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Eugene Field
(1850–1895)
Ballad of women i love
Prudence Mears hath an old blue plate
Hid away in an oaken chest,
And a Franklin platter of ancient date
Beareth Amandy Baker’s crest;
What times soever I’ve been their guest,
Says I to myself in an undertone:
“Of womenfolk, it must be confessed,
These do I love, and these alone.”
Well, again, in the Nutmeg State,
Dorothy Pratt is richly blest
With a relic of art and a land effete–
A pitcher of glass that’s cut, not pressed.
And a Washington teapot is possessed
Down in Pelham by Marthy Stone–
Think ye now that I say in jest
“These do I love, and these alone?”
Were Hepsy Higgins inclined to mate,
Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest
In Cupid’s bonds, they could find their fate
In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest.
For they’ve heaps of trumpery–so have the rest
Of those spinsters whose ware I’d like to own;
You can see why I say with such certain zest,
“These do I love, and these alone.”
Eugene Field poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive E-F, CLASSIC POETRY
James Russell Lowell
(1819–1891)
A New Year’s Greeting
The century numbers fourscore years;
You, fortressed in your teens,
To Time’s alarums close your ears,
And, while he devastates your peers,
Conceive not what he means.
If e’er life’s winter fleck with snow
Your hair’s deep shadowed bowers,
That winsome head an art would know
To make it charm, and wear it so
As ’twere a wreath of flowers.
If to such fairies years must come,
May yours fall soft and slow
As, shaken by a bee’s low hum,
The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb,
Down to their mates below!
James Russell Lowell poetry
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive K-L
Het vuurwerk
Een menigte trekt langs pubs en cafés,
doemt op in de condensramen van een hotel
in het licht van kroonluchters; een feest
slingert dansmuziek uit de ballroomzaal
de buitenlucht in, waar eiken majesteit
buigen om het marktplein en de patio;
het tafeltje waarop je hand ligt is krijt-
wit als je gezicht, dat zwijgt in crescendo.
Het is mooi geweest, de passie is bedaard, uit
je streling, die mijn rimpels bedde, is alle
geduld en zin geëbd, en van de weeromstuit
knielt de avond betraand bij je neer, vallen
je haren herfstig op je jas uiteen; de dracht
van je omslag. Bloeien boven jou wolken
pioenvormig op, neerdalend in roze gruis,
is het vuurwerk zonder ons begonnen,
schuifelt op straat het gedrang in een gelag,
verklankt, ergens, een schreeuw van diep binnenuit.
Niels Landstra
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Landstra, Niels
Neerkomst
De dichter kuiert langs een haven. “Kijk”,
verplicht hij zich: de schepen die aankomen
zijn ver van de verlaten kade af. Komen ze
thuis of zijn ze halverwege het reizen? Hij weet
het niet. Schepen slapen als paarden, dat ziet
hij wel. Een onzichtbare zak haver voor de muil
hebben ze. Hun verzonnen vel trilt ongedurig
van nieuwsgierigheid naar al die verre einders.
Vermoeden van weemoed komt hem langs.
Langs pakhuizen maakt een meisje een radslag.
Niks tastend, voluit gaand. Hij prevelt wat
hij ziet: “Wat komt zij mooi neer.”
Bert Bevers
uit Afglans, Uitgeverij WEL, Bergen op Zoom, 1997
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive A-B, Bevers, Bert
Salvatore Quasimodo
(1901-1968)
Wind at Tindari
Tindari, I know you
mild between broad hills, overhanging the waters
of the god’s sweet islands.
Today, you confront me
and break into my heart.
I climb airy peaks, precipices,
following the wind in the pines,
and the crowd of them, lightly accompanying me,
fly off into the air,
wave of love and sound,
and you take me to you,
you from whom I wrongly drew
evil, and fear of silence, shadow,
– refuge of sweetness, once certain –
and death of spirit.
It is unknown to you, that country
where each day I go down deep
to nourish secret syllables.
A different light strips you, behind the windows
clothed in night,
and another joy than mine
lies against you.
Exile is harsh
and the search, for harmony, that ended in you
changes today
to a precocious anxiousness for death,
and every love is a shield against sadness,
a silent stair in the gloom,
where you station me
to break my bitter bread.
Return, serene Tindari,
stir me, sweet friend,
to raise myself to the sky from the rock,
so that I might shape fear, for those who do not know
what deep wind has searched me.
