Dèr Mouw - unpublished poem

Je lijkt op iemand, en ’k weet niet, op wie.

Wel weet ik dat ik niet voor ’t eerst je zie.

Eerst dacht ik: lijkt ze niet op ’t meisje, dat

toen ’k jongen was, ik ’t eerst heb liefgehad?

Maar ’k weet nog goed, hoe ’k toen verwonderd keek

naar haar gezicht, op wie ze eigenlijk leek.

You look like someone, and I don’t know who.

And yet it’s not the first time I see you.

I first thought: doesn’t she remind me of

the girl with whom when young I fell in love?

I still recall though, gazing at her face,

wondering who it was she had replaced.

Poem by the Dutch writer Bernlef

GOLDEN DELICIOUS

Mijn moeder zit aanvallig in de tuin

voor haar voeten de opwindgrammofoon

met van dat paarse vilt van binnen

mijn sporen zijn nog niet gezaaid

Zomerbladeren blikkeren in de hoorn

en uit een foto klinkt vervlogen

de muziek van toen, een Gershwin-tune

nu evergreen geheten

Haar blote armen in het gras

het lijkt voor altijd zomer

His Master’s Voice beheerst de tuin

tot in de takken van de bomen

Golden delicious hangen ze daar

zwaar en volmaakt als de muziek

waarnaar ze luistert met gesloten ogen

vol overgave en met heel haar lijf

Een middag in de tuin zo rond en

zo volkomen dat er geen vader

door kan dringen, geen kind erin

de weg vindt naar zijn naam.

GOLDEN DELICIOUS

My mother makes a picture on the lawn

at her feet the wind-up gramophone

lined with that mauvish purple felt

no spores of me have yet been sown

Summer leaves are glinting in the horn

and from a photo comes the sound

of bygone music, a Gershwin tune

now called an evergreen

Her arms uncovered in the grass

it seems an endless summer

His Master’s Voice in full command

to the trees’ outermost branches.

Clusters of golden delicious hang

heavy and perfect as the music

to which she’s listening with shuttered eyes

and utter physical abandon

A garden afternoon so round and

consummate no father ever

will gain entry, no child there find

the path toward its name.

