Poem by the Dutch writer Rogi Wieg

NO REVOLVER

For Bert Schierbeek

It’s raining, the last of the flowers are

letting go, but people are blooming.

Hölderlin briefly reads clearly

then clouds over: curtains are shut

during the daytime. Doors close

without a keyhole. It’s raining hard.

And yet: humans believe that the world is

getting better, women draw a lipstick

and no revolver. Women bathe children,

but the sky turns their water black.

And yet: time unreels to give people

extra time and now Hölderlin will chuckle a bit

about the last pears. Although he’s mistaken:

it is his madness dancing to ashes’ tune.

It’s raining, the last flowers are

strewing children on the old earth.

And Hölderlin pores over his poem,

scratches some words, drinks and prays.

Billy Collins in Danish?!

En anden grund til at jeg ikke har et gevær i huset

En anden grund til at jeg ikke har et gevær i huset
Naboernes hund vil ikke holde op med at gø.
Den gøer med densamme høje, rytmiske gøen
den bruger hver gang de forlader huset.

De må tænde for den hver gang de går ud.
Naboernes hund vil ikke holde op med at gø.
Jeg lukker samtlige vinduer i huset
og sætter en Beethovensymfoni på for fuld udblæsning
men, dæmpet under musikken, kan jeg stadig høre den
gø, gø, gø.

og nu ser jeg den sidde i orkestret,
scenevant, med hævet hovedet, som om Beethoven
havde inkluderet en stemme for gøende hund.

Da pladen til slut er forbi gøer den endnu,
sidder dér i obogruppen og gøer,
stirrer stift på dirigenten, som
opmuntrer den med taktstokken

imens de andre musikere lytter i ærbødig
tavshed til den berømte solo for gøende hund,
denne endeløse coda der for første gang etablerede
Beethoven som nyskabende geni.

Why not? For more in parallel text version, go to here.

Poem by Eva Gerlach from 'Situaties' (2007)

HELLEBOSCH, 5

Someone sings in the house behind doors that are five,

walls that are ten centimetres, bawling,

bellowing, someone scrubs herself bare, lets

air loose everywhere. In pipes and against

tiles, window-panes and thing contrary to

floor what you call? then an echo,

a whistling proceeds, a resonance audible

even in hearths and in logs, sweeping via

chimney flue over beeches, puff balls, sawdust

of guile bug, woe beetle, tumbling on cabbages and

ricocheting against village eardrums. Other than

this song soon nothing will exist. Drum, air,

on the skin round death in the fruit, fair

bursting out of its peel, so. Hours so. Days.

Another Benny Andersen poem

Diet

Prawns give you dry corneas

grease brings you out in spots

pancakes lie too heavy in your belly

streaky bacon isn’t good for the heart

fish isn’t good for the butcher

chicken isn’t good for the chicken

meat rissoles aren’t good for anything

avoid sago soup if you’re pregnant

avoid onions if you’re married

sweet is sinful

sour is dangerous

salt shortens your life

bitter spins it out

jam gives you floppy ears

hash makes your swimming bladder contract

egg makes your arms go lopsided

cheese affects your sense of smell

horseradish affects your taste

biscuits affect your hearing

radishes restrict your horizon

peas halt your development

cauliflower blocks the view

breakfast spoils your appetite

night snacks whet it

food isn’t good for the stomach

life is unhealthy

gulp

gulp

gulp

Poem by the Swedish writer Lars Gustafsson

The lamp

 Before the lamp was lit

we sat completely still

A crow’s rasping voice

and a sudden scent of clover

with a sweetish warmth

through this rising dark.

Water, completely still.

The earth, it too tranquil.

The bird flew

as close as it could

over its own shadow

And the bumblebee, faithful

friend of many summers,

crashed against the window pane

as if it were the wall of the world

And the dive dapper

flew from lake to lake

It could be late

or early

in various lives

it could be in a butterfly’s shadow

In the shadow of any life.

Same procedure as every year - first verse of the poem by the Danish poet Johannes V. Jensen

Solstice song

Our sun has now grown cold,

we are in winter’s hold

the days are waning.

        Now, past the deepest night,

        our hope burns bright –

        yes, hope burns bright,

        for now the sun will right,

now light will soon return, the days again are gaining.

