Nijhoff sonnet - 'Impasse' - in English translation

 

impasse

We stood there in the kitchen, she and I.

I’d had the thought for days: ask her today.

Ashamed to ask, I waited for the stray

unguarded moment, though, to make my try.

But seeing her now busy at her tasks

and realising that I had the chance

she’d answer without thinking in advance,

What would you have me write about? I asked.

Just then the whistling kettle starts to blow,

concealing her in rushing steam that soars

through slanting window up to purple rain.

And she replies, while drop by drop she pours

the boiling water on the coffee grains

and the aroma spreads out: I don’t know.

Poem by Jan Glas, who writes in Gronings (Low Saxon) + his own Dutch translation + English

Blonde knecht

Wat ik ook schrief

ik blief n boer.

Boer mit ain knecht.

Blonde knecht ien

blaauw overaal.

Zun schient, knecht

en boer rusten op

t laand en zomor

streelt knecht

boer zien waang

en zegt:

‘wat n laive boer.’

En boer wordt rös om

kop, kikt over t laand

en schut ien t ìn

‘deur mor weer’, zegt

boer ‘wie monnen nog

ale gedichten melken.'

De blonde knecht

Wat ik ook schrijf

ik blijf een boer.

Een boer met één knecht.

Een blonde knecht

in een blauwe overall.

De zon schijnt,

knecht en boer

rusten op het land

en zomaar streelt de knecht

de wang van de boer

en zegt:

‘Wat een lieve boer’.

En de boer bloost,

kijkt over het land

en schiet overeind.

‘Verder maar weer, ‘

zegt de boer, ‘we moeten nog

alle gedichten melken’.

The fair-haired farm-hand

No matter what I write

I will stay a farmer.

A farmer with one farm-hand.

A fair-haired farm-hand

in blue overalls.

The sun shines,

farm-hand and farmer

are resting on the land

and just like that the farm-hand

strokes the farmer’s cheek

and says:

‘What a dear sweet farmer.’

And the farmer blushes,

looks over the land

and gets to his feet.

‘Back to work then,’

he says, ‘we’ve still

all the poems to milk.’


For more information on Gronings, go to here

Poem by the Dutch writer Peter van Lier

CONCERNING A FUNCTION IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Dear gossamer-winged ones,

The mayflies or dayflies (order Ephemeroptera) form a                 

most lamentable group within your ranks. Their brief

maturity in particular really touches me, assuming they have not

before their time become the prey of fish, songbird, spider or

dragonfly. Eating is not even in the picture, with mouth parts so

rudimentary and non-functioning that  I, by way of compensation,

would gladly place my small family car (Fiat, type Panda, nice and light), with

myself as chauffeur, possessing good straight shoulders,

at their disposal, so that the most magnificent views lie in the

offing for the well-developed male’s eyes and a

nuptial flight a hundred kilometres farther on, with females unthought-of.

    Yours faithfully.

Jacques Bloem, the Dutch poet, in typical mood

THE STOIC

The window open, I grant autumn passage -
The inexpressible, that as of old
And still the same. My one desire, all told,
Is this: to always love its message.

This life held little to be won in store.
It does not matter now. Defence is vain
If one considers all the world-old pain
Of countless billions who have gone before.

Youth is all restlessness and a bemused
Great yearning to have loved ones time can't best –
And loneliness a source of loss, a curse.

All that is past, and life is almost used.
In solitude the heart can now find rest.
And then: one’s life could well have been much worse.

Poem from Komrij's 'Spaans benauwd' (2005)

 CIVILISATION

Within my brain no shadow of
Some heavy guilt since birth –
I did not know the fado of
The last man here on earth –

When young I saw the world bright-eyed –
And there were children just like me –
I swam along on every tide
Contented as can be.

In dreams I grimly turned the screw,
Remorse, no, not a shred –
Now I am human, good and true
And live in mortal dread –

Famous poem by the Swedish poet Karin Boye

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.

Hölderlin's ' Hälfte des Lebens' in English

HALF OF LIFE

With yellow pears full-laden
And covered with wild roses
Land slips into lake,
You swans alluring,
And drunken with kisses
Dipping your heads
In sacred-sobering water.

Ah me, where will I, when
The winter’s come, find flowers, and where
The sunshine and
The shadows of the earth?
The walls all stand
Speechless and cold, the wind-caught
Weather-vanes clatter.

