Another 'Grandma' poem (JI)

sealing-wax

an early frost

stiffened the membranes

of grandma’s ears

coating them with silence

although no ripples now

could lap an inner shore

grandma heard

heard with a birdlike

cocking of the head

catching the meaning

not the words

later

a hearing-aid

was hooked to batteries

entombed in a case

of brittle black plastic

its volume wheel was spun

by grandma’s guardian thumb

maybe she shook metallic words

into kaleidoscopes of sound

mostly she clicked her teeth

and drank more tea

'Evening Mood' by the Norwegian Romantic poet Jørgen Moe (1813-82)

Evening Mood

The evening gently begins to fall

on slopes and lake with a golden blushing,

and soundless silence and endless peace

to quiet slumber are nature hushing.

The verdant verges

are what now merges

in lake’s soft mirror that grows yet clearer

and captures them.

The fishing boat, see how slim and light

how high on shimmering surface drifting,

while men their nets haul back into sight

and women their oars let lie unshifting.

The silent tally

of lake and valley

makes all day’s hustle now cease its bustle

and spellbinds them.

But lost in dreams there a lass stands tall

and gazes into the sky unfurling,

and deep-felt longings her mind enthrall

with Christmas parties and dances’ whirling.

The crimson gleaming

of arching evening

has scattered glowing beyond all knowing –

Her gaze is wide.

You rich and blushing calm summer night

that hold far more than the daytime’s splendour,

oh bring the fair one your best delight,

let come to her loving dreams so tender: 

On their returning

Fulfil her yearning,

with crown of silver her brow let glitter

as happy bride!

A grandma poem (JI)

parcels

grandma

was stung on the top of the head

so she said

the unseen bee’s barb

like some erratic soldering-iron

rewired the circuits

setting off private pyrotechnics

and the smell of sparks

in the post-bee period

grandma packed brown paper parcels

and hid them under the bed

along with herself

for the war was at its height

the bombers overhead

loaded with bee-stings

but before the bee struck

when grandma was eccentric

rather than electric

she packed parcels too

beneath christmas wrappings

layers and layers of newspaper

cardboard boxes like russian dolls

there always lay

a dull green threepenny bit

HCA: 'Barn Jesus i en krybbe lå'

ALS: 'Kat en muis'

CAT and MOUSE

I’ve forgotten the tits this year, not the cats. They sit in front of the window early every morning and gaze inside. They’ve slept somewhere or other I know not where – in barns, attics, cellars. When they see me they know that I’ll be coming out with some chunks of meat and pieces of bread. They do not know that recently they have been subject of an investigation. Scientists have calculated that at night they wreak considerable havoc in the animal kingdom. Every cat owner ought to carry out measures to prevent a disaster. As usual, I woke up suddenly with a start of shame. I’ve had cats all my life. They helped me in my fight against mice. They, in turn, often got killed while crossing the main road. I thought without thinking that this was a question of balance. But now that science had made it its business, I realised that that we’d once more landed in the area of a new balance. I hung up fat balls – the tits that I hadn’t seen this year so far were there within fifteen minutes. I think I’ll rely on this for the present winter. The strong tits will survive, just as the strong mice will. The cats will be helped by me, and I can always appeal to homecare if it looks as if I seem to have made a mistake in the winter cold. There’s always someone who can help me do the chopping. While he chops, I read aloud a poem by Jan Hanlo. Cat and mouse are present, the tit is absent. It’s really delighted with the fat balls.

What shall I buy you, son of mine?

A cat? a mortal mouse allover white? a what?

A girlfriend from the Orient? a slave?

A jet-black German raven? or a rat?

A dog that’s really healthy? or a flute?

A mandolin that’s in its sleeve or a machine?

A globe of planet Earth? maybe a wheel?

Maybe a blouse of bombazine?

Or Dante seen in profile?

Klaus Høeck, from 'Plastic Fantastic' (1981)

     imagine: you see

me in the act of pulling

     a black plastic bag

     over my head – i am

doing this to demonstrate

     the suicidal tenden

     cies of the plastic

itself and its effect on

     all humanity

     do not be afraid

i manage to remove the

     plastic bag again

     plastic fantastic

was its other name – but ex

     cuse me – whole islands

     of plastic  (new plas

tic island) swimming around

     in the sea entire

     land masses wrapped up

in plastic – excuse me  fish

     and whales full  of plas

     tic – yes even the

moon and antarctic red with

     plastic – excuse me

Frans Budé: 'The Sifting of the Light'

Frans Budé

The sifting of the light

Poems on a work by Fons Lemmens

1

The ever-continuous line, without

intertwining aware of its infinity. 

No hustling, only the acceptance of time,

reflecting among all the heavenly bodies.

A line that raises itself and bends, descends then

is present ever again before and behind

the mists of the smothering light. And then once more

reaches the sky and is reflected back to where we are.

2

In an abandoned outdoor pool small red flags

unitedly moving to the rhythm of the summer breeze.

