Little-known poem by B.S. Ingemann

The great voyage

Through all the nighttime heaven’s

Profound embrace there plough

The air-ships of the star-fleet.

A world in every prow.

I stand on earth-ship’s foredeck;

I sail the selfsame seas.

Among the stars, earth’s island

sails too with greatest ease.

On board the airborne world-fleet

A host of souls are found:

Yet not one single soul there

Saw whither they were bound.

But each will reach safe haven,

The nighttime heaven crossed.

No bark will run aground there

And not one soul be lost.

Surprise!

I was more than surprised to find over 260 of my entries here.

Title poem of a collection by the Dutch writer Maria Barnas

Aha the Big Bang

Aha the Big Bang, I hear myself say.

How can it possibly fit in my mouth?

The start of it all a lump on my tongue.

Quiet. Fear is a bird-flock that rests in a tree.

Or is it words that huddle together

ink-black on the branches. It is a form

of panic that wells up in me and bursts from my

throat like a flock on the rise. The cosmos

unfurls its wings. We flap, holler and shriek.

A recent poem by the Dutch poet Anneke Brassinga

Auf Flügeln des Gesanges

Last night I saw the garbage men up on their carts

combing the alleys at a crawl, in fervent  sub-

jugation to the dionysian ideal, performing

polyphonic Schubert, an elevating choral

opus, threadbare as a rag. Out and about was

also Freud, his glass top hat held in one hand –

following the dream that he himself had written down,

all that I saw was sadly in pursuit throughout the town.

So too can I pretend another life will come

in which I finally re-meet you – as if we

in the shadows of tomorrow, though refound,

could wholly lose each other this time round.

To see the original poem, go to here

'Stille hjerte' - Bille August knows his Jeppe Aakjær

Aften

     Stille, Hjerte, Sol gaar ned,

Sol gaar ned paa Heden,

     Dyr gaar hjem fra Dagens Béd,

Storken staar i Reden.

     Stille, Hjerte, Sol gaar ned.

     Tavshed over Hedesti

og langs Veje krumme.

     En forsinket Humlebi

ene høres brumme.

     Stille, Hjerte, Sol gaar ned.

     Viben slaar et enligt Slag

over Mosedammen,

     før den under Frytlens Tag

folder Vingen sammen.

     Stille, Hjerte, Sol gaar ned.

     Fjerne Ruder østerpaa

blusser op i Gløden,

     Hededamme bittesmaa

spejler Aftenrøden.

     Stille, Hjerte, Sol gaar ned!

Evening

     Still, my heart, now sets the sun,

While the moor is resting,

     Herds now homeward are begun,

And the stork is nesting.

     Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

     O’er the moor-path silence falls

As on roads so winding.

     A late bumblebee is all

Keenest ears are finding.

     Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

     Briefly now the lapwing flies

O’er the bog-pond’s blushes,

     Ere it folds its wings and lies

’Neath a roof of rushes.

     Still, my heart, now sets the sun.

     Eastern window-panes afar

Flare up in the gloaming,

     Moorland ponds like tiny stars

Catch the sunset’s homing.

     Still, my heart, now sets the sun!

Another butterfly poem - this time by Dèr Mouw

To see the translation, go to here

A poem about a butterfly - by the Dutch poet Ida Gerhardt

This translation has been published a while back. You can find it here.

A new year's poem by the Swedish poetess Sophia Elisabet Brenner

SONNET

To her dear Husband  Deputy Judge

ELIAS BRENNER,

Upon the first day of January Anno 1691

My Friend! I ought of course on New Year gifts be musing

To the extent my powers/ likewise my will were good/

And had not lack of means for this in my way stood/

Then keenly I would seek and something new be choosing/

Instead my thoughts are fixed on bounties in full ration/

Which are not found on sale in every grocer’s stall

And which by women once were scarcely grasped at all/

I will in well-turned rhymes a dozen lines/ now fashion/

I think that such a gift to you will give most pleasure/

Which I alone and no one else have laboured on/

For secondhand things you find irksome beyond measure/

And I think likewise and with you agree thereon

Nor will I e’er relinquish the idea I treasure

That borrowed feathers/ least of all befit a Swan.

Whoever would reflect on where time’s always stealing

Should note most carefully our newly started year/

It greys so fast/ as snow and frost are both revealing/

It ages even while its birth-day is still here.

It first begins today/ and yet our end presages

The more we gather years/ the fewer are our days/

Eternal God most true/ no year turns back the pages/

Help us in time to avert from this fair world our gaze!

Teach us to well observe how short is our life’s season/

How our approaching end each instant makes us feel/

To see in all combined there is both rhyme and reason/

Our life is frail as glass and time’s cogged wheel of steel.

A late sonnet by the Dutch poet P.C. Boutens (1870-1943)

SONNET

The darkening tide of time has stripped us down –

Bared to the heart, the very soul, we stand

Truly inviolate, alone and grand,

Stark winter trees with rigid antler-crown...

The more our blossom blazed into the sky,

The deeper strove our roots through sand and earth:

For us who, free from care, face spring or death,

The wraithlike shadows of the world swirl by...

And still our first-known spring and all its dreaming

Holds charmed our quiet inner life with meaning...

And then infinity bursts into light...

Our eyes in exultation gain the timeless

Transcending vision of those blessed with blindness,

For whom, though earthbound, God came into sight.

First published in the periodical Helikon 1938, p.49; subsequently published in Boutens’ final collection Tusschenspelen (Interludes, 1942).

A poem by Leo Vroman (1915-2014)

Flowers

If everyone turned all at once to flowers

they would be large-sized flowers with trailing whiskers.

Emaciated flies, dead beetles

would end entangled in their hairs.

Toothpicks, surreptitiously sprouted

would swell into turned table-legs,

buds of cotton would burst open

into plush hearts that smelled of fringes,

And on the mountains plaster pillars stand

weeping spates of plaster grapes.

Cardboard leaves would drift upon the water,

The butterflies fall apart into loose wings

And all the flowerbeds shrivel up with scent

If everyone turned all at once to flowers.