A poem by Ivan Malinowski from 'Galgenfrist' (short respite)

Still Life

The general leans his cheek against the general’s wife’s

a caress begun in 1908

stares furiously at the dusty palms and spider’s web’s portières

a drop stands motionless in the wind while the house rises measuredly skywards

and black snails invade the garden room

with large white astonished eye they hesitate at first on the threshold

then transform themselves into tears

that roll across the floor in gleaming trails

the night is an ear that yawns itself out of joint

a gurgling in hidden pipes

the one-eyed owl sighs deeply from its perch on the sideboard

under the chaiselongue the moon

catches a ball of combed-off hair a greying fledgling

a matchless kelim (Pirot 1840) arches its back and squeaks like a rat

while the mosquitoes whisper hoarsely about Walt Whitman’s private life

now the ache has found its tooth and the bullet its stiffened chest

the general his life’s his death’s proud Atlantis

it is accomplished

the Cossack Oedipus on his stallion on the plain on the wall

has found his grave the limitation (the fine balance)

only the table linen is still waiting for its rightful apparation

only time its scissors only the eye its gleam only the stones are a strong redeemer

oblivion has forgotten these images and thunder always drifts over

the tongue of daybreak steals off a different way

the garden’s marble doves have perched on the retina

the wrought-iron spears deep in this flesh

Meissen will always be Meissen and the soul immortal

(how long immortality

how long this blind bitter open lens this tower that falls down

so great a loneliness how long)

A poem from 'Palimpsest' by the Danish writer Klaus Høeck

amen

all those that i have

loved or almost all of them

have disappeared now

through a hole in the

poem gone overnight

in a maelstrom of

words and ashes i

haven’t any idea what’s

become of them but

i believe in the

dead and am therefore what’s known

as insane – amen

'At the edge of the abyss' - one of David Koker's included poems

Ditty of the bitter end. Rondel

A dismal fate we’ve been accorded

sheer boredom to the bitter end

when the last few of us as sordid

smoke-pall from the stack ascend

So too my verse is disappearing

before that happens though I’ve penned

who knows if it will reach your hearing

this ditty of the bitter end

The smoke ends up by dissipating

and I have no more strength to spend

Better to straightway face cremating

as smoke-pall from a stack ascend

than years of boredom and of waiting

with even so that bitter end.

'Sous le pont Mirabeau' in English

 

The Mirabeau bridge

Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine
       And all our loves
     Why does it make so plain
That any joy must always follow pain
     Let the night come the hour sound clear
     The days all pass I’m still here

Our hands intertwined let’s stay face to face
       While far below
     The bridge of our arms strays
The languid wave of each endless gaze

     Let the night come the hour sound clear
     The days all pass I’m still here

Our love drifts away like these waters flow
       Love drifts away
     And our lives are so slow
With Hope more violent than we could know
     Let the night come the hour sound clear
     The days all pass I’m still here.

The days and weeks pass in a ceaseless train
       But no past time
     Or past love comes again
Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine
     Let the night come the hour sound clear
     The days all pass I’m still here.

A famous Ingemann 'Evening Song' poem, set to music by Weyse

stay with us when day’s fast waning

Stay with us when day’s fast waning,

You dearest Father and Lord!

Stay with us, when dark long-straining

Floods through night-sluice’s door!

O’er hill and dale spread out neatly

A hem of your star-strewn gown!

Then by you our eyes close sweetly

When we have laid us down.

Stay with us, and we’ll be dreaming

Of peace angel-children know;

Your spirit from heaven streaming

Will shower on us below.

The Lord of Life’s realm would dearly

His youngest ones all embrace;

On angel-ladder propped sheerly

Mount children’s souls apace.

Stay with us when day’s fast waning,

You dearest Father and Lord;

And Paradise-light long-straining

Floods through night-sluice’s door!

A poem by the Norwegian writer Thor Sørheim

THE SOAPSTONE QUARRY

After a thousand-year sleep willow-scrub

and bushes parted, and I was staring straight at

traces of hammer and chisel, furrows in the rock,

where our forefathers had hewn out

items for cooking vessels and stone for buildings

that would be graced with ornaments. There where the path

meets the sheer rockface under Piggåsen

a Viking society once climbed up ladders

and hung on ropes over the steep slope to extract

the new age from the soft rock. At the foot

of the soapstone quarry rose their daybreak dreams

of sales and exports for every pot

that was hewn out base first, history

was at stake and maybe the pots were

thread on sticks by their handles and carried

between two sleek shoulders over the moraine ridge

down to the boats in Glomma. When a thousand years later

I try to conjure up a picture, leaning against the quarried surface,

of the man tilting free the mouth-edge of the pot

from the mountain, I discover that the projection I am stroking

is an item that was never taken out, and the hollows

with water and the soapy crust that hardens gives me

no other answer than that one day our era too

will, with all our dreams and exploits, end up in some

far corner of the universe, like every creation myth,

beautiful, fully interpreted and unfinished.