Salvatore Quasimodo poetry
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive Q-R
Laura van der Haar
winnaar NK Poetry Slam 2012
Laura van der Haar uit Amsterdam heeft op 14 december in Utrecht het Nederlands Kampioenschap Poetry Slam 2012 gewonnen. In muziekpaleis Rasa streden acht dichters om de landstitel. Het NK Poetry Slam werd voor de elfde maal gehouden.
In de jury zaten dichter Mustafa Stitou, cabaretière Katinka Polderman en critica Toef Jaeger. In de laatste slamronde werd uitsluitend gestemd door het publiek. In de finale moest Laura van der Haar het opnemen tegen de Vlaming Jee Kast. De finalisten gingen elkaar met woorden te lijf op het podium.
Het publiek stemde met overtuiging voor Laura van der Haar. Ook de jury sprak haar voorkeur uit voor Van der Haar vanwege ‘regels die spankracht hebben’ (Stitou) en de wijze waarop ze haar tegenstander Jee Kast ‘vriendelijk fileerde’ (Jaeger).
Laura van der Haar won de landstitel ‘Slampion 2012’, een geldbedrag van 1000 euro en de wisseltrofee ‘De Gouden Vink’, vernoemd naar dichter en inspirator van vele poetry slammers, Simon Vinkenoog. Van der Haar werkt als archeologe. Naast haar werk volgt ze de Schrijversvakschool en is ze redacteur bij het online literaire tijdschrift ‘Hard//Hoofd’. In mei 2013 zal ze Nederland vertegenwoordigen op het Wereldkampioenschap Poetry Slam in Parijs.
Een Poetry Slam is een wedstrijd voor beginnende dichters waarin zowel de tekst als de voordracht wordt beoordeeld. Tot eerdere winnaars behoren o.a. Erik Jan Harmens, Krijn Peter Hesselink, Ellen Deckwitz en Kira Wuck. Het NK Poetry Slam werd georganiseerd door het Poëziecircus, vanaf 1 januari 2013 het Literatuurhuis.
Alberquerquee baby
met een fletse bek van de kou zink je je huis uit
de stoep veert niet mee en de rest
ook al niet
er is een plek die je kent
waar iemand missen de vale gloed wordt
die soms boven steden hangt
steden, waar ‘s nachts een trein voorbijrijdt
waar gespeeld wordt, muziek
die harkend op een hoop veegt
wat uit jouw hoofd verdween
die hoop wordt een berg om in te schoppen
sneeuw, herfstblaadjes of
de plastic bekers na Koninginnedag, desnoods
je schopt
maar zij verdwijnt niet
jouw Albuquerquee baby
en met boliderode lippen
drukt ze vlinders in je kraag
Laura van der Haar
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Poetry Slam, THEATRE
Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (35)
Shoot! (Si Gira, 1926)The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator by Luigi Pirandello. Translated from the Italian by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
BOOK VII
4
Turn the handle; I have turned it. I have kept my word: to the end. But the vengeance that I sought to accomplish upon the obligation imposed on me, as the slave of a machine, to serve up life to my machine as food, life has chosen to turn back upon me. Very good. No one henceforward can deny that I have now arrived at perfection.
As an operator I am now, truly, perfect.
About a month after the appalling disaster which is still being discussed everywhere, I bring these notes to an end.
A pen and a sheet of paper: there is no other way left to me now in which I can communicate with my fellow-men. I have lost my voice; I am dumb now for ever. Elsewhere in these notes I have written: “I suffer from this silence of mine, into which everyone comes, as into a place of certain hospitality. ‘I should like now my silence to close round me altogether’.” Well, it has closed round me. I could not be better qualified to act as the servant of a machine.
But I must tell you the whole story, as it happened.
The wretched fellow went, next morning, to Borgalli to complain forcibly of the ridiculous figure which, as he was informed, Polacco intended to make him cut with these precautions.
He insisted at all costs that the orders should be cancelled, offering to give them all a specimen, if they needed it, of his well-known skill as a marksman. Polacco excused himself to Borgalli, saying that he had taken these measures not from any want of confidence in Nuti’s courage or sureness of eye, but from prudence, knowing Nuti to be extremely nervous, as for that matter he was shewing himself to be at that moment by uttering this excited protest, instead of the grateful, friendly thanks which Polacco had a right to expect from him.