For a workshop on this poem, based on Gerrit Komrij's 'De Muze in het Kolenhok', go to here.

Another Komrij poem

A POEM

Line one is simply there to get things going.

Line two is line eleven when up-ended.

Line three’s to gain a bit more ground for hoeing.

Line four rhymes with line two - that’s what’s intended.

Line five gives you a sudden spiteful zap.

Line six’s a dozen that’s been split in two.

Line seven’s such an awful load of crap,

Line eight’s dead serious - vice versa, too.

Line nine repeats a now familiar ditty.

Line ten could turn out quite a disillusion

Line eleven’s eleventh - more’s the pity.

Line twelve’s a nothing’s ultimate conclusion.

Poem sequence by the Dutch poet Gerrit Komrij

 

HARLEQUIN’S EGG

1

Verse can be pulled on like a pair of pants:

Tight, loose, to size, to suit your mood the while.

There are for each imaginable stance

Yet other pants. (Priest’s garb is unistyle.)

When reckless - jazzy coloureds are your pick.

A thin stripe - when capricious - lends you flair.

Though white for whims or daring’s also slick.

A poet cuts a figure everywhere.

He can, if death his poet’s heart sore squeezes,

Compose a solemn hymn on Edam cheeses,

Though also wildly weep in his distress.

Or he forgets the pain. The cheese, no less.

Makes fun of it, as through the nets he eases.

He shrugs it off, is free once more from stress.

2

Let’s say you want to write a poem about an

Egg, you would let that egg, with quite astounding,

Sounding magic, float through woods to outer

Reaches, where you’d let it - like a confounding,

Egg-shaped pumping-engine - dip and soar!

You’d alternate egg-colour in confusion -

Now blue, now yellow. Or: on its shell-floor

You’d paint great marguerites in wild profusion.

The egg would wax and wane, the poet can

Do all - for him it’s just a piece of cake

To make uneggy what as egg began.

A sickly man, a fan-shaped host of spikes.

And then a cookie, or a lady’s bike.

No real verse, though - unless the egg should break.

3

It breaks. The yolk’s no joke - what does the poet?

He festoons frills and garlands round his person,

Like some decked maypole. Lovelier still - to show it

He sarabandes and does his samba version.

He plays for monarch and he plays for beggar.

The flowers sway with him, birds explode in flashes

Above his head, the reddish sun glows redder.

He finds a way to flaunt a feast of fashions.

At night he plays for bailiff and for debtor.

He plays for this and that - the ranting male.

His eyes turn red as cherry-stones - uncanny -

And he’s now warbling like a nightingale.

He thinks of everything, the yolk excepted,

And, tired from dancing, parks on it his fanny.

4

What do you do, with egg-stain on your bum?

You feel so sticky, look a little glum.

And mum’s the word. For if no stain had come

To grace your arse, it would have been such fun.

Why did the egg not vanish in a trice?

Why such a cinch to make a lady’s bike?

Wasn’t it too a fan-shaped host of spikes?

And now there’s this adornment on your bike.

You still feel, in your pants with yellow pickings,

Now only fancied by some rangy chickens,

Just what a silly idiot you have been.

You’d best give up your antics - what a curse!

You’d better take your pants off, Harlequin,

And in the buff in future write your verse.

Two poems from the very latest collection 'Live' by the Danish writer Klaus Høeck

                  rose

                  up in the curve just

after hindevadgaard and

                  the property where

                  the producer of

the blue pesticide to kill

                  snails lives out on

                  rugaard landevej

a hells angels rocker killed

                  himself by driving

                  his motorcycle

straight into a combine har

                  vester at high speed

                  for several days

the place where it happened was

                  marked by a bouquet

                  of flowers which con

sisted of white carnations

                  of yellow lilies

                  and dark red roses

almost as in a sonnet

                  by petrarch and to

                  this very day there

are fragments of a lamp that

                  somebody lit there

                  if the motorcyc

list’s own wish were to have been

                  fulfilled there is now

                  one angel less here

on this earth and one angel

                  more in hell unless

                  it happens to be

so that these two names now and then

                  on religious hol

                  idays that aren’t fixed

actually refer to

                  one and the same place

 

