Leonard Nolens, Mark Strand, Walid Soliman, Attila József

De Belgische dichter en schrijver Leonard Nolens werd geboren in Bree op 11 april 1947. Zie ook alle tags voor Leonard Nolens op dit blog.

Geduld

Hou me vast, geduld, ook nu we samengaan
Als gaan en hurken, strelen en kapotte handen.
Als je kunt zal ik mij ook vanavond kuilen
Voor de nacht, en dromen, dromen dat ik slaap,
En dat ik slaap door alles heen en iedereen.

Als je me wekt zal ik me morgenochtend buigen,
En buigen opnieuw, over mijn bord, een vrouw, het lot
Dat mij aan tafel roept met zijn afwezige stem.
Ik zal er eten van haar brood, haar vlees, en eten
Tot ik niet meer kan, en weggegeten ben.

 

Jij bent schatrijk geboren

Jij en ik, dat is twee
Plus dit. Dat is drie. Dat is vragen
Om ruzie, men komt er niet uit.
Wij zitten perplex in elkaar.
Wij maken hetzelfde misbaar.
Jij en ik dat is een.

Jij bent schatrijk geboren
En kocht mij met gemak.
Dat zet ik je betaald
Op deze rekening.
Ik ben geen slapend geld
Vandaag, ik handel in ons.

Ik werk mij in het zweet
Van jou, ik bid en vloek mij
Uit de naad van ons,
Ik maak je winst op de markt.
Jij bent wat ik hier tel,
Mijn tol, mijn kapitaal.

Ik viel jou in de schoot
Van goud, ik woeker met wissels
Van ons en koop je terug
Nu ik ons doorverkoop
Aan vreemden, de truc is gelukt.
Wij staan op hetzelfde biljet.

 

Ritueel

Zij hebben ons hart ingepikt,
Onze groei, onze poppen genekt,
Onze tuin op de trein gezet,
Ons verblind met hun lichtende as.

Zij hebben de zwarte zak
Van hun afwezigheid strak
Over ons heengetrokken
En toen onze oren verpest
Met de ruis van hun hemelse spraak.

Dus waar ik vandaan kom, daar
Moet je die opgebaarde
Nog lichtjes blozende doden
Lang en bedachtzaam slaan.

 

Leonard Nolens (Bree, 11 april 1947)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Mark Strand werd geboren op 11 april 1934 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Zie ook alle tags voor Mark Strand op dit blog.

 

 

Man and Camel

 

On the eve of my fortieth birthday

I sat on the porch having a smoke

when out of the blue a man and a camel

happened by. Neither uttered a sound

at first, but as they drifted up the street

and out of town the two of them began to sing.

Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me—

the words were indistinct and the tune

too ornamental to recall. Into the desert

they went and as they went their voices

rose as one above the sifting sound

of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing,

its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed

an ideal image for all uncommon couples.

Was this the night that I had waited for

so long? I wanted to believe it was,

but just as they were vanishing, the man

and camel ceased to sing, and galloped

back to town. They stood before my porch,

staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:

“You ruined it. You ruined it forever.”

 

 

 

The Everyday Enchantment of Music

 

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.

 


Mark Strand (Summerside, 11 april 1934)

 

 


De Tunesische dichter, schrijver, essayist en vertaler
Walid Soliman werd geboren op 11 april 1975 in Tunis. Zie ook alle tags voor Walid Soliman op dit blog.

 

Uit: In Jean Genet Square

 

“The failure of sand… nothing grows, everything gets erased.”

He said that while leaning with his hand on the back of the park bench, and I noticed that he did not seem as imposing as I had first supposed. It was clear his life had not been a walk in the park. He then took the straw hat he had been fingering and put it on his head, saying, “Do you know who said that quote?”

“Honestly… my memory fails me.”

“James Joyce, in Ulysses.”

But before I could find a moment to ask him his name, or if we had met previously, he disappeared, leaving me to flounder in my confusion.

With him, my desire to read also disappeared that day, as his solemn voice continued to ring in my ears. I remained there, motionless, until nightfall.

In the days that followed I continued going to the same place, sitting in the same bench, patently hoping to meet that man who appeared to me a connoisseur of the world of literature. But he never came. In fact, nothing at all transpired that could confirm to me the reality of our meeting, that it was not simply all a confused dream.

Summer had begun to expire when one day I entered a large bookshop specialized in foreign literature located in the center of Barcelona. I was looking for a copy of Ulysses by James Joyce. While I was rummaging through the shelves, my attention was taken by a group of black-and-white photographs hanging above the bookcase. They were pictures of famous authors, and there between Sartre and Camus – I trembled when I saw it – hung a photo of one with a completely shaven head smoking a Cuban cigar.”

 

 

Walid Soliman (Tunis, 11 april 1975)

 

 

De Hongaarse dichter Attila József werd geboren op 11 april 1905 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Attila Józsefop dit blog.

 

By the Danube

 

1.

As Isat on the bottom step of the wharf,
A melon-rind flowed by with the current;
Wrapped in my fate I hardly heard the chatter
Of the surface, while the deep was silent.
As if my own heart had opened its gate:
The Danube was turbulent, wise and great.

Like a man’s muscles when hard at his toil,
Hammering, digging, leaning on the spade,
So bulged and relaxed and contracted again
Each single movement, each and every wave.
It rocked me like my mother for a time
And washed and washed the city’s filth and grime.

And the rain began to fall but then it stopped
Just as if it couldn’t have mattered less,
And like one watching the long rain from a cave,
I gazed away into the nothingness.
Like grey, endless rain from the skies overcast,
So fell drably all that was bright: the past.

But the Danube flowed on. And the sprightly waves
In playful gaiety laughed at me again,
Like a child on his prolific mother’s knee,
While other thoughts were racing through her brain.
They trembled in Time’s flow and in its wake,
Like in a graveyard tottering tomb-stones shake.

 

 

Vertaald door John Székely

 

 

 

Attila József (11 april 1905 – 3 december 1937)

Standbeeld in Boedapest

 

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 11e april ook mijn blog van 11 april 2012 deel 2.