“Besides,” he unfortunately added, pointing to me, “you see, Commendatore, there’s Gubbio here too, who has to go into the cage….”
The poor wretch looked at me with such contempt that I immediately turned upon Polacco, exclaiming:
“No, no, my dear fellow! Don’t bother about me, please! You know very well that I shall go on quietly turning my handle, even if I see this gentleman in the jaws and claws of the beast!”
There was a laugh from the actors who had gathered round to listen; whereupon Polacco shrugged his shoulders and gave way, or pretended to give way. Fortunately for me, as I learned afterwards, he gave secret instructions to Fantappiè and one of the others to conceal their weapons and to stand ready for any emergency. Nuti went off to his dressing-room to put on his sporting clothes; I went to the Negative Department to prepare my machine for its meal. Fortunately for the company, I drew a much larger supply of film than would be required, to judge approximately by the length of the scene. When I returned to the crowded lawn, by the side of the enormous cage, set with a forest scene, the other cage, with the tiger inside it, had already been carried out and placed so that the two cages opened into one another. It only remained to pull up the door of the smaller cage.
Any number of actors from the four companies had assembled on either side, close to the cage, so that they could see between the tree trunks and branches that concealed its bars. I hoped for a moment that the Nestoroff, having secured her object, would at least have had the prudence not to come. But there she was, alas!
She stood apart from the crowd, a little way off, with Carlo Ferro, dressed in bright green, and was smiling as she repeatedly nodded her head in agreement with what Ferro was saying to her, albeit from the grim attitude in which he stood by her side it seemed evident that such a smile was not the appropriate answer to his words. But it was meant for the others, that smile, for all of us who stood watching her, and was also for me, a brighter smile, when I fixed my gaze on her; and it said to me once again that she was not afraid of anything, because the greatest possible evil for her I already knew: she had it by her side–there it was–Ferro; he was her punishment, and to the very end she I was determined, with that smile, to taste its, full flavour in the coarse words which he was probably addressing to her at that moment.
Taking my eyes from her, I sought those of Nuti. They were clouded. Evidently he too had caught sight of the Nestoroff there in the distance; but he chose to pretend that he had not. His face had grown stiff. He made an effort to smile, but smiled with his lips alone, a faint, nervous smile, at what some one was saying to him. With his black velvet cap on his head, with its long peak, his red coat, a huntsman’s brass horn slung over his shoulder, his white buckskin breeches fitting close to his thighs; booted and spurred, rifle in hand: he was ready.
The door of the big cage, through which ha and I were to enter, was opened from outside; to help us to climb in, two stage hands placed a pair of steps beneath it. He entered the cage first, then I. While I was setting up my machine on its tripod, which had been handed to me through the door of the cage, I noticed that Nuti first of all knelt down on the spot marked out for him, then rose and went across to thrust apart the boughs at one side of the cage, as though he were making a loophole there. I alone was in a position to ask him:
“Why?”
But the state of feeling that had grown up between us did not allow of our exchanging a single word at this stage. His action might therefore have been interpreted by me in several ways, which would have left me uncertain at a moment when the most absolute and precise certainty was essential. And then it was just as though Nuti had not moved at all; not only did I not think any more about his action, it was exactly as though I had not even noticed it.
He took his stand on the spot marked out for him, raising his rifle; I gave the signal:
“Ready.”
We heard from the other cage the sound of the door being pulled up. Polacco, perhaps seeing the animal begin to move towards the open door, shouted amid the silence:
“Are you ready? Shoot!”