                  place

                  independence day

we ought to find ourselves out

                  at rebild bakker

                  but make do with tom

merup stationsby which in

                  its own way is just

                  as beautiful and

compensates with a sending

                  mast and an arms dump

                  where it’s possible

to buy sporting rifles pump

                  guns and air pistols

                  michaelion:

yet another michael fall

                  en while fighting sat

                  an who this time is

dressed up in a soft hat and

                  white tennis socks this

                  time disguised with a

kind of face mask just like the

                  one worn by michael

                  jackson this time o

ver there somewhere or other

                  in america

                  independence day

in tommerup stationsby

                  where i procure am

                  munition for my

self what i mean is: rather

                  end up in a hell

                  of the brave than in

the paradise of the toad

                  ies and the redeemed

                  independence day

and the sunset flying with

                  all kinds of insects

Higgs boson poem by the Norwegian writer Torild Wardenær

Inheritance CCCXXXIX

While the Higgs boson gnaws

Now as before we are in a jumble of light and gases

half-covered by our dark shells.

We look around us, presumptuous, as if we had

faceted eyes, or were on the brink of a new era.

But the world is coarse-grained and unpolished and considers us with a

cyclopean gaze.

Meanwhile earth plates and seasons shift, the Silurian grass

is followed by clubmoss and corn spurrey, the fields

are ploughed and ploughed so grains and mustard can grow, but the light

as usual devours everything in its path and enters us heavily and wildly

while the Higgs boson, not unlike an elf’s tooth, gnaws at most of what it comes across.

This though is difficult to prove.

The Cambrian mist still lies thick, and accuracy is low.

Practically only the sun rates among the sharpshooters, and it takes on no apprentice

but burns itself up along with all its medals.

Poem by the Norwegian writer Georg Johannesen (1931-2005)

Ars poetica

The idiot may seem full of hope

but he only studies his bare hands

His eye’s gaze sees the bottom of Mimir’s well

A Japanese haiku is empty as the whole world

Greek epigrams are smoke signals behind low mountains

Recent poetry weather forecasts between two ice ages

The boy with a heart condition sang so beautifully

with his blue lips: The songs became visible

in golden drips from a leaky gutter

Another Barcarole by the Danish writer J.L. Heiberg

 

Barcarole

Wave so light! though blue your furrow,

Bright, transparent, clear in tone,

’Tis the sky’s tints that you borrow,

Since no colour is your own.

Not the sky, but its poor image

Rests in your profound embrace;

Longing’s end can’t be envisaged,

Like your lack, it grows apace.

Wave! where you run clearest all the

Sky is mirrored in full state;

Ah! your longing but recalls the

Thought of what fate separates.

Heart! now cease your loud complaining!

Nature’s lack is just the same;

Be content, though nought’s remaining

But an image and a name.

A poem by the Danish writer Klaus Rifbjerg

Skagen

I’m the one who’s painted

the pictures at the Skagen museum.

I said to myself

that is your life and then

I began to paint.

I think it all started with the lunch picture

I got so hungry

felt quite at home.

I painted Krøyer and Drachmann

Tuxen, Ancher – her and him

and all the others

right down to Tørsleff.

It was a colossal undertaking

but I was feeling fine

so that didn’t matter.

Drachmann helped me a bit

and Krøyer

we talked a lot

looked

and drank just a little.

We looked at Skagen

painted lots of pictures

brought out the light

but most perhaps a way of life

our own

the one I fell for.

I remember the hours

with Krøyer’s wife

beneath the elders at Drachmann’s,

the burgundy in those heavy glasses

and everything seen

in summer images

melancholy

as if it was all long over.

I remember the evenings at the Prong

the waters that met

and the trouble getting the colours

to toe the line

after all I was the one who was going

to paint everything

wanted to paint everything

before it was no longer there.

There was a scent of death

idyll and linen drawers with lavender

about my Skagen canvases,

but there was plenty of life

back then

there was that.

We got up from the table

after the long drawn-out lunch

and the voices had become more subdued.

We stood in the twilight

before going home our separate ways

but it was hard to take our leave.

Then Anna Ancher turned round

and said:

We’re going to sleep now.

She took her husband’s arm,

went with him through the gate

and slowly everyone followed suit.

The steps died away between

the houses

the host put out his lamp

it was too late to do any more painting.