Hans Andreus: 'Het lied van de zwarte kater'

 

Het lied van de zwarte kater

 

Ik ben de kat Hieronymus

of eigenlijk de kater.

Ik ben geen zachte lieve poes,

geen dot, geen schat, geen lieve snoes,

ik ben een mensenhater.

 

Mauw, maaauw, máááuw!

 

Wanneer je me soms aaien wil,

bedenk je dan maar tijdig.

Mijn snorren staan steeds recht omhoog

en toegeknepen is mijn oog,

want ik ben altijd nijdig.

 

Mauw, maaauw, máááuw!

 

Helaas, de tijd waarin ik leef,

dat is voor mij een slechte.

Wanneer ik vroeger had bestaan,

was ik in dienst bij 'n heks gegaan,

een onvervalste echte!

 

Mauw, maaauw, máááuw!

 

 

The song of the black tom cat

 

I am the cat Hieronymus

a tom cat, more precisely.

I am no gentle, loving puss

no peach, no cutie, no sweet toots –

a misanthrope describes me.

 

Miaow, miaów, miaóów!

 

Before you think of stroking me,

reflect: is this propitious?

My whiskers always sharply rise

and merest slits are both my eyes,

for my fixed mood is vicious.

 

Miaow, miaów, miaóów!

 

Alas, the age in which I live

is hardly to my fancy.

Had I lived long ago, my niche

would have been working for a witch

well-versed in necromancy!

 

Miaow, miaów, miaóów!

 

Marc Tritsmans: 'In select company' (IV, XI)

 

IV

 

Along through the scrub, stopping from time to time,

nose to the wind, ears turning in all directions

then out of the wood even so, happily grazing at 

the edge of this light-green meadow with its grass

 

softly waving in the summer breeze. In the distance 

we sense now and then a human figure but intuitively 

we gauge together if there is any danger involved.

All sounds – the wind in the trees, a snapping

 

branch, a dull droning on the ground or in the air – 

need to be filtered and assessed. But mostly 

we just go on peacefully grazing. For the necessary

juicy and fresh grass, a deer just has to take 

 

a certain amount of risk. And when we then sometimes

flee together: that split second, that collective rush of

simultaneously igniting adrenaline that is faultlessly

transformed into pure velocity and control.

 

XI

 

Now I am finally allowed to stand still here 

in this wood, time has completely slipped away. 

It is also meaningless: I have nowhere I have to

go. No more cause for haste and no need at all

 

to make plans. The rain, sun and wind can do

with me whatever they will. I dance to their

tune. With my finest, most sensitive twigs

I sound out my surroundings for I always

 

have to keep an eye on who is standing closest

to. We have known each other all our lives and 

know what both of us need: sunlight and water.

Anyone taking up too much space is reprimanded

 

with shade and coarse abrasive branches. The small

grut that is growing  under our roof of leaves we

leave in peace. But higher than a metre we do not

tolerate them. They will have to wait until we fall.

 

Marc Tritsmans: 'In select company I, III, VI'

 

I

 

Explain to me here why I, while 

writing, of my own free will should 

wish to limit myself to myself. Is there

not in my head surely enough space

 

for resounding polyphony? From now 

on, let all those predictable melodies

simply make way for a chorus 

of disparate dissonances.

 

So I leave this house on a morning

like any other and without taking

a single backward glance let myself be

embraced by the world. Without a compass

 

and while the stars too have kept hidden 

behind clouds for quite some time.

I have no goal in mind. And no,

I am no longer in search of meaning.

III

 

In the branches, which until just now

I could only make out vaguely from 

on the ground, I now gradually discern, 

in the track of this highly nimble squirrel 

 

a formerly inextricable and secret

network of tracks and paths that

is suddenly unfolded into this three-

dimensional world. Possibilities

 

emerge everywhere and how unexpectedly

playfully things take place here: repeatedly

new escape routes manifest themselves and

challenging leaps that put our resilience

 

and suppleness to the test. And it is

my bushy tail and those sharp nails

that make the difference. Very soon height

is not an issue any more, falling no option.

VI

 

While cars drive past us we are sitting here

next to each other in the tall grass. Are we

trying to show each other what we still dare?

For our spoon-shaped ears really do stick up

 

challengingly a good bit above everything.

Or are the two of us trying to defend

with the courage of despair this last

bastion, this bridgehead the access

 

to which is increasingly being pinched off

by the unceasing advance of houses and 

roads. Until it will degenerate into an 

inhabitable island: this once blessed 

 

terrain of playing and living, where we 

bore our offspring as hares happen to prefer

most of all: in the snow. Which however 

we have not been seeing for ages now.

 

 (These poems are from a collection of 11 poems)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emil Hagström: 'Magdalena'

 

Magdalena

 

Du tvättade hans skjorta

och slet med svett och sot,

Magdalena, då du lämnat

dina gränder.

Säg var det för din ånger

och för dina synders bot,

eller hade du blott verksamma

små händer.

 

Han var väl ingen skönhet

och du var ingen vår.

Edra öden var ej svåra

att förena.

Och aldrig lyste sminket mer

från munnens röda sår

– men du stoppade hans strumpor,

Magdalena.

 

 

Magdalena

 

You washed his shirt each Monday

and toiled with sweat and soot,

Magdalena, when you’d parted

from your alley.

Tell me, was if from remorse or

maybe penance for your sins,

or were your hands the type that could

not dally?

 

He hardly classed as handsome

and spring chicken you were not.

So to share your lives could hardly

have been plainer.

