Love at first sight by Hans van den Bos

Love at first sight

A house for herself and her

children she could forget

with only a widow's pension.

An education she'd never had,

except two years domestic science.

All she could do was find a man,

who would support her

and both her children.

Young woman, twenty-nine years old,

widow with two children, seeks

acquaintance with man of same age,

with a view to a serious relationship.

This advertisement she placed,

on the advice of her friend,

in a local newspaper, because

living in with her parents,

was a dead-end situation.

A letter, unexpected,

came from the east of the town,

he twenty-six years old,

still living with his mother,

a member of the Salvation Army.

Probably love at first sight,

because a short time later

they were married.

Original title: Liefde op het eerste gezicht

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

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

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

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