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Death
A spirit sped
Through spaces of night;
And as he sped, he called,
“God! God!”
He went through valleys
Of black death-slime,
Ever calling,
“God! God!”
Their echoes
From crevice and cavern
Mocked him:
“God! God! God!”
Fleetly into the plains of space
He went, ever calling,
“God! God!”
Eventually, then, he screamed,
Mad in denial,
“Ah, there is no God!”
A swift hand,
A sword from the sky,
Smote him,
And he was dead.
Stephen Crane
(1871 – 1900)
Death. A spirit sped
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More in: *War Poetry Archive, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Stephen Crane
Song:
Sweetest love, I do not go
Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, ’tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feign’d deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
O how feeble is man’s power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to’it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o’er us to’advance.
When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind,
But sigh’st my soul away;
When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
My life’s blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov’st me, as thou say’st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turn’d aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne’er parted be.
John Donne
(1572–1631)
Song: Sweetest love, I do not go
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More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Donne, John
Mijn dolk
Ik sloot jou in mijn hart, mijn maat, mijn dolk,
Sinds jaar en dag mijn onderkoelde kameraad,
Gesmeed werd jij door vrijgevochten ruitervolk,
Geslepen door een christenhart vervuld van haat.
Door lelieblanke hand wist jij jouw heft omvat,
Als aandenken aan wat – aan wíe – ik achterliet,
In plaats van bloed vergleed er langs jouw blad
Een opgewelde traan – een parel van verdriet.
Haar rokerige ogen vast op mijn persoon gericht,
Vervuld van onbenoembaar, onuitspreekbaar leed,
Verschoten, vlamden dan weer op, in haar gezicht,
Zoals jouw kling dat in het laaiend kampvuur deed.
Zij maakte jou mijn metgezel, haar liefdespand,
De vagebond in mij volgt steeds jouw wijze raad,
Ja, trouw ben ik haar, ik doe mijn woord gestand,
En jij, jij houdt mij bij de les, mijn kille kameraad!
Michail Lermontov,
Mijn dolk, Кинжал (1838)
(1814 – 1841)
Vertaling Paul Bezembinder
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij vooral in klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Bij uitgeverij Leeuwenhof (Oostburg) verschenen de bundels Gedichten (2020), Parkzicht (2020) en Duizelingen (2022). Website: www.paulbezembinder.nl
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More in: - Archive Tombeau de la jeunesse, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Bezembinder, Paul, Lermontov, Lermontov, Mikhail
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever[e],
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet
(1612 – 1672)
To My Dear and Loving Husband
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bradstreet, Anne
Ein Traum
Wir liegen in einem tiefem See
Und wissen nichts von Leid und Weh.
Wir halten uns umfangen
Und Wasserrosen rings um uns her.
Wir streben und wünschen und wollen nichts mehr.
Wir haben kein Verlangen.
Geliebter, etwas fehlt mir doch,
Einen Wunsch, den hab ich noch:
Die Sehnsucht nach der Sehnsucht.
Emmy Hennings
(1885 – 1948)
Ein Traum
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More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Emmy Hennings, Hennings, Emmy, Performing arts
Marriage Morning
Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
Oh, all the woods and the meadows,
Woods, where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stayed to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!
Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning star.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood,
Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart,
Into my heart and my blood!
Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers.
Over the thorns and briers,
Over the meadows and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash of a million miles.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1809-1892)
Marriage Morning
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Tennyson, Alfred Lord
Belle, ce que j’ay requis
Belle, ce que j’ay requis
Or le vueilliez ottroier,
Car par tant de fois proier
Bien le doy avoir conquis.
Je l’ay ja si long temps quis,
Et pour trés bien emploier,
Belle, ce que j’ay requis.
Se de moy avez enquis,
Ne me devez pas noyer
Mon guerdon, ne mon loier;
Car par raison j’ai acquis,
Belle, ce que j’ay requis.
Christine de Pisan
(1364/1365 – 1430)
Belle, ce que j’ay requis
Rondeaux
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive O-P, Archive O-P, Pisan, Christine de, The Ideal Woman
Spring
Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.
There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track–
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack,–
Before the daisy grows a common flower,
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.
There is no time like Spring,
Like Spring that passes by;
There is no life like Spring-life born to die,–
Piercing the sod,
Clothing the uncouth clod,
Hatched in the nest,
Fledged on the windy bough,
Strong on the wing:
There is no time like Spring that passes by,
Now newly born, and now
Hastening to die.
Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830 – 1894)
Spring
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More in: 4SEASONS#Spring, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Rossetti, Christina
“Sla je op de vlucht om iemand te vergeten of om diegene juist dicht bij je te houden? Zul je diens lelijke kopjes ooit terugvinden in de kringloopwinkel? Hoeveel koeiendagen heb je nodig voor je weet hoe je moet rouwen?”
De dood waart in verschillende gedaantes rond door de derde dichtbundel van Kira Wuck.
Gelukkig weet zij ook hoe je verdriet kunt verleggen. Troost blijkt onder meer te vinden bij andere lichamen, een heelal boven je bed of in de Burger King.
Soms moet je simpelweg weer eens echt goed naar jezelf kijken, om te zien :
‘hoe mijn ledematen zich konden uitvouwen zodat ze jou zachtjes konden raken als het riet’.
Kira Wuck (1978) is dochter van een Finse moeder en een Indonesische vader. Ze groeide op in Amsterdam, maar voelt zich thuis bij het absurdisme en de melancholie uit de noordelijke landen. Voor haar poëziedebuut Finse meisjes ontving ze de Lucy B. en C.W. van der Hoogtprijs en nominaties voor de C. Buddingh’-Prijs en de Jo Peters PoëziePrijs. Ook haar verhalenbundel Noodlanding, haar tweede dichtbundel De zee heeft honger en haar debuutroman Knikkerkoning werden zeer goed ontvangen.
Koeiendagen
Kira Wuck (auteur)
Uitgever: De Geus
Eerste editie (18 januari 2024)
Taal: Nederlands
Paperback: 64 pagina’s
ISBN-10: 9044549863
ISBN-13: 978-9044549867
Afmetingen: 15 x 22 cm
Paperback
€18,99
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More in: #Modern Poetry Archive, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive W-X, Archive W-X, Wuck, Kira
Na de dag
Het licht heeft je gezicht verweerd
en de marok wil met je aan de haal,
barok wordt rococo, de wijn creëert
de tralies voor de panter van de taal.
De wind steekt op, sirocco of simoem,
rhizomen worden schaars, de gentiaan
verdorst, de iris wordt een zonnebloem
en aan de hemel dient de maan zich aan.
Paul Bezembinder
Na de dag
Gedicht
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij vooral in klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Bij uitgeverij Leeuwenhof (Oostburg) verschenen de bundels Gedichten (2020), Parkzicht (2020) en Duizelingen (2022). Website: www.paulbezembinder.nl.
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More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bezembinder, Paul
Award-winning poet Maya C. Popa suggests that our restless desires are inseparable from our mortality in this pressing and precise collection.
Rooting out profound meaning in language to wrench us from the moorings of the familiar and into the realm of the extraordinary, the volume asks, how do we articulate what’s by definition inarticulable? Where does sight end and imagination begin?
Lucid and musically rich, these poems sound an appeal to a dwindling natural world and summon moments from the lives of literary forbearers―John Milton’s visit to Galileo, a vase broken by Marcel Proust―to unveil fresh wonder in the unlikely meetings of the past.
Popa dramatizes the difficulties of loving a world that is at once rich with beauty and full of opportunities for grief, and reveals that the natural arc of wonder, from astonishment to reflection, more deeply connects us with our humanity.
Maya C. Popa is a naturally gifted poet, lucidly engaged with the most profound questions we face in our collective responsibilities and our relations with each other. She writes with love and wonder of a world poised at a perilous moment: “My children, will they exist by the time / it’s irreversible?” she asks. “Will they live / astonished at the thought of ice / not pulled from the mouth of a machine?”
To read her poems is to pause again and again at the precision of imagery, breadth of ideas, and the warmth and generousness of her lyric voice.
Maya C. Popa is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly and teaches poetry at New York University.
Wound Is the Origin of Wonder: Poems
by Maya C. Popa (Author)
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
November 8, 2022
Language: English
Hardcover: 96 pages
ISBN-10: 1324021365
ISBN-13: 978-1324021360
Hardcover $21.49
Paperback $15.99
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More in: #Modern Poetry Archive, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive O-P, Archive O-P, Popa, Maya C.
Woman’s Constancy
Now thou has loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when you leav’st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers’ contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these ‘scapes I could
Dispute and conquer, if I would,
Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow, I may think so too.
John Donne
(1572–1631)
Woman’s Constancy
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More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Donne, John
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