A while later shadows lengthen, stretching out comfortably

and uninhibitedly. Imperturbable the endlessly

turning wheel of time. Not one single time a contrary

creaking. And us? We are contemporaries together,

abandon ourselves, promise ourselves a new day,

pay attention to every tick of the clock, or pretend to.

3

Surfaces in their geometry breathe inaudibly –

they radiate. Their strength unceasingly changes

our thinking, moves inquisitively inwards,

stretches out like a taut surface of water. It comes

and disappears, becomes present without moving.

Nothing changes and yet it does. That is what there is,

what there is not, and gradually acquires meaning:

like breathing unexpectedly mists a window pane.

4

How skilfully you bent the steel into tight lines,

gave the words of the poet a warm spot

–      In a spectrum of diversity / time runs together –

and the surrounding park watches appeasingly too.

It’s said: At night the sculpture gets up

and only returns at break of dawn. In the refined

morning light the work contentedly takes its place

once more, prouder than ever on the rim of the day.

5

So deliberately you sift the light, allow it to

descend in batches along a vertical path. You look

up, down, grant it access to your work.

In spheres of unprecedented brilliance you lead it

to the very spot where it does not fall apart, oh no,

you bring it to life where you have brought it,

so close and intimate than I want to  walk through it,

into the farthest fields, towards the well.

6

Continually seeking form and colour you grow

away from that which exists, abandon yourself to a new

song of the wind. Nothing can hold you back, no

hesitation about the path to be taken when you close your eyes,

create a new world. That, with Rilke’s Panther,

you can capture the world anew and accommodate it

in line and colour. Hear the animal tell stories of beginning

and end, of what breathlessly descends from old dreams.

ALS: 'In Kootwijk'

in kootwijk

280 people live in Kootwijk. I know one of them – a woman. She’s twenty-five years old and beautiful, so I know a beautiful woman in Kootwijk. Right now she cries a lot, her husband has suddenly and unjustly left her. Both of them work at the same secondary school, she teaches Dutch, he’s a mathematician. The unexpected split is the result of the seductiveness  of a Bulgarian cleaning-woman who mops and polishes the school. She’s beautiful too, I have to admit it, the mathematician has good taste. That doesn’t alter the fact that he ought to have kept his mitts to himself. Already in the first week of their sinful relationship he has fathered a child in the Bulgarian woman, and then used this as an argument that he is morally obliged to marry her. Whenever the word morally turns up, I get as suspicious as a hissing cat. My Dutch-teaching friend is intelligent, derisive, sporty and generous. She resigned from the school and now works in Apeldoorn. I visit her to give her regularly to bring her some solace. I have the feeling that I won’t need to do this much longer, she hasn’t told me anything, but I suspect that a new love story is in the making. I’m not an expert on such matters, but I suspect that love possesses a highly recuperative effect.

'Forunderligt at sige'

It is a wondrous story

It is a wondrous story

and strange if pondered deep

that God’s realm’s future glory

must in a manger sleep,

that heaven’s light and splendour,

the living word for sure,

shall homeless ’mongst us wander

as poorest of the poor!

A nest has e’en the sparrow

where it can built a home,

nor needs the fleeting swallow

for night-time shelter roam.

The beasts need know no anguish,

in caves there’s rest in store,-

Shall then my Saviour languish

upon some stable’s straw?

No, come, I will throw open

my heart, my soul and mind,

yes, sing, sigh, prayers have spoken, 

Come, Jesus, come and find!

It is no unknown chamber,

you bought it with your blood!

Here will you sweetly slumber

in love now swathed for good.

ALS: 'De natuur'

Nature

The land round my house is being left in the lurch. By me. Nature is taking over. I know a lot of people who end up leaving their house because the garden gets too toilsome. I’ve never understood that, nature is so easy-going, nature is everywhere ready to take over from humanity, nature is truly our best friend. On one occasion I paid a visit to a man in the sparsely populated eastern part of France. He was a friend of my father’s, he lived there on his own, his wife had died and, on closer consideration, he found he didn’t get on well with his children. They were fonder of the town than they were of him, and that he probably found easier too. He noted that the ideas he had always nurtured did not live for ever. At the time of my visit he was eighty and I was fifty. His house had been completely pinned down by nature. The path from his door to the road was the only exit, about fifty metres. He kept it open by means of a chainsaw – an overground tunnel had come into being. He knew he was dependent on that saw. When he was no longer able to wield it, his time would have come. I didn’t ask him what that experience would mean in this particular case – mumbling away with other oldies in a House of Mercy or a self-chosen death. After that visit, I have never visited a foreign country again. I believe that there are many things you have to stop doing while you are still alive – travelling is one of them. The land around my house is visited by deer. I don’t see them often, but I know that they’re there. The times I have seen them, they have had a young deer with them. It’s a pleasurable idea that I live in an invisible house where a deer imagines its offspring is safe. I don’t play any loud music, I have a car that is scarcely audible, I don’t buy any fireworks to celebrate the New Year. In the distance I can hear some go off, but that too will stop when nature finally and inaudibly has won the battle.