Poem by the Danish writer Peter Laugesen

What I want to write about

WHAT I want to write about

is small things to such an extent

that there aren’t any words for it

Words

only exist for things that are so big

that they don’t mean anything

Those on the other hand there are plenty of

But the small things what are they called

and how can I express them

It’s not nature I’m talking about

but our life

as it is

Nature is itself writing it can be read

The weather can be read

like a poem

It is not prose it is rhythm

the almanack narrates

It is poetry

But it’s not that I want to write about

It’s the small things

there aren’t any words for

or that all words are for since all words come

from small things from

them once having been big and

from everything turning opposite

that we grow smaller

The plan is for the umpteenth time

for me to combine all of it into ONE

LONG POEM for that’s what after all it

is

and not to separate it out

As long as it takes place it is like that but until now

it’s always fallen apart more and more

into some other typography

and it may well be

that’ll happen again

But you are to know that that’s not how it is

it’s ONE LONG POEM

and it says all sorts of things

in its own way

which is not different

and can’t be so

I don’t want to be intoxicated any more

or prevent anyone from anything

just be the person I am when I’m not influenced by anything else

than all that I once like everyone else then at that age

believed was death itself that sad bourgeois boredom

I now know that’s a lie and it was also a lie then

I now know there’s no way round

living one’s life

I’ve learnt from the old ones

as they are in my self

I have discovered them

there where they’re hiding

in thoughts there where they’re sitting

waiting for someone to hear

what they’re whispering inside beneath the scream

I have found them and listened to them

both the one and the other

and far from all of them

There are lots more in me

many I haven’t met yet

because I’ve looked the other way

and called it forwards

but they’re there

All of a sudden they’re sitting inside me writing

and I don’t know who they are

because they’re me and I don’t know who I myself am

They are a tired and yawning Good Friday

and the weather’s changing wildly here on the edge of the valley

I am everyone and none of them

know who I am and I don’t know myself

It’s like coming out on the other side with something intact

that despite everything hasn’t been smashed to pieces

And without words

and with far too many words

for nothing

and everything

Magazines newspapers periodicals books Easter again

Time says boo! and two unknown researchers have made fusion

with a school chemistry set

in a glass of salt water

Scepticism among the clever that would upset everything for Iran

and Norway

And natural gas pump it back into the earth again the balloon

is limp

Blackbirds on the lawn

The clouds are drifting and you look up through the holes between them

Perhaps

you can see

the eyes of the small meteorological cameras in the sky-blue depths

the small eyes in the cells the fight of the white blood corpuscles

in the wounds

the power plant of the lungs and pipelines of the heart station

The small things

for language

All the words that fall out it’s them now

that do not reach the door and

them that are kicked out with their head

in the silver cord

And somewhere else entirely they collect a new language for themselves

that is the expelled thing itself

that is the satan of the myth

falling in space like Michelangelo’s figures on the ceiling

where the light-rays of the street lamp pass through the open door

at night

and thoughts constantly circle round the sore point

where the body right now is being assembled

The rain begins

Use the images of the body

the wind at the window

the curtain and the papers on the wall

The skin

It’s not a question of evil or good

or beautiful and ugly

Write through

like the small devils in the blood and the doctors’ forceps and swab

Fly on rhetorical wind

It won’t come any nearer

What’s done is past the undone future

It’s not names but words

Keys

Open doors

Spacious time

Timely space

in the pictures of the body when they become words and the words of the body when they become pictures.

MARAIS - 'WINTERNAG' - NEW ENGLISH VERSION

WINTERNAG

O koud is die windjie

            en skraal.

En blink in die dof-lig

            en kaal,

so wyd as die Heer se genade,

lê die velde in sterlig en skade.

            En hoog in die rande,

            versprei in die brande,

is die grassaad aan roere

            soos winkende hande.

O treurig die wysie

            op die ooswind se maat,

soos die lied van ’n meisie

in haar liefde verlaat.

In elk grashalm se vou

blink ’n druppel van dou,

en vinnig verbleik dit

            tot ryp in die kou!

WINTER NIGHT

So cold now the wind is

            and spare.

And bleak in the dim light

            and bare,

as wide as God’s mercy is boundless,

the scorched veldt lies starlit and soundless.

            And on the high lands

            through burnt soil lone strands

of seed-grass are stirring

            like beckoning hands.

So sad now the song is

            on the east wind full-borne,

like a girl’s song of longing

when love is forlorn.

In the fold of each blade

a clear dewdrop is made

that swiftly the cold turns

            to rime as it fades!

Poem by the Dutch writer René Huigen

The Zeppelin or Rosendahl bend

Totally uninterested

in the extremities that it combines,

in bridges that it builds and roundabout

gestures, the beauty

of an ideal knot can be seen

from the ease with which it can

be tied and also be undone,

despite the enormous force of the pull

exerted on it – at which it displays

a detached involvement

It is strong and reliable, shockproof,

and perfectly symmetrical, as subtle as the pattern

depicted on the back of a butterfly

Powerful enough to lift climbers

onto mountain summits

A unique ornament round the neck

of everyone hanged

man or woman, guilty

or innocent – it knows itself in everything

To be an example simply demonstrated

even to children

Whether involving patent leathers

with loose laces that trip you up

Or something as fleeting

as a dream, filled with helium,

a sloop at its mooring, ready

to embark

No sky ever reaches high enough

to need to fall still deeper,

But maintains precisely motionless, fixedly the midpoint

so as to offer what by nature wants to drift

something to hold on to

Poem by the Dutch writer C.O. Jellema

 Midges

Do lovers ask themselves: our love, will it

add anything to love? –  so does

the fruit of a womb maintain the

doggedness of dying –

Something dreams itself lost within us,

something wants it random, something

survives it, just as

above night’s newly fallen snow

melting in the midday sun

that cloud of

dancing midges –

a mere image, lighter

than body is ever.