Another butterfly poem - this time by Dèr Mouw

 

A flower in flight with glittering opal gleam

A flower in flight with glittering opal gleam,

drifts – a live spectrum in the enormous light

of tropic sun – the butterfly, as bright,

no, drifting, brighter than the radiant beam.

If out of shadows any threat should come,

it drops at once, folds its lustre away,

and gutted, among colourless decay,

lies the untraceable small shard of sun.

Flitting from my Brahman’s world fire within,

my soul through my own nature hovers in

His light, reflecting Him in poetry.

Should reason stalk me, jealous, arid, grey,

I’ll gravely, sagely weigh each word I say,

blissfully hidden in my mimicry.

One of the best of Grundtvig's Christmas hymns - with wonderful music by Carl Nielsen

It is a wondrous story

It is a wondrous story

and strange if pondered deep

that God’s realm’s future glory

must in a manger sleep,

that heaven’s light and splendour,

the living word for sure,

shall homeless ’mongst us wander

as poorest of the poor!

A nest has e’en the sparrow

where it can built a home,

nor needs the fleeting swallow

for night-time shelter roam.

The beasts need know no anguish,

in caves there’s rest in store,-

Shall then my Saviour languish

upon some stable’s straw?

No, come, I will throw open

my heart, my soul and mind,

yes, sing, sigh, prayers have spoken,

Come, Jesus, come and find!

It is no unknown chamber,

you bought it with your blood!

Here will you sweetly slumber

in love now swathed for good.

Eva Gerlach poem published in 'Daar ligt het' (2003)

ASPHALT

Just now the barge for Haarlem

passed through the street. Along the pavement

towed the scrawny horses with the lad and in

the middle of the road my grandpa’s grand

father cleft the waters. Don’t leave me

behind here I cried through the window

from where I saw them pass, I can’t just stay

here on my own, but borne along they took

the turn left to the park. The asphalt

closed up, from depths that I’d clearly seen

streaming, reflecting and

rushing, no fish leapt. Let’s hope

I thought that with still liquid tide they’ll

get to where they would be bound tonight.

Everything lay as it always lay.

You arrived, quite late, parked

carelessly as usual, took your case

from the car and standing there on

solid asphalt looked straight up at me.

One more from Dèr Mouw

‘k Zat, jong, graag in mijn pereboom te deinen:

in de afgeknotte top had ik een plank

getimmerd, en gevlochten, rank door rank,

klimop tot rugleun en veil’ge gordijnen.

Mijn zomerzon zag ‘k in mijn tuinen schijnen,

zelf in groen licht op wiegelende bank;

een open schoolraam galmde in zeur’ge klank

van kale en korte Karels en Pepijnen.

Zo, daadloos, boven ‘t leven, kijk ik toe:

mijn wereld ligt in de avondzon; ‘t wordt laat.

Mij zelf en andren heb ik ondergaan.

‘k Lach om wie zegt, dat ik mijn plicht niet doe;

en, wachtend, schommel ik op rijm en maat:

nooit heb ik zo, als nu, mijn plicht gedaan.

I rocked high in my peartree as a boy:

up in its thinned-out top I’d made a rack-

like seat, with plaited ivy shoots to act

as back-rest and safe curtains I deployed.

Swathed in green light, perched on my swaying board,

I watched my summer sun make gardens glow;

a school’s half-open window groaned below

from Charleses and from Pepins, bald and short.

Above life thus, I look on idly, mutely:

my world’s in evening sun; it’s getting late.

Myself and others I have undergone.

I laugh at those who say I shirk my duty,

and rock on rhyme and rhythm while I wait:

my duty has been never better done.

Poem by the Danish writer Sophus Claussen (1865-1931)

 

Skabelse

Jeg er ej født endnu, men fødende forløses jeg.

Af Livet i mit Værk jeg aner Livet i mig selv,

berøvet dette Spejl er jeg, saa godt som, lagt i Jord.

Mit Kald har jeg bragt med, og intet yder jeg af mit.

Men jeg forløses, og forløst ser jeg min Gæld betalt

til Kraften, den, jeg stammer fra, og som har udsendt mig.

