A poem by the Swedish poet Sophia Elisabet Brenner (1659-1730)

The unfeigned tears

of the female sex

Shed over

The late NOBLE and WELL-BORN/

Mistress MARJA Hiärne/

Who in her very prime/was wrested from this life

by temporal Death/ on 11 December Anno 1690.

                                 Death who had made up his mind

                                 For his silent haunt to capture/

                                 What his endless night unkind

                                 Might provide with some small rapture/

                                 Sought with care where for the telling

                                 Some fair beauty might be dwelling.

                                

                                 Long he stood with hope forlorn/

                                 That he ever would discover

                                 Human flesh so pure in form/

                                 It could fully triumph over/

                                 All that’s dreary dark down-hearted

                                 In the realm of those departed.

                                

                                 But he finally could see/

                                 For his plot success awaiting/

                                 When austere Fate’s sisters three

                                 Helped him now in extricating/

                                 What for earthly joy and pleasure

                                 Heaven/had composed at leisure.

                                

                                 Even nature/ grieves you too/

                                 Mourns her beauty’s template’s passing/

                                 As your sex does which through you/

                                 Prized its beauty all-surpassing.                

                                 Misses/ mourns laments unceasing/

                                 What but once could be so pleasing.

                                 Some / your outward loveliness

                                 Feel is an unrivalled treasure/

                                 Others / who your conduct stress

                                 Testify in what full measure/

                                 Inner qualities exceeded

                                 And your fairness yet preceded.

                                 Were you fashioned so divine

                                 Fair one / with the sole intention?

                                 Grave / earth dust you should outshine/

                                 Make with paradise contention

                                 Will death gain then from your beauty?

                                 And acquire so great a booty.

                                 Thus the lesser sex allow

                                 Unrestrained to gain a hearing/

                                 One at last yet did avow

                                 They should end such mindless fearing/

                                 And with reasons most well-suited/

                                 Their opinion now refuted

                                 She said Sisters it’s well-known

                                 But the smallest part earth’s gaining/

                                 Once that heaven’s had its own/

                                 This account ne’er be disdaining/

                                 Know that Death can but be claiming

                                 Dust and what is not worth naming.

Another poem from 'Ontsnappingen'

POST

Earlier Rina slept on the street

never washed herself. But now she has new knees

with which she can easily walk round the corner

and back, so she’s able to post

her letters herself

and if she get post, herself pick it up from the mat.

If you sleep on the street you never get post, which is why

she lives in a house once again. Because of the letters

that begin with ‘Dearest’, the only ones that count

and that you must take away yourself, pick up, slit

open with clean shaky fingers,

with your back against the door,

‘Dearest’,

Poem from Eva Gerlach's new collection 'Ontsnappingen'

no thing

  

In the cellar I held my little sister on my lap. She’d just

turned four. I placed my hands over her ears

so she would not hear the loud banging

but she felt it and she saw the others crying,

she screamed her head off. Then I repeatedly took

my hands from her ears to hit her

so she should have something to cry about

someone to be angry with. When we emerged

and everything was ruins with arms and legs everywhere

she didn’t cry and said nothing and hid herself beneath the pot

that an apple tree grew in there she sat on her own

a day and a night then the men came then it got

so that things no longer knew us. No thing.

That’s how it went, that’s why we ran off. She’d just

turned four, my little sister, when it began, whenever.

Nine collections of Klaus Høeck in English translation!

The Danish Royal Library website with nine complete collections of poetry by Klaus Høeck is now up and running again here:

Ah yes, recognise this? A Høeck poem from 'Legacy'

       WHAT the bleeding hell

is the name of the man? – can

       tarello or is

       it parabellum

musarelli maybe? – or

       scarletto? what the

       hell is it with all

those italian instruct

       ors? – scorsese i

       exclaim to a be

wildered man in the co-op

       ah – that’s what IT was