Friday 14 December 2018

Lament by Remco Campert

Lament

Here now along the long deep water
that I thought that I thought that you would always
that you would always

here now along the long deep water
where behind reed beds behind reed beds the sun
that I thought that you always would always

that always your eyes your eyes and the air
always your eyes and the air
always rippling in the water rippling

that always in living silence
that I always should live in living silence
that you would always that waving reed always

along the long deep water that always your skin
that always at midday your skin
always in summer at midday your skin

that always your eyes would break
that always from joy your eyes would break
always in the calm midday

along the long deep water that I thought
that I thought that you would always
that I thought that joy would always

that always the light still at midday
that always the midday light your olive-skinned shoulder
your olive-skinned shoulder always in the midday light

that always your cry hanging
always your bird cry hanging
at midday in the summer in the air

that always the living air that always
always the rippling water at midday your skin
I thought that everything would always I thought that never

here now along the long deep water that never
I thought that always that never that you never
that frost never that no ice ever the water

here now along the long deep water I thought never
that snow ever the cypress I thought never
that snow never the cypress that you never more



Original title: Lamento From the collection: Dichter - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam - 1995





Tuesday 6 March 2018

Dublin by Frank van Dijl

Dublin 
Frank van Dijl [1951]
photo Internet

I.
Everyone in Dublin has the same popish
puppy-face that you still see in remote 
parishes in the south of the Low Countries,
which have only just been connected to 
the telegraph and telephone net.
The Irish: palefaces with water-colour freckles 
and lifeless eyes that at any
moment can drown in tears. Indeed,
drowning sorrow in drink is what they do best:
when you give them a pint they will wag 
their tails and growl in gratitude. 
Sometimes, it is said, they lick your hand.
After closing time, far too early of course,
they piss, one paw up, against the pub.

II.
In almost everything they imitate the English,
but after all, how long haven't these been their 
bosses? So it's bacon and eggs in the morning,
tea with milk, sandwiches for lunch, tea
with milk, a bit later afternoon tea, with milk,
and in the evening steak and kidney pie with
far too big, far too green peas. Just like the
English they drive on the left, although it makes 
no difference on their narrow roads where you drive.
And they speak English: the bilingual
street signs are only there for show,
just like The Irish Times has a little corner
left for an article in Gaelic.
A stray dog is dead happy with the smallest bone.

III.
It is a long way to Tipperary:
the dog, dead tired, drags his paw.
Oh, sure, Ireland is stunning, with mountains
and valleys, and the Irish whiskey is
good to drink: I know all about it.
But James Joyce wrote his best books somewhere else,
though of course, in the museum dedicated to him 
in Dublin, they don't tell you that,
and Kennedy became America's president.
Ireland is not a country, it is an island,
and it isn't even that. No one feels called to greatness, 
meekly they walk the streets, thanking God 
that at least there are potatoes again.
Then what the hell was I doing in Dublin?

Epilogue
I, who went swinging in London, Paris or 
Berlin, entered – madness - 
the kite of Aer Lingus and read sweating 
how I should act in case of emergency.
I sought oblivion in alcohol. The drink 
against fear of death, which I didn't seek here, 
consoled my body, and my limbs acted 
as if it was normal to be Icarus.
No city beneath me, Dublin is a hole 
between mountains of cardboard, a decor for 
cheap tragedies without a heldentenor.
I, Icarus, fell. It didn't help to call out.
Who would save me: I fell with them. But just as
the sea is good enough for the sailor, I was content.


Original title: Dublin From: De Tweede Ronde, tijdschrift voor literatuur, herfst 1981 - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam






Monday 5 March 2018

ars poetica by C. Buddingh'



ars poetica
C. Buddingh' [1918-1985]

I remember as if it were only yesterday
(I was maybe 22): I sat
brooding over a poem, and near the window
my mother was peeling the potatoes

the verse was not working: my back was
dripping with sweat and I thought with annoyance:
how in the name of god can one
write poetry in the same room
someone is peeling potatoes ?

That evening, when everyone was sleeping, I finished
the verse: it was an exceptionally bad verse

and I understood only very much later: the best
poetry is written while peeling potatoes


Original title: 'ars poetica' -from the collection 'Is dit genoeg: een stuk of wat gedichten -  honderd jaar Noord- en Zuidnederlandse poëzie (1880-1980) in dertig thema's - dl.II - samengesteld door C. Buddingh' en Eddy van Vliet - 1982 - Uitgeverij Elsevier Manteau, Amsterdam/Antwerpen

Friday 2 March 2018

Something about music in March by Jaap Harten



Something about music in March
Jaap Harten
[1930-2017]

From my window
I see tomcat Ape sneaking over
the gutter of the neighbour's shed.

