Monday 2 July 2012

Cycle of poems by the Dutch writer
René Puthaar



Everything returned

for Tatjana




Round house and stables prowls the word - a murderer
whose knife you can hear whetted on the stone.

Ida Gerhardt


1


It is the machinations of the night.
Transmitter seeking frequencies, this time
a voice, the buzzing of an alley-web
in which the crackleware of fearful cries,
all air-tight sealed, the childish whining sounds
of cats, the asphalt whispering beneath
a man who’s tumbling and who gasps for breath.

Scribbled, that in the grass I dared the sun
and sought for anything that was afloat,
eluded and evading in the light

and saw no more, just merely now and then
a whirring came from something giant-winged
turning in steady gyres as I lay there.

An ink-cartridge, the coalblack glittering
of water, in the street an antique safe
wide-open waiting for an early bird,
shadows of things that can be levelled out,
and in the windowpane the lamp betrays
a head whose cavities see nobody.
It is the machinations of the night.



2


Screwed, that it seemed to be an outpost of the world
where once again we met, so vacantly amazed
to see the other here, during a perfect moment

departed like a dog that vanished in a hole
after it broke, the lead, and in the blind approach
a jet-black piece of life was lost on sheets of ice

in eye-sockets and in a mouth, the chilly hand
that was unclenched at last for the entanglement.
Screwed, that it seemed to be an outpost of the world.



3


It is the glass you drink some water from, the surface
in which your face inlays a hologram or a trompe-l’oeil,
bent on lucky pieces, by preference Venetian,
for without you it has a fairer chance, the lasting on
of things long-since discarded, chandeliers that in the fog
of the palazzos cold as always concentrate the light,
in what’s exposed the mind exists as little as the flesh.

Allowed, that any woman turned up on the square, only in search
of what could be a child, a brief existence, so dearly
lost in alleys, to be discovered in a dead-end lane

that once, recalled, will be a portal to San Marco’s space,
where temporary bridges bear mothers with their offspring
all bending over heaven’s gate, a lion wags its tail.

As long as ripples will persist, the merry show goes on.
It is the glass you drink some water from, the surface.



4


Laughed, that it sounded for a while
as if a royal china set
was shattering, all the servants

attempted to appear unmoved
though on the cheek of porcelain
of the princess a tear appeared,

not that it pleased her, by no means,
the delicate perspective where
the hart keeps the line of the shot,

the rigid pointer seeks to match
the fox, Diana’s half undraped
with partridges right at her feet,

quite simply though because it seemed,
and a resemblance cannot break,
as if repair could not take place,

to satyr can the hunter change,
the bearskin can be ridden on
and swiftly she’d conclude blood-ties

while she well knows that all is lost,
the fox’s lair serves as her bed,
the path of potsherds leads to her

and on the cheek of porcelain
of the princess a tear appears.
Laughed, that it sounded for a while.



5


It is a sea of black. Moon-fishes overturn
their silver sides, snap up air above Rotterdam
harbours, fuddled with light roam onwards. The blessing
of a winter’s night. The glittering of pitch dark.
The water-levels as expected, then a song
about some yellow submarine. There is no date.
Between the sheets her hip sticks up, out of control.

Believed, that everything’s asleep but can still wake.
The cold asleep, the clock, the stars counted like sheep
and in whose midst the wolf will suddenly appear

that I am to myself, who with a blooded muzzle
sniffs at the fear the sleeper harbours in his dream,
someone at home inside an unfamiliar house.

where everything’s asleep, it seems can hardly wake.
It is a sea of black. Moon-fishes overturn.



6


Run, till my feet went on ahead along the path
and I stood still as if I saw the winding track
which unpaved leaves the town behind and rids itself

of alleys, squares and stopovers, and which allows
the foot to stray, released from me, perhaps
consumed with longing for a field of corn, a tramp

who with a hat of straw and tatters in the wind
scares off the flock of crows, consigned still to his place
among the wanderers, and kindred with Van Gogh

now I see him for whom the traveller departs
to burn up on the endless road to Tarascon.
Run, till my feet went on ahead along the path.


   
7


It is a room in the surveying of the swift,
in full flight making for the major window, cleaned
by one who’s sure that summertime will come, testing
the transparency of this unknown self-portrait
that’s saying to the swift: fly inside, traveller,
where one will find the view of your domain, the blue
where heavenwide no one can see that it is you

That, homeward bound, one’s able to forget oneself.
It is a room in the surveying of the swift.



8


Seen, just as I saw Manhattan once. So full of promise,
a nascent Easter Island, just as on summer mornings
I had discovered Amsterdam as a forsaken house;

inside the villa herons wandered, water stood stagnant
in lofty passages, or I like to fancy that
I can depart, a single journey, nothing in return.

A kite’s flown by a child like this. The tension of the line
resolves as it itself takes off, soaring above the sand
until the string breaks and resistance then is felt -
gravity which seeks, above it all, the vanishing point.
A kite’s string, as animations sometimes can reveal,
are able to form figures on the paper - like the cock’s foot which,
with severed tendons, starts clawing when the string is jerked.

Seen, just as I saw Manhattan once. So full of promise,



9


It is a wild hunt on the loose.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
The things gain voices as they choose.

A mouth rolls onstage from the wings.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
The things go round the crowd in rings.

A single voice takes form, it seems.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
The things start counting. One, two, three.

Rattling refrains call out for help.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
The things start coming out their shell.

The dead are swaying through the dive.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
The things reflect and recognise.

Poems reach for the rope’s tight noose.
The crowd drinks blood and vitriol.
Music, maestro, the string's last call!
It is a wild hunt on the loose.



10


Doubted, whether the way back still exists
along which, faithful after treachery,
the gipsies have preserved the dancing song

for what it’s apt to praise, now that with fires
and debris out of sight the skyline treats
the lofty caliphate to a descent:

how light Granada is and mill-pond smooth
her moonlike face in which time simply drowns,
the laughter of a spring, the outer edge
of what would seem the world, however much
her hand rests weightlessly on my two hands,
the goshawk’s soaring higher, the day begins
with snow-clad peaks in Andalusian gold.

The wide world leaves a human body cold.
Doubted, whether the way back still exists.



11


It is a landscape where a man just stands,
with hands on neck, the head a bit askew
as if someone is whispering I’ll come
but not until the very last and not
as was expected once, the vertigo
of one who lets a thing most precious fall
and rediscovers it before it cracks.

Seen, how one collapses on the very spot,
the body loose, all the springs now triggered
only able to land right where it falls

but not until the very last and not
as was expected once, the vertigo.
It is a landscape where a man just stands.



12


Heard, as long as it prowled around the room,
the word that’s undisturbed and whets its knives.

Till it slunk off again, sure of its chance
to meet me here at some unsuspecting
moment, the eyes both resting on the man
who’s tumbling and who gasps for breath, the dog
vanishing in the ice-sheet hole, the Moor
who looks back at his Eden and sets out,
blindfolded and with hands held to my neck.

the kite that lets go of the line, the fear
the dreamer harbours when asleep, the pane
the swift flies up against, the dead-end lane
where once the square will come in view, the cheek
that is unshattered still, the traveller
who starts to roam, sets out for Tarascon,
blindfolded and with hands held to my neck.

As long as round the room it prowled, the word
that’s undisturbed and whets its knives was heard.



(Everything returned was written in the spring of 2000)


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