Knowledge of nature by Jan Eijkelboom

Knowledge of nature From the procession car we had a view now and then of forsythias, vividly set off against the dull misery of too well-kept houses. Near the aula we wondered what sort of tree stood there on the lawn with paper-white blossoms. We took it as read that it was a kind of prunus. After the music of Bach and coffee with cake we returned to the home of the deceased. Behind it the grass was covered with forget-me-nots, or so we thought. A former teacher was able to tell us however that it was periwinkle. Out of cut glass we drank the whisky to which the deceased, once a lighthearted taster, had given preference.

Jan Eijkelboom 1926 - 2008 [photo Internet]

Original title: 'Kennis der natuur'- From the collection: 'De wimpers van de dageraad', 1987 - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam

De pianist by Jan Eijkelboom

The pianist The fanatic folds at the top of the back of his tails when he pulls his right shoulder up high to then let his hand come down not for a sledgehammer blow but to bring about the lightest possible tone. Meanwhile Richter tastes the music as if he is chewing tobacco.	Jan Eijkelboom 1926 - 2008 [photographer unknown]
Original title: 'De Pianist'- From the collection: 'Binnensmonds jubelend', 2004 - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam

Il Poverello by Manuel Kneepkens

Il Poverello Waiting for the golden tramcar bound for the Nirvana of Nothingness the one from Wassenaar to Scheveningen I thought: Brother Dune, I thank you for your humility Sister Beach, I thank you for your nudity Brother Sea, I thank you for your alluvion This was what I thought though I had left brother Trunks at home.....

Manuel Kneepkens [1942]

Eire by Manuel Kneepkens

Eire What am I to do in this rain-drenched moss-green island the sun sets there whiskey-coloured visit a Pub, I think and from there drunk... -at the stroke of closing time full of midnight desires plan to call the sweetest copper-haired of all Ireland if she wants to be unfaithful, Miss Deirdre of Usnach with me, a stranger from Bergen, North-Holland (her fairylike green eyes as frivolous as an Easter Rising...) westwards far behind the molehills of the pixies! O, Ireland, Blissful Island besides the ulcus of Ulster...

Manuel Kneepkens [1942] (photo Internet)

Original title: Eire

The woman of the scales by K. Michel

The woman of the scales half hidden under the foliage of an imperial figtree she stands in a check apron broadly-build and on plastic slippers their red colour standing out vividly against her tanned skin she is about forty her children except the youngest have all left home and her husband, that's a different story she is not standing there doing nothing no, between the overhanging leaves protrudes the large opening of a sousaphone she holds its tubular body tight in her char-arms while she practises scales and the sparkling like full-blooded tones burst from the bell of the metal horn and her cheeks go boom flap boom flap up and down like the wings of a bird ponderously flying up out of the water later that day after the cleaning of the thirtieth hotel room she will put on another dress at home and make way with her sound ahead of the bridal couple, first to the church and then to the feast while the rest of the marching brass band will let themselves be pushed forward by her bass tones a last detail: she wears no rings she believes in the existence of the soul

K. Michel [1958] photo: Roeland Fossen

Original title: De vrouw van de toonladders From: Tirade 349 November/December 1993 - jaargang 37 - Uitgeverij G.A. van Oorschot, Amsterdam

In the garden by Jan Eijkelboom

In the garden 1 In the garden I look up from my book and see the confidence of bees entering the flower of a Himalayan balsam, now and then bumping into seed-cases that, silently exploding, spread their well-aimed black seed. Insecure I start reading again. 2 I did plant a little tree when I turned sixty, hoping that it would get enough light and some air between the trees that were already there in a time before I existed. In its shadow children will not know who, with spade, manure and water briefly worked here with the soil.

Jan Eijkelboom 1926 - 2008 [photographer unknown]

Original title: In de tuin From: 'De wimpers van de dageraad' - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam - 1987

Allotments along the railroad by Jan Eijkelboom

Allotments along the railroad Everywhere along the track little gardens like playing cards. Strange, that I in spring when they are turned over and raked while the beanpoles are waiting against the privy-sized shed constructed from four old doors of which one opens- should think of the dying chrysanthemums, the withered leaves, the poles piled up along the edge, when in the area far and wide, beyond the narrow ditch, big bonfires of leaves and stumps burn and smoke remains itself in a mist which yet does not prevent the sun from plating a far-off greenhouse with silver and closer by staining the reed- strange, that I then did not think of how loose and raked this repeating private domain would be again soon.