Grey skin against grey
roof tiles, a drizzly sky
above it and in the background

the RC graveyard with a lilac
prelate. Today an important person will be
committed to the earth there.

Starchy or dejected (who can say?)
the bereaved trudge, friends,
housekeepers, etc. behind the coffin.

It is 12th March, cutting bleakly in shrubs
and wreath ribbons: tears might also
be brought about by the lashing wind.

Always looking at tombstones
leads to too much organ music at home.
Why not play a LP with the
sonatina of Ravel for once?

Consolation is not for sale. Years
pass by and I'm off now to buy
luncheon meat; life goes on

they say. Even so, while shopping, I worry
about the right music at my cremation:
Satie too modish, Bach too outmoded.

I'd choose Greta Keller with Dis-mois je t'aime
a scratchy little record from the meagre
thirties, but the favourite

song of Dior. It would match my
French ties, boots and glasses.
I never really felt I belonged in

Holland, rather to German drag
or Indonesian boy. Honestly, I
am at an utter loss in this country.


Original title: 'Iets over muziek in maart' -from the collection 'Poëzie is en daad van bevestiging' - Noord- en Zuidnederlandse poëzie van 1945 tot heden - gebundeld en ingeleid door C. Buddingh' en Eddy van Vliet - 1984 - Uitgeverij Manteau Amsterdam

Heavenly Peace by Ira Bart



Heavenly Peace
                            
                                        for Duo Duo
Ira Bart (Ria Baart)
[1947-1996]

You were on the Tiananmen Square
when a new wind was starting to blow there
full of spring air and cherry blossom, the future

crushed under the wheels of tanks

                       - colics, hard corses of a lava flow -

did you run, no, but did I run
over my screen.

I recognised you later in my country
by a photo in the newspaper.

Driven by hate and homesickness you watched
in my house pictures of the whitewashed square where
what had happened was no longer shown.

               People who haves eyes are often sad, you said,

swimming in the sea, where your head
became a smaller and smaller dot
until I could only somehow
                                          vaguely
                                                        surmise it.

Men in a boat showed you the way
back. Why, you asked, denying the supremacy
of the sees, surely rinsing off something

               must be done with a great deal of water?



Original title: Hemelse Vrede - From the collection: Verwaaide liefdes, tere vleugels - 1997 - Uitgeverij Tortuca, Rotterdam




Monday 19 February 2018

The thrush again by Hans Andreus

Hans Andreus
[1926-1977]


The thrush again.
There wasn't an evening
that he lost his way:
his soundtrack

between the houses
moved unfailingly synchronized
with in this
reality the in-

escapable effect
of clouds, sky and
setting sun

and while I lay still
as if I were dead,
sang he. He sang.


Original title: 'De lijster weer' - from: Om de mond van het licht. Een kleine case history - Uitgeversmaatschappij Holland BV - Haarlem - 1973

Sunday 18 February 2018

Two poems by Bert Schierbeek

Bert Schierbeek
[1918-1996]

LOOK
it's much worse
than you think
if you think
it's even worse



I THINK
when it rains
let her not get wet

and if it storms
won't she get a cold

and I also think
that that thinking
doesn't help

because you'll never get wet
again nor get a cold

because it rains
nor is windy ever
more for you


Original titles: 'Kijk' and 'Ik denk' - from the collection 'De Deur', Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam - 1972

Saturday 10 February 2018

Landscape by H. Marsman

Landscape
H. Marsman [1899-1940]


In the pastures grase
the peaceable creatures;
the herons glide
over shiny lakes,
the bitterns stand
by a dark pond;
and in the washland
the horses gallop
with waving tails
through rolling grass.

(Original title: 'Landschap' - from: 'Verzameld Werk', 1938 - Uitgeverij Querido, Amsterdam)


Friday 9 February 2018

Terror by Lucebert

Lucebert [1924-1994]
Terror

finally the empty road
the endless empty road
the empty stones the thousand and one
white steps the split stones
the very long white road
the extremely stony road the extremely
split stones the endless
jog the glass the stones the white
recently dug legs of passers-by
right behind the brushwood
nothing conspicuous behind the hills
deserters are plugged
a general breaks wind
over the road moves a stinking cloud
the corpses find themselves between the white stones
remarkably well hidden
artistically inlayed between the split stones
every split is a surprised eye
and the hundreds the endless empty eyes
are from nobody from nobody are
also the storms of violence
at times they are disguised as closed cars
slowly over the empty white road
but then it is also certain that they will vanish
suddenly in the clear bloodstain right on the horizon

Wednesday 7 February 2018

Three poems by Eddy van Vliet



La gare forestière
(Paul Delvaux)

The wood smells pause. Between the leaves
darkness keeps asleep. The sky
fills with light yellow defence.