A poem by Craig Raine in Danish translation

I lighuset

Som bløde oste buler de ud

på marmorpladerne,

hjælpeløse, ventende på at blive vasket.

Bomuld hænger fast i totter

på ligpasserens tang,

dens knirkende formål fuldendt . . .

Han kalder kvinden for ‘mutter’,

en kugleramme af transpiration

på panden, til trods for kulden.

Og hun er den sædvanlige kvinde –

to brystvorter af terrakotta

som lapper fra en cykelæske,

rådvilde knæ, fint

sammenkrøllet hud omkring øjnene,

og hendes mave som et vandmærke

holdt op mod lyset.

Særlige kendetegn: ingen.

Øjenfarve: lukket.

Et eller andet sted, i en kuvert

i en skuffe, hendes briller . . .

Et andet sted, ikke her, ved nogen

at hendes hår er skilt forkert

og bekymrer sig om disse spindelvæv

i kroppens kroge.

A poem by Lars Forssell

Whatever you may say

Whatever you may say

about faithlessness and deceit

there stands an oak at the world’s centre

faithful

with roots deep down into the earth mantle

deep down in the Interior

And a motionless owl

blinks in the tree

on the very thickest branch

Alertly, attentively it looks at us

with its round yellow eyes

And beneath the tree sits a god

that has cut himself a reed

and carved holes for the fingers

and when he blows on it out fly

arrows of sound

Not of the kind that kill

outside the ear and calmness

There is a sense of security

It feels good

and if you lean back against the trunk

under the owl’s gaze

you can feel a trust

and assurance in everything

in spite of everything

you have experienced or read

about Doomsday and Destruction

It is as if the tree stood in your heart

In its crown there is a gentle murmuring

and the flute sounds

and the owl’s eye is yellow like a sun.

Another amazing Dèr Mouw to start the year off

’k Sta naar ’t schitt’rend oranje in ’t west te kijken:

als fijne, zwarte tralies staan de abelen;

de blaadjes schijnen met het licht te spelen,

om ’t op te vangen, als ’t er door komt strijken.

’k Zie om: het amethyst in ’t oost verdelen

in trossen blauwe-regen diepgroene eiken;

aan de ogen, vol topazenglorie, lijken

de abelen trilgras van paarse juwelen.

Op Brahman, wereldgrond, schijnen de dingen

à jour gewerkte scherts: door de openingen

golft onbelemmerd stralende eeuwigheid.

Het denken, moe van God, keert van Zijn luister

zich gretig-aards vaak af naar kleurig duister

en weldadig koele verganklijkheid.

At West’s now glitt’ring orange I stand gazing:

where poplars rise like fine bars, black and slight;

it seems the smallish leaves play with the light,

to intercept it in its passing grazing.

I turn: in the East the deep-green oak trees sliver

its amethyst to blue-rain-clustered strands;

to topaz-splendoured eyes, the poplars stand

like mauve-jewel quaking grass that’s all a-quiver.

Against the world’s ground, Brahman, earthly things

seem jesting drawn-work, through whose openings

dazzling eternity unhampered wells.

Yet, tired of God, thought often turns away

from radiance to the dark where colours play

and where cool, salutory transience dwells.

A poem by the Flemish poet Hugo Claus

DE VOERSTREEK*

It is recounted that when the noblemen of Flanders

were received at the court of the French king

they were shabbily asked to sit on wooden benches.

At which the gentlemen divested themselves of their coats,

folded and rolled up

those coats of velvet, brocade and ermine

and then sat on them as on cushions

which they left lying there after the assembly.

- ‘Oh, hello there, seigneurs flamands,

you’re forgetting your beautiful expensive coats!’

The Flemings shrugged their shoulders

and said: ‘French gentlemen, regard this

as a small present for your king.’

That was in the thirteenth century, people say.

Today you can hear at night

in the palaces of Brussels our seigneurs flamands

busy with their language conflict,

baiting, snarling, geo-politically opportune.

They grind their teeth

for they’re thinking of their voters

Ye, my lords, see what ye do

and so leave that drab jacket of de Voerstreek

lined with rancune,

sewn in impotence

woven in interests,

behind on the Walloon wooden bench.

A small present.

*De Voerstreek/Les Fourons [Fr.] is an area which is a symbol of the conflict between the Flemish and Walloon peoples.

Karin Boye - a poem that doesn't ever let go of you

I would meet…

Upright, armed, encased in armour

I strode out –

though with chain-mail forged of shame and

fearful doubt.

I would cast aside my weapons,

sword and shield.

All the outer hostile husk that

kept me chilled.

I have seen the dry seeds at long

last unfurl.

I have seen the light-green leaves as

they uncurl.

Tender life has force with which no

iron contends,

surfacing from earth’s deep heart with

no defence.

Where I froze in winter wastes dawn

springs afresh.

I would meet life’s mighty forces

weaponless.