The Jump I. - by Peter Nijmeijer

(Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin)

Peter Nijmeijer - 1947-2016

It cannot be denied, this view

that like a ship comes straight at you: the quay,

the gray-blue mountains, the sparing evening sun

(later you can destroy the negatives).

And although you're only just here, you were

here before, two shaky feet

on a fabrication of iron and wood.

Is the water moving or you stationary?

For a moment you see nothing, one might say that
looking back is also closed off, do you

always dock at evenfall.

It doesn't matter if it is now or at another time.

And even if you set foot on the hesitant shore
exactly on time: Like what is your position here
and for how long? (But never mind how you harp on,
it cannot be denied, this view.)

Original title: (Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin) - From the collection: De sprong - 1983 - Meulenhoff - Amsterdam

Remco Campert - Poetry Night 2014

Groyne by Willem van Toorn

Groyne

The slanting grey stones. Grass in between. 
Halfway a hollow pollard with a deformed heart 
in the bark and initials of dead lovers long ago. 
At the end the wooden beacon. If you swim 
there, the eddies pull you down without mercy. 
The drawing in my uncle's scout book, arrows 
show precisely how you must let yourself be 
dragged down into the depths and then escape 
along the bottom 'with a few firm strokes'. The 
priest or curate who went rowing with three 
boys near the point and capsized. Days later, the 
bodies were washed ashore, near groynes by 
distant villages. Only catholics could be that 
stupid.


Original title: Krib - From the collection: Dooltuin - 1995 - Em. Querido's Uitgeverij B.V. - Amsterdam

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