A heron poem by the Dutch poet Chr. J. van Geel

Een reiger loopt voorzichtig

op hoge poten door

de sloot en brengt zijn spieden,

ook als het donker is,

als witvis aan het licht.

A heron cautiously

walks on long-toed feet down

the ditch and brings its spying,

even when it is dark,

as whitefish to the light.

A recent poem of my own

hard as nails

this spring

my fingernails started to erupt

their growth rate doubled

they also grew hard

brittle

shearing off at mad angles

developing ridges

faults

i kept on walking into things

with my nails

leaving shards everywhere

they seemed to grow lower

wider

and striate

i look at them

and see my mother’s nails

on what are becoming

my mother’s hands

but with my father’s veins

then look at the portrait

just right of me

with my son

and grandchildren

but cannot see their nails

Another poem by the Swedish poet Hjalmar Gullberg

STJÄRNFISKAREN

Jag fiskar åt min älskade, utsträckt på balkongen,

drivande med strömmen i skymningshavet,

hennes hår kring min panna är mitt doftande nät.

Flämtande röda dyker redan de första

stjärnornas evighetsfiskar ur svindlande djup…

Jag seglar med min älskades kyss på pannan,

mitt nät är tungt av silverblänkande stim.

THE STARFISHER

I fish for my beloved, outstretched on the balcony,

drifting with the current in the twilight sea,

her hair around my forehead is my scented net.

Flickering red the first eternity-fish of the stars

are already plunging from dizzying depths…

I sail with my beloved’s kiss on my forehead

my net is heavy with silver-glittering shoals.

Poem for 23 August in the Danish poet Klaus Høeck's '1001 POEMS'

        the dog days are now

        over the grass is

changing colour bleached with chlor

        ine and is getting

        ready for the words

of the text the poems are

folding in on themselves it’s

        summer still yet it’s

        already autumn

like a double stop from frantz

        ignaz biber’s ros

        ary sonatas

A poem by the Dutch writer Toon Tellegen

AT A WINDOW

I stand at a window.

I see words coming.

Some words I recognise:

although, red, previously,

nevertheless in its flapping jacket,

truthfulness, imperfect...

Some clamber onto each other’s shoulders.

‘Who are you?’ they shout.

‘Overcast,’ I shout.

‘Heavily or fairly?’ they ask.

‘Slightly,’ I say. ‘Slightly overcast.’

I lower my eyes.

I wish I was glittering

or somewhat

or even more: notwithstanding.

It starts to rain.

Although looks up, her cheeks grow wet.

Far and wide run away.

Darkness falls.

A poem from Lars Gustafsson's latest collection 'On the Use of Fire'

Roach

This was the strange word

that I looked for in my dream

And was quite unable to find.

I woke up

having dreamt of a fish

with red eyes

easy to catch with chewed bread

on a bent pin

So much more sluggish than fair bleak

those warm shorewater’s

indefatigable dancers

                  *

Yes, this dream was full

of beauty and dancing

And no one in the whole world knew

That the roach is called roach.

Another poem by the Danish writer Jeppe Aakjær, later set to music by Aksel Agerby

May Night

When wild geese honk on Walpurgis night

who thinks then of going to rest?

With dew-beaded hat you roam out of sight

through fjordland and woods newly dressed.

Way out there gleams so mighty a star

that all of my eye it now fills;

I’m sure that same star I once saw afar

when I gazed o’er my childhood hills.

And the peewit’s cry is borne on the wind,

though longing’s borne farther away.

How bitterly close one’s heart is confined

when the avocet migrates in May!

There’s trickling in grass and cheeping in moss,

the tree-tops twitch out of their slumber;

from the farthermost cape the scent wafts across

of anemones countless in number.

The lonely young lamb on the hill far beyond

can be heard with its plaintive small baa,

and the frogs all croak from puddle and pond,

as if star now were singing to star.

(1916)

To see what Klaus Høeck does with this poem in his collection 'In Nomine', go to here.

To hear a snatch of Agerby's version, go to here (no. 7)