Jan Eijkelboom 1926 - 2008 [photographer unknown]

Original title: Volkstuintjes langs de spoorbaan From: 'De wimpers van de dageraad' - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam - 1987

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

Chili by Hans Tentije

Chili I watched Pablo Neruda's funeral on television, yesterday evening, kitsch-flowers were showered straight from Macchu Picchu with overwhelming splendour upon his coffin, like orange blossoms and hundreds of people sang, in Spanish, the International it was as if he wrote it himself somewhere in Santiago a man lay on the street shot to bits under some newspapers where maybe the false news about Allende's dead was still rustling a bit later an admiral of the military junta appeared on the screen to announce that the left-wing terror was over that the poor would at last be better off what else could I do, goddamnit than to wish a slow, wasting copper poisoning upon him just that and nothing else but at the same moment, your lines, Neruda, came to my mind, slovenly, yet still poignant enough: 'I want to meet death together with the poor who lacked the time to look at him closer beaten up as they are those who splendidly divided and allotted the heavens'

Hans Tentije - 1943 [photographer unknown]

Original title: Chili. From: Is dit genoeg een stuk of wat gedichten, deel 1 - Elsevier Manteau, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 1982.

Dordrecht's museum garden by Jan Eijkelboom

Dordrecht's museum garden When I am dead in the garden of this museum above the tangled noise of the leaves a blackbird will sing just as clearly on just such a late spring day. And I, I shall be there no more to forget with this singing that I have to die in due course. But on the other hand I shall -you never know- live much longer than that bird. And anyhow when I lie six foot under then my son shall once again hear a blackbird sound just so on just such a late spring day. And he will know who I was and oh, a bird knows nothing. But on the other hand again: if blackbirds could think about their fathers, then they might croak like a raven.

Jan Eijkelboom 1926 - 2008 [photographer unknown]

Original title: Tuin Dordrechts museum - From: Wat blijft komt nooit terug - Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, 1979.

Land of hills and horseshoes by H.J. Mesterom

Land of hills and horseshoes  Land of hills and horseshoes. Superstition on the farms and in the trees, rustling like rain or an endlessly played gramophone record. Once one afternoon a scarecrow snared me when I stole apples in the strongly stirring orchard that made me breathless. Or I spied in the middle of a warm field upon the golden bed in which the wind had slept like a giantess and thought that the sun had set for punishment.

Wind Droom van een bewogen foto nagestaard door pauwenogen* Text by H.J. (Harry) Mesterom   on the wall of a private house, Volderstraatje-Verwersstraat, 's Hertogenbosch

Original title: 'Land van heuvels en hoefijzers' - From: Maatstaf 4, julinummer 1966 - Uitgeverij Daamen NV, Den Haag

Fear is nearby by Richter Roegholt

Fear is nearby Fear is nearby in air and water in the bread that we give to the children fear when I was a child came from Spain from Guernica and Teruel the photo page the newsreel a child flees with a little dog in its arm my first ruins and carts with furniture fear was in a false certificate a German Jew had to go to America a child goes through such a thing at a distance but it knows that fear is close by during the war fear was around you when you went to school with your bike on the escalator that was in the tunnel in Rotterdam there could be Germans at the exit but you could better behave as if the fear was not there fear was always there since Teruel since Herosjima since Bikini it does not matter if the weapon gets bigger it was already big enough in Guernica a boy flees runs away clasps a dog in his arm that dog is already dead the newsreel spares you nothing shows just a sharp effect that dog is dead that child clasps in its arm something utterly worthless that child will also die soon it was for nothing all was for nothing fear is a companion walks beside you does not look at you you don't feel him but if you feel if you feel the fear for what's coming you think later it comes again the war comes again the air turns bad then you also think about someone who won by a hair's breadth a man with little children who looks almost like us it looks like he also didn't want war as if he didn't understand anything of us as if he understood my companion fear as if he just wanted to be on friendly terms with his wife you never saw anything like that with people who make war astonished with tears in your eyes you read in the paper that someone like us declined war that someone was young and didn't want war so it seemed a short while he won a hair's breadth on fear it was not much he was shot dead anyway you think about that when you look around you and see that fear is close by

Richter Roegholt [1925-2005]

Original title: 'Angst is dichtbij' - From: Maatstaf 8, novembernummer 1967 - Uitgeverij Daamen NV, Den Haag.

The dodo by C. Buddingh'

The dodo In fifteen ninety-eight     discovered on Mauritius     by Dutch sailors;     they called it 'walghvogel', took it with them to Amsterdam     and exhibited it there. It was a kind of pigeon, bigger than a turkey,     with an odd, hooked beak,     (as you can still see     on a painting of Savery), and it laid just one, big white egg     on an untidy little heap of grass. Dodo meant 'dope' or 'sucker'     (from the Portugese 'doudo');     every time when a ship     called at the island, it was for sport or for resupply     butchered by thousands. The sailors also introduced pigs,     who ate the eggs     and the chicks, who like     their parents could not fly. In sixteen eighty-one the last one     was bludgeoned. In the marshes on Mauritius     they have over and over again     excavated skeletons,     but there further remains only a leg, with the foot still on it,     that is carefully preserved in Oxford.

