and the evening red blew somberly bleeding
above the serrated line of the far horizon.
this is the hour when it’s all so still,
so indescribably transparent and peaceful
that it can do nothing else but to die
of such a immensity, such deadly life.
a long tremor - and already it has descended,
falling from the void, unimaginably floating
between waking and dreaming in an
ever-deeper enclosing darkness.
 
Two seagulls have left the nest during that hour.
with calm, slow wingbeats they drift
over the dunes, which have now almost become dark;
they fly seaward, an indivisible pair
that remains in touch with all the forces
that govern the universe this evening,
and more than with those forces with each other;
only not with the landscape behind them,
not with the warm nests of their flocks,
not even with their young; flying westward
in a straight line, like soft arrows,
that pierce the night,
until they, reckless ones, no longer are able to return.
 
in the gathering darkness I walked back home.

A small request for Christopher Marlowe by C. Buddingh'

Original title: Klein verzoek aan Christopher Marlowe - from: Het houdt op met zachtjes regenen - 4e druk 1978 - De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam

A small request for Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe
[1564-1593]

 
They were, those old poets, surely masters
of posing sonorous sounding questions! Kit Marlowe,
two of your most beautiful lines (from Doctor Faustus)
            are still: "Was this
the face that launched a thousand ships and burned
the topless towers of Ilium?" We, later ones,
generally look for it, rightly or wrongly,
            a bit closer to the ground.
 
But they do make a deep impression on us: just yesterday, 

while undressing, when my gaze lingered for a moment on what

my mother called my bare pins,
            I suddenly thought: ‘Was this
the leg that terrified so many young goalies?’
and I was, despite all the nostalgia,
immediately comforted too: the leg might have become as stiff 

            as a board, but the noggin, it’s still going strong.
 
You know, Kit, Augustine once said:
‘We are only a soul, burdened with a body,’
(and although that of a soul is unfortunately highly dubious),
            as you get older, you gradually
get tired of all those limbs and innards,
windpipes, kidneys, stomach, heart and liver, and you think:
How wonderful it would be if man could consist only
            of sexual organs and a head.

And even those sexual organs… If you had to choose,
Kit: ‘No more writing or no more rogering?’
wouldn't you choose that damn pen? Or let
            me put it a bit differently
(and now I'm getting symbolic, but you yourself
were certainly not averse to that either), who
would it be if someone asked you with a pistol to your chest:
            Caliban or Prospero?
 
You know Kit, that's why I actually don't care
that I will never be on a high score list again,
or even that I can barely move that once-famous leg
            because of the lumbago.
It's bloody painful and indecently annoying,
but it's still a minor issue: like the buzzing
of a mosquito around your head just while your very 

            own Helena makes you immortal with a kiss.
 
The seasons, Kit, in human life
may be differently divided than in nature,
at fifty-four you have to admit
            that it’s turning into autumn, slowly but surely.
But perhaps if you ever meet Zeus again, would you then
ask him if he wants to make sure that I too
may stumble into my winter with a head
            where it is still spring.

Paris 1953 by L.Th.Lehmann

Original title: Parijs 1953 -  from: Wat boven kwam – 2006 – Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam. 

Paris 1953
 
Her name was Pat Bostic.
She was from Georgia.
It was in Paris. Where back then

Louis Th. Lehmann
[1920-2012]

many writers still believed
that novels had to be set:
that was more literary!
We walked down
from Rue Gay-Lussac
where in our local pub,
a black American,
Aaron Bridges, played piano.
We descended, parallel
to boulevard Saint-Michel,
to rue de la Huchette
where her hotel was.
She was barefoot,
and halfway down her calves
hung the frayed edges
of the first cut-off jeans
I'd ever seen.
I sang: "Put your shoes on, Lucy,
don't you know you're in the city?"
She said: "That's what they always
sing to me at home."

Hit and run dream by Hans van den Bos

Hit and run dream
 
On a Friday morning
a female deer was killed
on the R634, close to Tallow.
Further on up the road her two kids
were searching for her in panic.
The gardaí immediately closed the road
to investigate the situation.
A catholic priest was called and
she gave the poor mother her last rites.
A bit later an ambulance took her
to the hospital for an autopsy. 
The social services were able
to catch the two kids,
which will be looked after
in the Cork Zoo.

A sheepdog came forward
as witness to the accident
and he will be used to trace
the driver of the car,
who can expect to lose
his or her driver’s license
for at least two years
and will have to pay all the costs.

‘John Akii Bua by Bert Schierbeek

 (Original title: 'John Akii Bua  from: In- en uitgang - 1974 - De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam)

‘John Akii Bua

Bert Schierbeek
[1918-1996]

(olympic and world champion in 400m hurdles in Munich)
 
a moment we thought
(of course)
he's going too fast
he'll probably fall
we thought
(it has to be)
he almost fell
(we saw)
but he didn't fall
(we saw)
he got up again
i.e.:
   he would have gotten up again
we saw
even though he didn't fall
(we saw)
but:
   if he had fallen
(we saw)
he would
but no
he's running faster than ever
(we saw)
it's not possible
but he's running faster than ever
he’s running gold
(we see)
he’s running all out gold
(of course)
of course Akii Bua runs for gold
(the fastest in the world)
 like
(like we said before)
Akii Bua runs for gold
like nobody else
with a radiant face Akii Bua runs for gold
(like we said before)
 
Akii Bua
didn't fall.

The ghosts of the forest by Hans van den Bos

Dylan [2004-2018]
Canus domesticus sapiens

 Original title: Schimmen van het bos

The ghosts of the forest

                                     as told to me by Dylan our dog

Often I heard strange noises 

between the dark trees, during my daily walks

on the hills around my home town.

It gave me a shock every time. There was

no smell and I never saw any creature.

My mother, a believer in the goddog 'Lupus',

used to tell me and my two brothers stories

about dogs with wings, spirits

of evil hounds, holy bitches, and the like.

I clearly remember a story

about a enormous hound with red eyes,

somewhere in a town called Baskerville.

Because of all those stories, I was always afraid

to go outside on my own in the dark

and I had often bad dreams about it.

Is there more in this world than I can see?

Now more than 8 years old,

Thomas, one of my brothers,

and I have a house and garden of our own.

We have two attendants, a human male

and female, who have their rooms upstairs.

They are very intelligent and often have

discussions about all kinds of interesting subjects.

They can talk to each other for hours.

Listening to them, while I'm resting

in my basket, I know now that

my mother's stories were just stories,

because there is no truth to them at all.

She was possibly indoctrinated by her Setteric family

and I think that the humans around her

were not very helpful either.

I heard that our father, a secular Sheeper,

had a kind of a scientific education,

but he had to leave our mother

before we were born, so he could not inform us

about the natural world.

One day, a few months ago,

on a walk with our male attendant,

we heard the noise again

and all three of us looked

in the direction from where it was coming.

'Look over there', our attendant said,

'two jays, what beautiful birds they are!'

You see, now I know what the noise was.

So if you keep your eyes, ears and nose wide open,

than you can learn a lot about the real things.

Other animals than Homo can be sapiens too,

you know!`