Cycle of poems by the Dutch writer Gerrit Komrij

Faust – Part Such-and-Such

‘CITY LIGHTS’

An open space of square. Night’s fallen fast.

The whole day long I’ve walked down narrow alleys

Where dazedly I’ve thought about my past:

Ash, dust and sawdust - such a woeful tally.

An open space, at last. A chiming bell.

Like some old etching lies the city square,

With scores of alleys drawn into its spell.

Arch, gateway, statue - everything is there.

The gleaming marble’s listlessly approached.

The moon is full - does her awaited stint.

An owl hoots. Distant barking’s faintly broached.

I see my mother standing on the plinth.

DESOLATION

The following day refinds me in the maze.

I’m trapped inside for good. It’s now quite clear

I’m once more blinded by that figure’s gaze.

My mother, rising in a sacred sphere.

Amid such bustling traffic - would she still be there?

I dare not leave my alley-web. She looked

Just like a child, the girl of bygone years -

Her face so full of tenderness, yet spooked.

I see her dress still swirling, marble-slick.

This memory I’m most hard put to shelve:

Her right hand resting lightly on a stick,

She winked at me upon the stroke of twelve.

RETURN

I wonder if it really was a wink.

Who knows, it could have been a fateful omen.

A topsy-turvy state, a cross-wired link:

With me the carcass, she so young a woman.

Did you wake me up, mother, or I you?

Was it an omen or a brief hello?

I want to see the square again, pardieu.

I’m there already, simply have to know.

The square’s like a vacated autodrome.

Those paltry street lamps make it seem forlorner.

The plinth is empty, too. I glimpse a show

Of liquid marble swirling round a corner.

MEETING

Above the plinth’s a phosphorescent glow.

A silent square. Some distant breaking glass.

I stand stock-still, feel drained of blood and low.

I, who myself my mother’s father was.

I cannot count the hours that I stand there.

My pancreas sustains a stabbing blow.

Once more a chime. I have to follow her.

Not waiting for me’s hardly comme il faut.

Tonight I fear I’ll swiftly grow much older.

A creak - behind I sense a ghostly shade.

‘I’m whom you seek.’ I’m tapped upon the shoulder.

‘Indeed, a pleasure - Nathan, advocate.’

THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE

He’s beady-eyed. His jet-black cloak is heaving

Like some great bellows regularly fed.

I spurn his falls and rises. Who’d believe in

Salvation stemming from his birdlike head?

His trusting gaze impels me to submit.

Confessing to him trips right off the tongue.

‘It wasn’t my dead mother,’ I repeat,

‘Not wizened by the grave, not dead and gone -

The figure was intact and smooth. Commanding.

Anemones were blooming on her stave.

She was a mistress, and yet quite enchanting.

I do not know for sure what sign she gave.’

THE ADVOCATE

‘There is a dance-floor where the figures gather,’

Says Nathan. ‘Let me be your counsel there.’

He sketches in the feast of words, dreams, shadows

And sins - on the reverse side of this square.

That every month wild partying’s arranged.

A dance of wishes and of recollections

Where even the bronze sage will act deranged

And from the casts fly chips - or even sections.

‘They’re lavish there.’ A document appears.

‘They play in earnest - earnestness is play.’

He laughs. ‘I’ll take you. Pleased to sign this here.’

My playful flourish - he’s a winning way.

THE NOTARY

To start with, my life must be tidied up.

The contract stipulates explicitly.

I think of cloths, sponge, broom and foaming suds.

Instead of which a notebook’s what I see.

A notary spoons into it the brains

From my skull-pan. Each time this is repeated

- Along with all the false and crudely framed -

His archiving leaves me the more depleted.

This is the way that fakirs and ascetics

Enable hidden powers to be refloated.

‘What’s fixed for good can safely be neglected,’

He says. I have his blessing. Duly noted.

THE ACCOUNTANT

Another man. He lays my chattels bare.

The time has come to tot up the accounts.

He lists my goods - from castles in the air

To golden bracelet. I am stripped right down.

My probate clerk leaves not a thing untold.

He counts and counts. His strength seems to accrue.

For him the stuff of memory is gold.

He wants the substance and the trimmings too.

Once I’m completely figured, he’s quite bland.

The one who’s grasped that the accountant’s earnings

Were not what he had earned, and that you can,

Unearning, earn the most, is most discerning.

ON THE IN-BETWEEN PATH

Thanks to the threesome craved for such a feat,

I can start searching. Nathan leads me. Days and

Soon weeks pass as we walk. The final street

Gives way to wilderness and ambuscading.

Stage right, a dance-floor fashioned from a lea.

A gaping pool stage left. The meadow: bright.

The torso dances with the effigy.

Bronze Rider and the sphinx enhance the sight.

Youth I am promised on this field of green.

Here my elusive mother’s for the picking.

‘Insight.’ - Way above Nathan’s head are seen

Six drifting clouds, like six deep-frozen chickens.

SHORT-CIRCUIT

I seek her everywhere. The dancers are

So clearly visible in their green shrine.

Still out of sight the girl, though, from the square.

I hear loud groaning. Turn round for a sign.

The water’s blackish gleam. And there I spot

My mother in the pool, with eyes unseeing.

An arm outstretched. The mire is steaming hot.

She sinks. Sucked ever downwards is her being.

An ice-pole in the boiling water. - That’s

Not what Nathan had promised me, of course.

The glaciers steam, all shivery the sweat. -

She pulls me to her with magnetic force.

FINALE

My body slides against hers in the ooze.

Belly to belly. Mud our cling-film suit.

It is a very curious ‘swan-stick-to’

Because this swan lacks feathers and is mute.

I sink. The meadow fireworks crack and spit.

Without a death my life’s deserted me.

I’m nothing more now than my silhouette.

I had but one true friend: eternity.

My final glimpse is how my advocate

Waves something white. I peer and squint, yet still

I cannot make out what - it’s now too late:

A handkerchief, the contract or the bill.