C. Buddingh' [1918-1985]

Original title: 'De dodo' - From the collection 'Gedichten 1938 / 1970' - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij - Amsterdam - 1977.

mutiny by Rein van de Wetering

mutiny 1 he's sick of it being stooped to dig and carp at the land 2 regularly he sets off the knive up his sleeve 3 while the waves surge intrigue breaks out in the hold the captain is landed with the riffraff he has gone aground they throw the bible overboard and invent another god
Original title: 'muiterij' - From the collection: 'Achter de hand', 1978 - Uitgeverij Corrie Zelen, Maasbree

Geranium by Hans Vlek

Geranium From the badly-sitting school bench in a smell of dust old wood and piss, underneath high windows in blistered frame, the red of the geranium. My grandmother slaving away above a tub in the garden and beside the neat tile path in a row, in the red of which my grandpa spoke at meetings: geraniums. At home we had one that never wanted to flower because everyone put their fags out in the pot. O lord, the sadness of its hairy-green, bony stem! Geranium, splendid flower that's not beautiful, wine from the grocer, chicken among the birds, jewel of all that is cheap and nasty.

Hans Vlek [1947]

Original title: 'Geranium' - From: Maatstaf 12, maartnummer 1968 - Uitgeverij Daamen NV, Den Haag.

abandoned bicycle by Rein van de Wetering

abandoned bicycle the dynamo is bust it's raining the tyres are flat on sunday it stands against the wall betrayed rusty with broken handlebars	Rein van de Wetering [1937]
Original title: 'achtergelaten fiets' - From the collection: 'Achter de hand', 1978 - Uitgeverij Corrie Zelen, Maasbree

January 1943 by Remco Campert

January 1943 for Joeki Broedelet I walked the cart track on a sharp winter's day I was met by my mother figurine in the distance The night before I dreamed that I sailed a little ship My hand caressed the duckweed in the glittering ditch The ship sailed to the other side and got entangled in the vegetation I looked up and saw my father he stuck his arm through the barbed wire He looked at me imploringly my father asked me for bread On that country road, mother you held me tight in a long embrace Your eyes were red your coat reeked of the town The German by postcard reported my father he was dead In Neuegamme, bitter place there they had murdered him I felt nothing but knew that I had to feel something Looked along my mother's sleeve to the tempting forest Only when I could I talked nineteen to the dozen about what really occupied my mind The snare I had set in front of the rabbit hole The hut I was building in the tree that nobody knew Later on I felt  pain that never went away Which still racks my body as I write this Long ago, yet close by lasting one man's lifetime 20-2-1980

Remco Campert [1929]

Original title: Januari 1943 - From: Raster 15/1980- Tijdschrift in boekvorm,  Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam

The Bride Valley during the Big Freeze by Hans van den Bos

The Bride Valley during the Big Freeze The valley looked like a boiling lake, with the higher ground as islands. Down the Sugarloaf a glacier of icy-snow streamed into that grey soup. A thin sky-bridge made of lost clouds hung between Knockmealdowns and Comeraghs. I watched this nature event from Knockaun under a wintery blue sky, while angry clouds were gathering on the north-west horizon, probably more snow or sleet. With my feet in already eternal snow, I went back in my thoughts to Carl Sagan's film of the Cosmos.

Hans van den Bos [1948]

Original title: De vallei van de Bride tijdens de vorst - 2014

The bargeman's mate by Hans van den Bos

The bargeman's mate On 18th October, 1951, a barge was moored midstream, close to the Mallegat, on the river Meuse in Rotterdam, waiting for a towboat to sail back to the Ruhr region to load a new cargo of coal. The mate was cleaning the deck using a metal bucket on a rope. He had been living for half a year in the fore-cabin of the ship, together with his wife, who was 6 months pregnant and their three year old son. Dropping the bucket back into the river to refill it, he lost his balance and disappeared under water, while, at that very moment, his little son was playing on the roof of the deckhouse. After eighteen days searching and dragging the river downstream, the river police found him under the ship, at almost exactly the same place as he had fallen in, with the rope of the bucket still wound around his hand. In 1958, the primary school, attended by the mate's little boy, tried to teach him to swim in the floating swimming pool close to the place where his father had drowned. Original title: De schippersknecht - 2014

Hendrik van den Bos [15th Jan. 1922 - 18th Oct. 1951]

The barge 'Wisand'

Coolbeggan in Autumn by Hans van den Bos

Coolbeggan in Autumn The horizon turns red, slowly a glowing ball appears, but vanishes fast behind a grey-pink cloud. No hunters, no cars, the wind forecasts rain, maybe that's why. In a field two young calfs gambol, one black, the other white, apartheid out of the question. Near the barrier a faraway text.	Hans van den Bos [1948]
Original title: Coolbeggan in de herfst - 2011

Tradition in Adrigole by Hans van den Bos

Tradition in Adrigole Pub, fillingstation, post and food. On the door a yellowed poster: Every night live traditional music. Inside the dark room a boy, sixteen years old, smoking, pulls perfect pints of stout. At the bar Mr. Korsakoff, in conversation with a tall, scrawny man. Two old shepherds, on a couch by the window, gaze deep into their pints of Guinness. The BBC brings news of Europe and shows bad weather in the UK. Outside, the sun shines low over Beara. Music every night, except tonight.

Hans van den Bos [1948]

Original title: Traditie in Adrigole - 2008