And I began to turn the handle, with my eyes on the tree trunks in the background, through which the animal’s head was now protruding, lowered, as though peering out to explore the country; I saw that head slowly drawn back, the two forepaws remain firm, close together, and the hindlegs gradually, silently gather strength and the back rise in an arch in readiness for the spring. My hand was impassively keeping the time that I had set for its movement, faster, slower, dead slow, as though my will had flowed down–firm, lucid, inflexible–into my wrist, and from there had assumed entire control, leaving my brain free to think, my heart to feel; so that my hand continued to obey even when with a pang of terror I saw Nuti take his aim from the beast and slowly turn the muzzle of his rifle towards the spot where a moment earlier he had opened a loophole among the boughs, and fire, and the tiger immediately spring upon him and become merged with him, before my eyes, in a horrible writhing mass. Drowning the most deafening shouts that came from all the actors outside the cage as they ran instinctively towards the Nestoroff who had fallen at the shot, drowning the cries of Carlo Ferro, I heard there in the cage the deep growl of the beast and the horrible gasp of the man as he lay helpless in its fangs, in its claws, which were tearing his throat and chest; I heard, I heard, I kept on hearing above that growl, above that gasp, the continuous ticking of the machine, the handle of which my hand, alone, of its own accord, still kept on turning; and I waited for the beast to spring next upon me, having brought him down; and the moments of waiting seemed to me an eternity, and it seemed to me that throughout eternity I had been counting them, as I turned, still turned the handle, powerless to stop, when finally an arm was thrust in between the bars, carrying a revolver, and fired a shot point blank into the tiger’s ear over the mangled corpse of Nuti; and I was pulled back and dragged from the cage with the handle of the machine so tightly clasped in my fist that it was impossible at first to wrest it from me. I uttered no groan, no cry: my voice, from terror, had perished in my throat for ever.
Well, I have rendered the firm a service from which they will reap a fortune. As soon as I was able, I explained to the people who gathered round me terror-struck, first of all by signs, then in writing, that they were to take good care of the machine, which had been wrenched from my hand: that machine had in its maw the life of a man; I had given it that life to eat to the very last, until the moment when that arm had been thrust in to kill the tiger. There was a fortune to be extracted from this film, what with the enormous publicity and the morbid curiosity which the sordid atrocity of the drama of that slaughtered couple would everywhere arouse.
Ah, that it would fall to my lot to feed literally on the life of a man one of the many machines invented by man for his pastime, I could never have guessed. The life which this machine has devoured was naturally no more than it could be in a time like the present, in an age of machines; a production stupid in one aspect, mad in another, inevitably, and in the former more, in the latter rather less stamped with a brand of vulgarity.
I have found salvation, I alone, in my silence, with my silence, which has made me thus–according to the standard of the times–perfect. My friend Simone Pau will not understand this, more and more determined to drown himself in ‘superfluity’, the perpetual inmate of a Casual Shelter. I have already secured a life of ease with the compensation which the firm has given me for the service I have rendered it, and I shall soon be rich with the royalties which have been assigned to me from the hire of the monstrous film. It is true that I shall not know what to do with these riches; but I shall not reveal my embarrassment to anyone; least of all to Simone Pau, who comes every day to shake me, to abuse me, in the hope of forcing me out of this inanimate silence, which makes him furious. He would like to see me weep, would like me at least with my eyes to shew distress or anger; to make him understand by signs that I agree with him, that I too believe that life is there, in that ‘superfluity’ of his. I do not move an eyelid; I sit gazing at him, rigid, motionless, until he flies from the house in a rage. Poor Cavalena, from anoher angle, is studying on my behalf textbooks of nervous pathology, suggests injections and electric batteries, hovers round me to persuade me to agree to a surgical operation on my vocal chords; and Signorina Luisetta, penitent, heartbroken at my calamity, in which she chooses to detect an element of heroism, timidly lets me see now that she would like to hear issue, if not from my lips, at any rate from my heart a “yes” for herself.
No, thank you. Thanks to everybody. I have had enough. I prefer to remain like this. The times are what they are; life is what it is; and in the sense that I give to my profession, I intend to go on as I am–alone, mute and impassive–being the operator.
Is the stage set?
“Are you ready? Shoot….”
THE END
Luigi Pirandello: Shoot! (35)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: -Shoot!, Archive O-P, Pirandello, Luigi, Pirandello, Luigi
foto kempis.nl
JACE van de Ven
De beek
Waar begonnen, was er eerst de zee
Of de sneeuw die drup drup drup weer water
Werd, dat neerwaarts ging en niet veel later
Stroompje was, dan beek van lieverlee
Als een kind bokspringt het naar benee
Blinkend in het zonlicht, dan weer staat er
Vol de maan op en geregeld gaat er
Spiegelend een wolk of boomkruin mee
Geile woerden, vis die springt en blinkt,
In een rietkraag staat de reiger stijf en
laat alleen de blaadjes langs zich drijven
Alles stroomt voorbij, maar oud instinct
Roept zalmen terug, krioelende lijven
Vechten naar wat was om daar te blijven
© 2010 JACE van de Ven: Drie sonnetten over water. De beek
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive U-V, Ven, Jace van de
D. H. Lawrence
(1885-1930)
Trees in the Garden
Ah in the thunder air
how still the trees are!