On the rural platform the waiting
has started. The destinations do not run out
for the girls who made up all the arrivals.

The rails are carrying like parallel running
servants their ponderous masters.
For everybody waiting they bring an absentee.

Eddy van Vliet
[1942-2002]


For Gert B.

It is Easter Monday. The magnolia flowers.
The garden wall seems to glow gently.
Just for a moment I sense the winter
when I take the garden chairs out of the cellar.

What is in the bud, wants to open
before nightfall. As in a race
green holds the first place.
Nothing is hesitating.

The exception is my hand that touches the tree-bark.
The branch that it breaks, contains no sap.
It is clear: the pear tree is dead
and from what I have heard this morning, so are you.

The synagogue on the Koornmarkt

I have come to Delft, not for its blue
or its tower. Because only what was lost,
has the right of existence.

Ornament that lives in a pencil sketch.
Light spots on the eastern wall.
Tolerance made evident from a speech

Much was devoted to what had disappeared. A collection.
The words of a poet from The Hague. Lotteries
and the whole life of an unmarried engineer.

The specification provided room for eighty Jews.
In fear they threw themselves down.
The occupiers registered
a hundred and thirty eight.
Twelve returned.

Oh Eternal one, I love the throne of Your house that
turned into a storage place for rusting barrels.


Original titles: La gare forestière, Voor Gerd B. and De synagoge aan de Koornmarkt  - From: De tweede ronde, Tijdschrift voor literatuur, Herfst 1989 - Vlaams nummer - Uitgeverij Bert Bakker BV, Amsterdam.

Saturday 3 February 2018

Departure by Hans van den Bos


Departure
                      29th July, 2002

Along artificial landscapes
made for unwitting creatures,
the road leaves, in a tropical 
heat, a long past behind. 

In the mirror the skyline 
of the city, proudly rebuild 
after brutal assault from the east, 
fades like a mirage.

Endless lowlands rush past
– an accelerated poem,
until smoking and flaming
pillars of capitalism
become manifest in the low sun.

Far beyond the last city,
the last link to the coast,
a sultry south-west wind, that often 
fling waves against dunes and dykes,
brings now the salty smell of the sea.

A ship on which many forever left
before, slips slowly between the jetties,
away from the coast.
A final look over the yellow dunes,
then only sky and water remain.  

Original Title: Vertrek

Thursday 1 February 2018

Mangan’s Bay Revisited by Hans van den Bos

Mangan’s Bay Revisited

In the hidden white cottage
monotone ticking
of the meter.
On the table
before the window,
with a view to the green lawn,
pen and paper,
surrounded by books,
are waiting for words.

The autumn wind
whistles around the cottage;
clouds skim along the sky.
Two black dogs
horse about on the grass,
swept interchangeably
by rain and sunlight.

On the deserted beach
the breakers rattle
over coloured pebbles
and bring in loads of kelp
harvested, in bygone days,
by farmers
to fertilize their fields.

Sea and clouds touch each other.
An unexpected sharp cry
of a great black-backed gull
stiffens a lonely grey heron
who then rises gracefully
and disappears
over the blanketed water.

In the cottage
in front of the fire
the two black dogs
are asleep
and the pen
fills the white paper.


Original Title: Terug naar Mangan's Bay

Wednesday 31 January 2018

Bride by Ton van Reen

BRIDE

A woman rests on the beach
sitting on a bundle of brushwood
cold jellyfish of blue-tinted glass
spread around her like jewels

Her hands lie on her lap
playing with a brittle shell
the pink mouth opened to the wind
a shout in which the sea races around

Motionless she looks out over the water
her headscarf is blowing like
a blue windvane towards the sea
a silent greeting to the fisherman
in his boat, small off the coast

The tide rolls towards her
a white fan of wet lace
is spreading out over her foot
With arms full of spume
the sea dresses her as a bride

Ton van Reen (1941)
[photo Internet]

Original Title: Bruid

Monday 15 January 2018

Catherine Deneuve by Manuel Kneepkens

Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve
[photo Internet]

#Metoo is called in France #Balancetonporc
(blow the gaff on your pig!)
100 pretty French women are protesting

Catherine Deneuve belongs to them
'This is La Douce France, Nom de Dieu!
Gallantry we hold dear!'

A man's hand on a woman's thigh
is not Les liasons dangereuses!
A man's hand on a woman's bottom
is not L’Histoire d’ O!

Oh, good old Catherine Deneuve
once Buñuel's Belle de Jour
all Bad Men are grateful to you

Me too!
In the name of Marquis de Sade
I put you naked across my knee