A.L. Snijders: 'Standplaats'

 

Place to stand

 

The birds only come if there’s food for them. If I’d forgotten to put food out, I didn’t see birds any more, I felt abandoned. I wanted to punish them, they were responsible for my loneliness. I couldn’t punish them, they weren’t there anymore. I always felt they came for my sake, out of gratitude because I had hung up food for them.

My closest neighbour 800 metres further up said: You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I asked: What’s that got to do with it? The neighbour answered: I don’t know, but I’m certain that the horse and the birds know all right. As a result of this answer, the neighbour and I have fallen out with each other for some time. Fortunately, we don’t notice this all that much, 800 metres is enough if you’re watchful enough.

After a few seasons I changed my opinion without noticing it. If you live alone and don’t have a TV and only other people at the supermarket, the form of opinion is of a different order, in my opinion. I hung op food for the birds again and to my delight saw that the birds returned in large numbers. And something happened that I had never noticed before, the birds did not see me if I stood quite still. If I stood with my head absolutely still and thirty centimetres from the fat ball in a net that I’d hung up, they came to eat from it and did not recognise me as a human being. I had had become a statue, they could use my head as a place to stand. I was enthusiastic, but I couldn’t tell my neighbour that, our quarrel had become a status quo. In addition, I yesterday decided to mingle with other people. I cycled to a pub in a wood I normally never came to. It is an area where somewhat chic people live. The weather was fine, sunny, cold. Although the owner had placed a well-lit brazier of good, dry wood out on the terrace, everyone went inside and sat there. I had been a long time since I had mixed at ease with other people. When I sat aside, I regretted deciding to do this, there were too many with dogs there. I don’t like strange dogs. Next to me sat two affluent ladies who had their recent travels as their topic of conversation. They had been in Boston, in humanist circles, had attended gatherings of high human calibre. They had a dog with them that repeatedly jumped up everywhere. They then shouted ‘down’ in English at it. I knew what that meant, but saw that the dog did not understand their language.

Dan Andersson: 'Onda tankar'

 

Onda tankar

 

Att vara skald, profet, och nödgas bo på gatan,

och aldrig veta när ens strid tar slut,

det är väl dock att slåss med själva satan -

och himlen vet väl knappt hur länge man står ut.

 

Det blir till trots, det kan bli blod och tårar,

bli knytnävskamp i kväll och död i morgon dag,

men aldrig får det bli till sorg och kvinnfolkstårar -

jag är dock intet barn och ingen kvinna är jag.

 

Och detta kallar jag att fiska hela natten

och aldrig få till lön ett enda litet grand,

att färdas utan ljus på stora, mörka vatten,

men aldrig, aldrig se den minsta skymt av land.

 

Men finner man en dag min kalla kropp bland döde,

då blev det väl min lön att fredligt ligga där -

då är jag dock en man, som kämpat ut mitt öde,

det är väl dock min rätt att vara den jag är.

 

 

Bad thoughts

 

To be a poet, prophet, live on streets if need be

and never know just when one’s strife will end,

is like to pick a fight with Satan, who’s so greedy

god only knows how long before your mind will bend.

 

The end’s defiance, blood and salt tears maybe

with fisticuffs tonight and death when morning’s near,

but grief and women’s tears will ne’er betray me –

I’m neither child nor woman, that’s quite clear.

 

And this I call to fish throughout the night unaided,

with no rewarding catch at all as had been planned,

to beaconless sail on black waters thickly braided,

but never, never catch the slightest glimpse of land.

 

Should one day my cold corpse among the dead be counted,

then my reward maybe was there in peace to lie –

for then for my own well-fought fate I have accounted,

the right to be myself until the day I die.

Cécile Périn: 'Aube'

 

Aube

 

Un invisible oiseau dans l’air pur a chanté.

Le ciel d’aube est d’un bleu suave et velouté.

 

C'est le premier oiseau qui s'éveille et qui chante.

Ecoute! les jardins sont frémissants d'attente.

 

Ecoute! Un autre nid s'éveille, un autre nid,

Et c’est un pépiement éperdu qui jaillit.

 

Qui chante le premier? Nul ne le sait. C’est l’aurore.

Comme un abricot mur, le ciel pâli se dore.

 

Qui chante le premier? Qu’importe? On a chanté.

Et c’est un beau matin de l'immortel été.

 

 

Dawn

 

A bird has sung above, in clear air, out of view.

The dawn sky has a sheen of smooth and velvet blue.

 

It is the first of all the birds to wake and sing.

Hark, hark! The waiting gardens quiver at its ring.

 

Hark, hark! Another nest awakes, and yet one more,

Their frenzied chirping notes gush forth and upwards soar.

 

Who sings first? There’s no knowing. Dawn comes as of old.

Like apricots that ripen, the pale sky turns gold.

 

Who sings first? It’s no matter. For there now is song –

Immortal summer’s lovely morning won’t be long.

A.L. Snijders: '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.

 

Cécile Périn: 'Dans le labyrinth'

 Dans le labyrinthe

 

Je ne veux désormais que l'ombre et la douleur.

Pour que vers mon ami je marche plus légère,

De tout ce qui fut doux j'ai dépouillé mon cœur

Tout palpitant encor de bonheurs éphémères.