Poem by the Danish writer Henrik Nordbrandt

 

China observed through Greek rain in café turque

the drizzle

falls into my coffee

until it is cold

and overflows

until it overflows

and becomes clear

so that the picture on the bottom

becomes visible.

the picture of a man

with a long beard

in China, in front of a Chinese pavilion

in the rain, pouring rain

which has stiffened

into streaks

over the windswept facade

and over the man’s face.

beneath the coffee, milk and sugar

which are separating

beneath the well-worn glaze

appear eyes, extinguished

or inward-looking

towards China, in the cup’s porcelain

the cup slowly being emptied of coffee

and being filled with rain

clear rain. the spring rain

is atomised against the shed roof of the taverna

the facades on the other side of the street

are like a large

very worn wall of porcelain

whose gleam lights up the vine leaves

the vine leaves that are also worn

like the inside of a cup. the chinaman

sees the sun appear through a green leaf

that has fallen into the cup.

the cup whose contents

are now completely clear.

Poem by the Danish writer Jens August Schade (1903-78)

At the Café

A good song,

a crazy small miracle

comes from the gramophone

while I stay silent.

And to everyone’s amazement

I push back my chair

and stay sitting in the air.

In front of me sits a girl

with ugly teeth

and flighty eyes.

She stays silent.

- Both of us know

what’s going in inside the other,

and strong as lions our souls kiss.

She rises into the air,

and I do too,

we find each other

there above the tables.

And to roars and applause

at the miracle of the song

we intertwine

and roundabout out of the café.

Another classic from Grundtvig

A simple, cheerful active life on earth

A simple, cheerful, active life on earth,

A cup I’d not exchange for monarch’s chalice,

In noble forebears’ tracks a path since birth,

With equal dignity in hut and palace,

With eye as when created heav’nward turned,

All beauty here and grandness keenly knowing,

Familiar though with those things deeply yearned,

Stilled only by eternity’s bright glowing.

I wished for all my line just such a life,

And zealously I planned for its fruition,

And when my soul grew tired from toil and strife,

The ‘Lord’s Prayer’ was its rest and its nutrition.

Then from truth’s spirit I great comfort gained,

And felt joy hover o’er each garden border,

When dust is placed in its creator’s hand

And all is waited for in nature’s order:

Just fresh, green buds that sprout in early spring,

And in the summer heat the flowers’ profusion;

And when the plants mature and long to bring

Their harvest fruit to autumn’s full conclusion!

The human span assigned is short or long,

It is for common weal, its yield is growing;

The day that started well will end as strong,

And just as sweet will be its afterglowing.

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Poem by the Danish writer Ludvig Holstein

We sons of the plains 

We sons of the plains all have minds full of dreams,

That turn into songs when they waken,

They rise from the summer-night mists’ tangled seams

Like larks which now skywards have taken.

From yearning burst open one fine April day

As crocus and hyacinth flowering,

Like springtime sun’s smile whose victorious ray

Melts winter’s last ice with its showering.

Then off they set sail o’er the sweet-scented land,

Where spring seeds through dark soil are teeming,

And joyfully greet past the woods’ dark-green band

The streak of the fjord brightly gleaming

And quiver in springtime’s glad whistling and song

That trill now from grove and from garden

And boldly steal joys in advance which ere long

sweet secretive lips might well pardon.

And sink down midst flowers that in may-night’s embrace

on hillside and branch are now breaking,

and whisper their love’s name while dew grows apace,

my sweet only one, unforsaking.

As yet it’s not morning, though neither is night,

one’s thoughts on stray paths mists are taking,

a heart loudly pounds, and in scrub out of sight

the nightingale’s song is still quaking.

Sir Olav’s horse over the elf-bridge it trod,

in midsummer night’s white abiding,

then stumbled his steed with gold shoes finely shod.

– Sir Olav, where would you be riding?

Where would you be riding ere daybreak is here,

and where were you carried and born, sir?

And whose breast did feed you, and who held you dear,

and who made your coat newly worn, sir?

Oh, magic in summer-night mists’ tangled seams!

Oh, memories magic and tempting!

We sons of the plains all have minds full of dreams, 

and yet do not know when they’re breaking.

They lie there and wait for the moment of birth

to turn into songs are they yearning,

as larks in the clover fields’ grass-tufted earth,

ere dawn meadow’s colours is turning.