Bob Hanf

This is a section from a long poem 'Christiaan Philippus' mijmeringen over de nachtzijde van het leven' written by Robert (Bob) Hanf, (1894-1944).

 

Amsterdam, home-town unmatched,
by the ruling proles, no less,
sponged on, plundered to excess!

Here I’d still have gone on living

though I’d known this in advance.

Here’s my home. For joy and grieving,

fame, and scorn, and dreamt-of chance

(fame and scorn too but mind’s weaving),

all of this you caused to dance

in canals’ reflecting shine,

in the wide, deserted waters

at the quayside. The old houses

in your nights loomed at close quarters

yet seemed strange; and the moon, in-

quisitive, peeked through slim boughs that

softly swayed on trunks, which smoothing

rain now lent a bronze-green tone;

these, like water-gods aligned,

from their element now risen,

stand, in wavering light imprisoned

like dead people turned to stone.