My turn - and a happy new year to you!

There are over 200 foxhunts in Britain, each hunting 2 to 4 times a week. The main season is from November until late March, although some carry on until the start of May. The hunt itself will gather in late morning, although an 'earth stopper' will have been out at dawn to block up any known fox earths, drains and badger setts, so that foxes returning from a night's foraging will be exposed above ground. The huntsman will lead the hounds to a wood or covert where there is a known earth. The hounds are sent into the wood to flush out any foxes. As all underground escape routes are blocked, the fox is forced to run to escape the hounds. Riders positioned around the wood will 'holloa' to let the huntsman know the direction the fox has run.

If the fox manages to find refuge in an un-blocked earth, the hunt employ terriermen who will put their terriers down the earth to force the fox into the open to be re-hunted, or attack the fox underground while the men dig down through the soil. Once they have dug out the fox, the terriermen are supposed to shoot it, but many will simply give it a blow with a spade. It is not unheard of for the fox to be thrown alive to the waiting hounds.

run to earth

the fox of desire

shall be flushed out with famine

but what of its mate

Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht (1718-1763) - Sweden's first major female poet

Concerning a hyacinth

To – – –

You wondrous plant whose match in colour,

In sheen, allure I nowhere see,

In Flora’s realm I find no other

Whose beauty so enraptures me:

Your petals Nature is suffusing,

In art, in splendour sets alight;

A subtle balsam-scent diffusing,

You bring me pleasure and delight.

My tender care shall never fail you,

You get to breathe a milder air,

No sudden squall shall e’er assail you,

No heat and cold shall you impair.

A gentle breeze shall worries banish,

And infiltrate your every pore,

And when from warmth you greatly languish

A cooling tide shall you restore.

But when at last, all blooms displaying,

You grace my hut in full allure,

The cruel law of change obeying,

You fade and die and are no more.

You soon forget my pleasant duty,

And tire of all my watchful guard,

Conceal in meagre dust your beauty,

Are you ungrateful, then, and hard?

But shall I censure this poor flower,

Accuse a being frail as she,

Whose lot’s to alter by the hour,

She has to be what she must be.

She is as grass, she has to perish,

I bear no grudge because of this.

And cold grows too a heart I cherish

It has to be the way it is.


To see the original poem go to here

A poem from Klaus Høeck's latest collection 'Palimpsest'

ODE ON LISTENING TO MUSIC

what appeals to me

so much about haydn’s mus

ic is you get what

you hear – man bekommt

was man hört – the same applies

to poetry i

sincerely hope – you

get what you read for if the

words meant something else

than precisely what

is there on the page why not

write that something else?

Poems about writing poems - one by Victor Vroomkoning

Hens

The trickiest thing is keeping

them in the run. Agreed,

put them together between margins

of gauze and hope that this

will do. On their perch

as far as I’m concerned almost

interchangeable. The cock I’m sure of.

But before you can be sure they

are secure, the fox is on the prowl,

they lose their heads, fly up

in all directions. Words

in a poem that lies open.

One more from Klaus Høeck

der er intet så koldt og

beregnende som at skrive et digt

kærligheden sorgen og de

dybeste følelser alle må

de gennem sprogets vride

maskine grammatikkens kalkule

alle ordene alle må de

ned på papirets liglagen

there is nothing as cold and

calculating as writing a poem

love mourning and the

deepest emotions all of them

must pass through the wringer

of language the calculus of grammar

all the words all of them must be

committed to paper’s shroud

From 'The shores' - part of Klaus Høeck's collection 'Fairytale'

(...)

“some day you will miss me”

        my mother

        had said

and it was true she was right

        about that – but

        what she hadn’t

realised was that i had

        always missed her

even while she was alive and we

almost saw each other every week

what she hadn’t realised was

        that the greatest

        longing was the longing

for what we already possessed

        that all longings

        really

sprang from this one longing

        which was

        only slaked

in the moment of acquisition when

longing and longing became one

and that was life’s hardest task:

        that what you have

        and are had to be

reconquered over and over each day

        and life’s greatest

        paradox: that

what you were to conquer could only

        be given to you

        in the great moment

of acquisition when you had

precisely lost it again

and all other longings were only

        lengthenings of

        this one

longing – journeys out of the mind

        towards the distant goals

        on the horizon of

the fairytale where the clouds’ castles

        hung so red

        with gold in the

evening sun – so you could return home

again to what you were and are

and that was life’s greatest fairytale

        to journey

        to the world’s end

to gain the simple insight

        that what you

        searched for you

had already found that who you

        wanted to be

        you already were

that all the time you were yourself

who else should you otherwise have been? (...)

For the whole collection in translation, go to here

This blog is taking time out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn67gkLr1Rw

A winter poem in Afrikaans - by Eugène Marais (1871-1936)

The translation of this poem has been revised.
To see the revised version, go to here

Another way of looking at Kunst der Fuge - from 'Heptameron' by Klaus Høeck

OS_PG_PF_PF_PG-X

 Kunst der Fuge

This poem refers to the poem 

on the opposite page, where it 

says ‘Kunst der Fuge’ as a 

tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach 

a literal gesture. Tell me now 

if this poem has been written before 

or after the poem to which it refers. 

It cannot have been written before, 

since there is then no poem 

to which it refers. And it can 

not have been written after, since the 

poem to which it refers cannot for 

similar reasons have been written 

before this poem. What then?

In this case the answer is simple 
enough. This poem is identical with 
the poem to which it refers on the 
opposite page. They have been written simultaneously.

OS_PG_PF_PF_PG-Y

Kunst der Fuge

This poem refers to the poem 

on the opposite page, where it 

says ‘Kunst der Fuge’ as a 

tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach 

a literal gesture. Tell me now 

if this poem has been written before 

or after the poem to which it refers. 

It cannot have been written before, 

since there is then no poem 

to which it refers. And it can 

not have been written after, since the 

poem to which it refers cannot for 

similar reasons have been written 

before this poem. What then?

In this case the answer is simple 

enough. This poem is identical with 

the poem to which it refers on the 

opposite page. They have been written simultaneously.

Another poem by Hester Knibbe in translation

 BEESLEY LTD

In love all is possible. You

grimly drape a tree with roses

and say: it was on this spot and

everyone who passes by shall

know that. Or someone decides: this dead

weight can be borne no longer, I’ll place it

like a stone at the foot of the rock, but

does not walk and breathe the lighter

afterwards. The asphalt that bridges

the river points upwards, on the radio

voices sing ah and oh and on the lorry

in front of me it shamelessly states in the dirt

of days: Now that you’re no longer there

you’re closer than ever. Exactly that. Who

dared with one finger in dust to clear

the way for what’s most steadfast? Soon

the bridge will tilt, the line obediently

will start once more to move, I will pass

by the sewage sludge of Beesley Ltd and

a declaration of love written in mud.