East Asia I - John Ravenswood (J. Slauerhoff)

From: Oost-Azie – 1^ste druk 1928 -  Uitgeverij De Gemeenschap, Utrecht

Autumn

Vines droop and their blossoms, withering,
Shudder away from the deadly calm lake.
Hues drift there, horrifying
Tender.
 
Pine trees that reach to the shore
Stare in dismay at their visible shadow,
That hangs in the water, refusing to yield
With a ripple to the sky.
 
Enemies recoiled, we no longer know
To which arms to devote courage,
Life on the island in the lake must
Mull it over or run before the wind.
 
Shall we never embrace again?
Our skins’ trembling downs
Forgotten in heavy furs’ slumber,
Winter in the forest, eternal autumn in us?

Nagoya castle

Like a ship in eternity anchored
Lies far from the shores the castle in the lake,
The world averted, here unchanged
The realm of forest and water and of old.
 
Now the eternal wanderer wishes to cross,
To preserve his calm in the midst of the lake,
Whose surface the skittish winds flee,
On which no calyxes float, from whose depths
The walls rise, steep and closed
Without a gate, sunken are the boats...

Uyemo Park, Tokyo
 
The children leave their colourful play
And leave the park timid and abandoned behind.
The birds keep silent around an old guard,
Only the crickets chirp quick and shrill.
 
The green and red foliage equally fade.
A flickering light awakens in bronze lamps.
Evening comes subdued, shrouded in mists
Closer, like an assassin in a hall.
 
But solemnly drawn bells are rung
And long sacred tones drone
Above it by and the stern prayers of the priests,
Protected by the night in the shrine.

Inland Sea
 
White hills shroud themselves in clouds,
Sailing boats skim across the sea,
The waves rise higher, the fish deeper,
Trees shiver naked, stripped of foliage,
Windows bloom in soft red,
On the roofs the first snow falls.

The omens
 
White kingfishers sway
On sea and branches nearby.
She points to them and calls with clear
Charming voice: "They foretell
Good fortune!"
But I see more: from the mountain collar
A dark speck comes rushing down,
A black bird joins them.

Autumn
 
Far away the tight sky stood
Like a gray silken screen
Tense for death.
On this side a flight of
Birds wailing,
Over our heads, fled.
 
Green barely crept over the ground.
Sharp thrusted stems of reed.
The world stood defoliated
At the very end of season,
Where the sun abandoned its fate,
The moon again approached.

Iwaré
 
Where the forests allow no passage,
The temple gate stands, in the middle of the lake;
The stormy wind rocks its double arches,
The swell its reflection back and forth.
 
No priest and pilgrim in sacred boats,
Only spirits sail underneath it.
The waves sometimes want to enlarge the lake,
Especially in the wild evening glow,
 
When forest and gatepost bemoan together,
That between them and the wide sea
The distant waterfalls thunder,
That lean against unyielding mountains
The silence and darkness around Lake Iwaré.
                        (Pour Paul et Claire)

Morning (Yokohama Bay)
 
Fuji peak above morning mists.
Is there anything more pure,
Removed from the world.
Why then still mountains,
And houses and dwarves,
And gray hulls of battlecruisers?
Only again below
In the sea a second
Fuji peak.

Email to a bookseller by Hans van den Bos

 Original title: E-mail aan een boekverkoper

Email to a bookseller
 
I received your shipment an hour ago;
the books themselves were in perfect condition,
however… the packaging was so damaged
that they could have fallen out.
Now, I don’t trust An Post that much,
as the postman (also town crier)

looked a bit guilty.

Or perhaps it was the Celtic Customs,
who are very suspicious of Dutch parcels,
because they might contain pornography, tobacco
or the devil’s drink (which is not allowed
to be drunk or sold in the morning).
And what about other stimulants or narcotics
that The Netherlands is famous for?
But books are also very suspicious
in my country of residence;
they are permitted by law (thanks to Europe),
but behind the scenes, the cardinals

are keeping a watchful eye on it.

For example, there was no Irish edition
of James Joyce’s Ulysses; of course you’ve heard
about the famous last chapter.
I think any publisher, who dared to publish it,
would likely have his future releases boycotted.
Boycotting is an Irish invention,
maybe you already knew that,
if not, just google Charles Boycott.
 
In 1992, a cover design for Ulysses was
presented at the Dublin Writers Museum,
by the courageous Lilliput Press; I still own the poster.
The book was published in 1997
with a price tag of what is now five hundred euro,
too expensive of course for the average person.

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.