 

Mon compagnon n'a plus de mains. J'ai les mains vides.

Mon compagnon n'a plus de voix. Et je me tais.

J'erre seule, attendant que son amour me guide

Dans l'étroit labyrinthe ainsi qu'un fil secret.

 

Mais je n'ai que mes doigts de chair pour m’agripper

Dans la nuit ténébreuse à sa forme immortelle,

Et je n'ai que mon front pesant pour m'appuyer

Comme un enfant perdu sur l'épaule irréelle.

 

 

In the labyrinth

 

I only wish henceforth for shadows and for pain.

So I more lightly can advance towards my friend,

All that my heart rejoiced in I have sought to drain,

Though throbbing still with fleeting joys have sought to end.

 

Now my companion’s handless. Empty hands are mine.

Now my companion’s voiceless. And I hold my peace.

I roam alone, while for his guiding love I pine

Which like some secret thread could from this maze release.

 

Fingers of flesh alone are all that I possess

To clutch immortal form, here in the shady night,

My heavy brow alone is all that I can press

Against the unreal shoulder as a lost child might. 

A.L. Snijders: 'Het pad'

 

the path

 

The path alongside my house belongs to the house. A few people have right of way, that’s written down somewhere. If I try to stop them, they can refer to their right and then I have to allow them to pass. But that has never happened, I always let everybody use it. That is because I don’t want to concern myself with the matter. So far, everything seems clear and straightforward. I have, however, now discovered a snag – I have read in the newspaper than no one reads poetry any more. For that reason, I have decided to address all those who illegally try to make use of my path: you are only allowed to if you listen to a poem that I recite. This happened for the first time yesterday. It was a man on his own, a bird-watcher type. He looked like a sullen but not reflective-vest type, not someone who if faced with a setback sets light to a car tyre. He stood listening while from memory I recited the first quatrain of the famous sonnet by the poet Dèr Mouw:

 

I’m Brahman. But we’re stuck without a maid.

Around the house I just do what I can:

throw out my dirty water, fill the can;

but have no dish-cloth; mess things I’m afraid.*

 

To my astonishment, he did not set off along the path, but asked me what happened next. I brought out the whole poem, for I was not sure if I could remember the following ten lines from memory without faltering.

After that, we talked about the poem, it is one with a considerable philosophical basis. After a quarter of an hour I invited him in – there was a vicious, cold spring wind. He stayed for two hours. I don’t know whether to repeat this method or not.

 

* to see the whole poem in translation, go to here:

 

Short poem by Riekus Waskowsky

 In one of the ZKVs in A.L. Snijders last book, Tat Tvam Asi, he quotes a three-liner by Riekus Waskowsky (p. 75). It is haiku, but I cannot get the translation that short:

So translating poetry is something I cannot quite yet.

A.L. Snijders: 'The promontory'

 Snijder's publishers have sent the first few lines of Snijder's last ZKV, which he had not completed when he died recently. In a sense, the fragment is complete. It is a Jungian adumbration:

Promontory

 

During the Book Week I have visited towns from Zutphen to Nijmegen.

 

I gave a reading in a bookshop. Afterwards an old man came up to me and explained that I did not exist. I asked him in that case who I was. He couldn’t tell me, that was none of his business. I asked him in that case what his business was, but he had no answer to that. I told him that in the Mediterranean (the sea of Homer) a promontory has been named after me – Cape Snijders.

Benny Andersen: 'Kierkegaard på cykel'

 Kierkegaard on a bicycle

Some things got lost over time

a lot was scarcely worth remembering

but I remember as if only yesterday

although it’s more than a week ago

Søren Kierkegaard coming on a bicycle

wait a moment it must be about

150 years ago

and I hadn’t even been born then

but never mind

he comes bicycling down Hjortekær Road

and I’m on my way up

so we got off and had a little chat

now someone’s sure to object

that the bicycle hadn’t been invented then

but such things don’t faze great minds

and he could be a bit absent-minded at times

Slightly out of breath he set to work illustrating

what he meant by the term repetition

which he spelt with a capital, i.e. Repetition:

The constantly repeated use of the pedals

caused the wheels to turn round

it was so to speak repetition

that made the wheels go round

and increased the desire to see new places

or to revive well-known places

But the most brilliant thing about the bicycle was

that you could do both at the same time

you sat in the same place

and with the aid of repetition could

move this place with you

in that way you could cycle from inner Copenhagen

all the way out to Hjortekær and Dyrehaven

and experience lots of marvellous places en route

without budging from the place where you were

Yes and that was long before there was TV

Then he nipped off again on his bicycle

I’ve never seen him since 

and not at all before

possibly never

but I remember that about repetition

and you can say a lot about Kierkegaard

but the man damned well knew what he was talking about

Marjoleine de Vos: 'Het leven in juni'

 

Life in June 

Around me everything’s loudly alive

the farmer on his mower, bleating sheep

in the maple a blackcap calling

for its mate, from the depths of flowers

the droning of a bee.

And I’m also alive but have to say so myself

for nothing of all I observe mentions me.

As you can talk with friends about past times:

We were on the beach, in a tent, perfectly happy –

then the question: were you there too?

So I’m alone in the garden in the world

and around me everything breathes and inside

sits a man. This then is life, he writes,

this morning in June, the blackcap singing

and her in the garden.