Saturday 22 February 2020

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: Sonnet 'De engel en het vuur'

THE ANGEL AND THE FIRE

for Erik Odijk

A disremoving angel, helplessly
himself, like love that’s unafraid to be
afraid, would burn us for a century
at every blink, for beauty’s crushingly

so frail, though us it’s able to define 
as something nothing. Our life is a hell
of utter shallowness, where if the bell
should ring, emotion’s shown as at a sign.

The multi-tasking rush-hour beast with slick
conclusions, thumbs all swollen douses fire.
All that’s of value, he finds slow and eerie.

The fire that flares in semi-colons, quick
to bridge abysses, is a pacifier.
The angel is no answer but a query.

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