And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent
hardly looses even a last breath of perfume.
And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves
white, ivory white among the rambling greens
how evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass
as if, in another moment, she would disappear
with all her grace of foam!
And the larch that is only a column, it goes up too tall to see:
and the balsam-pines that are blue with the grey-blue blueness of
things from the sea,
and the young copper beech, its leaves red-rosy at the ends
how still they are together, they stand so still
in the thunder air, all strangers to one another
as the green grass glows upwards, strangers in the silent garden.
D.H. Lawrence poetry
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive K-L, D.H. Lawrence, Lawrence, D.H.
photo: Kevin Carter
laaste woorde aan Kevin Carter
o god van grond
my uur het gekom
my dae was minder as gras
drie jaar van honger en dors
verlatenheid alom
sy wat my gebaar het is geslag
hy wat my verwek het is gejag
bang dag in dag uit en elke nag
Anyanya
slang venyn
alles pyn
alles dof
o god van grond
ek eet gras en stof
u engel se wraak
sy laaste waak
Carina van der Walt
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive W-X, Carina van der Walt, FDM in Africa, Walt, Carina van der
In Memoriam
Louis Th. Lehmann
(19-08-1920 – 23-12-2012)
Als ‘k dood ben
Als ‘k dood ben zijn mijn kleren rare dingen.
De overhemden, nieuw of dragensbroos,
de pakken hangend waar ze altijd hingen,
steeds wijzend naar omlaag, besluiteloos.
Ik was ze, ik alleen droeg ze altoos.
En omdat ze mij vaak vervingen,
of omdat ik hen uit hun winkel koos;
zij tonen iets van mijn herinneringen.
Oh vrienden, enigszins van mijn formaat,
ik roep U als de dood te wachten staat,
(maak ik het sterven bij bewustzijn mee)
‘k Geef U of leen, ‘t zou niet de eerste keer zijn
mijn pakken, vormt met hen die mij niet meer zijn
dan langs mijn kist een onzwart defilé.
L. Th. Lehmann (1920-2012) was dichter en schrijver, jurist, scheepsarcheoloog en muzikant. Hij schreef een oeuvre dat naast poëzie uit een tweetal romans, verhalen, reportages, essays, vertalingen, wetenschappelijke studies en een ‘surrealistische kameropera’ bestaat. Zijn dichterlijke werk is verzameld in de door T. van Deel bezorgde uitgave Gedichten 1939-1998 (2000). Met zijn lichte toon en virtuoos woordgebruik maakte Lehmann bij zijn debuut in 1940 diepe indruk op critici als Vestdijk en Ter Braak. In 1996, na meer dan dertig jaar als dichter te hebben gezwegen, keerde hij terug met de bundel Vluchtige steden, gevolgd door Gedichten 1939-1998. Dat Lehmanns kruit daarmee nog niet verschoten was, bewees hij met de lovend ontvangen bundels Toeschouw (2003), Wat boven kwam (2006) en Laden ledigen (keuze uit ongepubliceerd werk, 2008). Bron: De Bezige Bij
Louis Lehmann poetry
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, In Memoriam, Lehmann, Louis Th.
Ernst Stadler
(1883-1914)
Aus der Dämmerung
In Kapellen mit schrägen Gewölben· zerfallnen Verließen
und Scheiben flammrot wie Mohn und wie Perlen grün
und Marmoraltären über verwitterten Fliesen
sah ich die Nächte wie goldne Gewässer verblühn:
der schlaffe Rauch zerstäubt aus geschwungnen Fialen
hing noch wie Nebel schwankend in starrender Luft·
auf Scharlachgewirken die bernsteinschillernden Schalen
schwammen wie Meergrundwunder im bläulichen Duft.
In dämmrigen Nischen die alten süßen Madonnen
lächelten müd und wonnig aus goldrundem Schein.
Rieselnde Träume hielten mich rankend umsponnen·
säuselnde Lieder sangen mich selig ein.
Des wirbelnden Frühlings leise girrendes Locken·
der Sommernächte Duftrausch weckte mich nicht:
Blaß aus Fernen läuteten weiße Glocken . .
Grün aus Kuppeln sickerte goldiges Licht . .
1904
Ernst Stadler poetry
kempis.nl poetry magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Stadler, Ernst
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