And never did your make-up gleam

from mouth’s wound any more –

but his socks you went on darning,

Magdalena.

Emil Hagström: 'Vintern var nära dig'

 

VINTERN VAR NÄRA DIG

 

Mjuka och raraste,

vet att jag baraste

ville betyga

hur vacker du var.

Ord kan ej säga det,

guld kan ej väga det,

daggens och källans

friskhet du bar.

 

Vintern var nära dig,

kramade, kära, dig,

strödde omkring oss

en isande vind.

Sorgen kom frasande,

döden kom hasande,

strök med sin benhand

över din kind.

 

Under kan hända än,

klarheten vända än

åter till lågan

i flämtande drag.

Bittert den klaraste

dagen jag, raraste,

glömmer för vaggornas

klämtan i dag.

 

 

WINTER WAS CLOSE TO YOU  

 

Gentlest, beloved one,

know that I covet none

else than declare your

sheer beauty of yore.

Words cannot say all this,

gold cannot weigh all this

freshness of dew and

source that you bore.

 

Winter was close to you,

squeezing, exposing you,

scattering round us

a wind cold as ice.

Sorrow came rustlingly,

death though came shufflingly,

then with his bone-hand

your cheek stroked thrice.

 

Wonders can still take place,

clearness its steps retrace

back to the blaze

while gasping for breath.

Bitterly, love, I yet

the clearest day forget

for cradles’ chiming lay

tolling day’s death.

 

 

 

Maurits Mok: 'Dagindeling' (PS 76)

 

DAGINDELING

 

Een sober, stil ontbijt om kwart voor negen,

dan het bedachtzaam proeven van lectuur;

de geur der koffie tegen elf uur

maakt soms het hart van overvloed verlegen.

 

Des middags: dromen dat men is genezen

van zijn verleden, daarna het getuur

op lettertekens die geen vriend of buur,

laat staan een vreemdeling zal willen lezen.

 

De avond is een vrouw met zachte borst,

men leunt aan haar en hoort de wereld zwijgen,

de tijd is oud, er is veel bloed vermorst.

 

De hand die op de dingen vat wil krijgen,

vindt enkel woorden en voegt ze tezaam

tot het symbool van een verloren naam.

 

 

DAILY SCHEDULE

 

Eight forty-five, a breakfast quiet and simple

and then some reading, sampled with great care;

the smell of coffee when eleven’s there,

such pleasures make the heart feel almost sinful.

 

The afternoons: dreaming one’s cured of heeding

one’s past, and then the peering without end

at characters that no neighbour and no friend,

no stranger even would consider reading.

 

The evening is a woman’s downy breast

one leans against and hears the world fall silent,

time has grown old and blood spilt to excess.

 

The hand which things would grasp and make compliant

finds only words and must combine the same

to form the symbol of a long-lost name.

 

 

Translated in collaboration with Albert Hagenaars

Poetic Synapses 76

 

Gustaf Fröding: 'Tiga och tala'

 

Tiga och tala

 

Varföre skulle du mässa

också din själs litania,

också din sorgs miserere?

Hånande ögon bevaka

den, som har blottat sin sorg.

Stoltare vore att pressa

smärtan i barmen där nere

hårt och beslutsamt tillbaka,

än att den förs i det fria

naken kring gator och torg!

 

Klangen, som världen behöver,

är ej ett vekt miserere –

tonen, som läte sig vässa

uddvass till pil eller klinga

finnes väl ock i din barm.

Smärtan, som bundits där nere,

skall, när en tid har gått över,

väpnad från fot och till hjässa

upp ur sitt fängelse springa

djärv som befriande harm!

 

Sanning till hälften du säger,

harm vill till vapen jag smida,

dock skall ej smärtan, ej sorgen

tigas ihjäl, ty att tiga

är hos en sångare brott.

Stoltare är det att stiga

mitt ibland vimlet på torgen

fram med all sorg, som jag äger,

tolk för de tyste, som lida,

tiga och lida blott.

 

Ord och Bild 1893

 

 

Silence and speech

 

Why even think of intoning

also your soul’s litania,

your sorrow’s whole miserere?

Mocking eyes are on the lookout

for one who sorrow just bares.

It would be wiser to stifle

all pain one feels in one’s bosom

firmly and quite without mercy

than to display it in public,

naked in streets and on squares!

 

What the world needs does not sound like

some puny, long miserere –

rather the tone made for honing,

sharpened to sword-blade or arrow,

which in your breast too resides.

Pain that lies captive within you

will, when a fair time’s expired,

clad top to toe in strong armour

leap from its long-suffered prison,

bold in its righteous hurt pride!

 

It’s but a half-truth you’re speaking,

hurt pride I’ll forge as a weapon,

but neither sorrow nor pain shall 

be silenced, since for a singer

to remain silent’s a crime.

Wiser would be to step forward

from crowds on squares in great numbers

with all my own sharpened sorrow,

speak for the silent who suffer

and, without voice, can just pine.

 

Ord och Bild 1893

 

Emil Hagström: 'Vad kan jag'

 

Vad kan jag

 

Vad kan jag väl tänka

att ge dig, min vän?

Din själ är så hemlös,

din längtan så stor.

 

Vad kan jag väl tänka

att ge dig, min vän?

Jag är lika fattig

och hemlös som du.

 

 

What possibly

 

What possibly can I

e’er give you, my friend?

Your soul is so homeless

your longing so great.

 

What possibly can I

e’er give you my friend?

For I’m just as poor and

As homeless as you.