Det Rige, som har indkaldt mig, og som jeg stammer fra,

er det en ufødt Magt, der fødende forløser sig?

Er det en Guddomspragt, hvis Væld er idel Herlighed?

Jeg ved det ej, men i mit Blod er alle Længslers Mod.

Jeg hamrer Ild af Mørket, udfrir de afmægtige.

Creation

I am unborn as yet, but am delivered giving birth.

From the life in my work I sense the life in myself,

robbed of this mirror, I am as good as laid in earth.

My calling I have brought with me, of my own I perform nothing,

But I am delivered, and delivered see my debt is paid

to the force from which I derive, and which has delegated me.

The kingdom that has summoned me and from which I derive –

is it an unborn power that delivers itself while giving birth?

Is it a divine splendour, whose fount is sheer glory?

I do not know, but in my blood is the courage of all longings.

I hammer fire out of darkness, liberate the helpless.

Another poem by Ivan Malinowski

 

Mosquito song

in the june night this dream

the house borne on the foam of the cherry trees

to the gurgling wash of the drowning birds

beneath a bell jar frailer than the mirror of the fjord

my sleep the egg of a wren: a wall of

whitewash and optical illusion strained to bursting point

quiveringly planted in the dark in the white a sail

and silently there pecks an unseen beak

on the mirror’s membrane of wind and salt

the burst is imminent

Poem by the Dutch writer Menno Wigman

Room 421

My mother’s near kaput. She’s got a hutch,
not quite a box, and sits the same day out
each day on her much pissed-on chair. Can stare
at trees outside, and in those trees are birds
that know not who has once begotten them.
 
I’ve been her son now over forty years
and pay her calls and don’t know who I greet.
She’s read to me aloud, and tucked me up.
She falters, stalls, gets stuck. She’s near kaput.
 
No beast thinks of its mother, so they say.
With trembling hand I spoon food in her mouth
am almost certain she still knows my face.
 
It must be blackbirds. On and on they churn.
The earth cries out. And curse on curse is heard.

Poem by Ivan Malinowski (1926-89) - a Danish poet

Disjecta membra

The gaze seeks a globe of peace but no

unity is final no boundary unwavering

even in eternity the lovers are cleft to the root

only fire goes never unsated to bed

the fruit’s two halves exclude each other

and happily die on their own

while the sunset suddenly lets slip the mask

and you look into a cellar of blood and panic

where everything only consists of its extremities

and nothing accordingly lasts

where a sun of nettles and burning dust

is the price of the metals’ mating and nothing’s

for sure not even the pain or the longing

with wandering waters under roofs of straw

there is no solution or balance

there is no dwelling on earth

but this divided blood refuses to die

and the flesh that clings to its bone can’t be cowed

Poem by the Danish poet Thorkild Bjørnvig

The grebe

With the perfect curve of the neck,

the beak’s slender lance

it points at me, swaying

and follows, as if it would dance,

the smallest of my movements,

elegant, fine and alert –

but its body is that of a penguin,

held upright, passive, inert.

It does not fly as expected –

on its breast a stain of oil

has insinuated itself,

has sapped its power and spoilt

its desire to call, to mate and breed,

to swim, to fly and dive,

to hunt, to catch, devour –

its joy at being alive;

has struck like a deadly disease:

a drop, a germ that’s afloat,

and the mineral leprosy

glues feathers to sticky coat.

Reduced to just jetsam

midst planks and cans in the sand,

no use at all, unable to fish

dropped by water, air and land,

on its way down to life-cycle’s Hades:

each slowly dwindling thing –

it watches my moves intently

as around it I walk in a ring.

Sick little deity,

lost on the lonesome expanses,

nature, the mighty has never as yet

brooked impairment’s nuances

from perfection down to pure

obliteration; – no plight

that from wild beasts does not dictate

reasserted power or death outright.

Which is why I will not try in vain

to clean your body of slick,

for you would defend your last rest

with wild fear, were I to pick

you up as if you should live. No,

tonight’s moon’s a more intimate friend

and the clouds, the sky and what

you so calmly await as your end.

And you will sink down: your last

perfect movement – leaving no trace,

lie outstretched a shapeless form

in this fortuitous place.