Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: 'Idyll 8'

8

I would have loved what I write now when I was young.

Some dolphins brought ashore a face with salty tongue

which spoke in rhyming verse just like an age-old man.

And sadly, I’ve now said about this all I can.
I must conform to the authorities that be.

Some shitty kids chalk stuff outside my door, I see

that it’s old German verses that they write. ‘Ehei!’

it says in chalk there. ‘Tick tock, who are you then?’ I

am living payment in advance on my own grave.

‘You’re out!’ was then the chalked-back answer that they gave.

In all the narrowness of my one-person life        

I longed for king-size beds and always wished to strive           

to some distinguished spot where I my ears could lay

on pulpits of the holy that-which-one-shall-say.

With words on crystal words I would be dearly clinking

like pirates with their false teeth made of silver blinking

in alleyways at night. For wisdom was on hand

like pinchbeck gold, like foam that frothed and fanned

out over seething goblets of pontification.

Then gloatingly I’d quote old verse as my libation.

And I read Rilke, Hölderlin and all those guys –

Duino Elegies and ‘Patmos’ – closed my eyes

and dreamed of some affliction I could get in print.

And bust my arse off writing verse in one long stint.

I often dream I meet myself when young of limb,

a little bit naive but not completely dim,

and that I like some sort of veteran this man

must tell of all that lies ahead, the lengthy span

to where I right now find myself. That young man would

not recognise me. His so modest frame which could

and did turn into presence; the reverse now true:

he has a self-assurance which can quite outdo

the doubts that moss-like between paving stones start growing

like chalky nails on feet now old. For we are rowing

still further north and winter soon will come with snow.

We’re pummelled in the stomach by emotions, though

it’s us who wished to strike. The belly starts to slide.

From purplish fists it swells. And words like butter glide

and now melt softly down the stubbled chin, as if

to query what when stated first seemed strong and stiff.

They leak like dribble down our bib for fame and glory.

And my young I looks down on me at my soft story.

I understand what he is feeling all too well.

In his tempestuous blood my blood he’d like to quell.

Who I am now there’s nothing he would rather be:

a man whose blood-hot pen’s his only legacy.

I nod. ‘You whine,’ he says. And I nod once again.

I know what he’s about to say. ‘One book, and then

posterity’s assured. I have no child as kith.’

Spot on. I sigh. You seek someone to travel with.

‘My fame will on the hour, steam-driven, raise its knee.’

My young I in advance would like to outstrip me.

He asks me what I’m writing. The angel of tints

unfolds herself gladly in ancient scents and hints.

The angel of what’s sour licks ticking every hour

so I the wounding strangeness lastingly empower.

Their beauty is so fluid that a man can drown.

It sounds quite like a children’s song somehow, cut down

to something scary. Why is it you’ve let us write?

I ask him that. ‘To tell all those in power aright

the fact we really do exist.’ So we exist?

He says: ‘I’ve set my mind on it and I’ll persist.

I’ll write in chalk the German words outside your door.’

‘Ehei?’ ‘The egg’. ‘Tick tock?’ ‘The birdcall as of yore.’

Dead crows are snowing over every land and shire.

And weathered peoples all look forward to a fire.

One day you will be me. You find the thought OK?

‘There is, I really like to think, some other way.