De Duits-Roemeense dichter Paul Celan werd onder de naam Paul Antschel op 23 november 1920 geboren in Czernowitz, toentertijd de hoofdstad van de Roemeense Boekovina, nu behorend bij de Oekraïne. Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Celan op dit blog.
Aus Herzen und Hirnen
sprießen die Halme der Nacht,
und ein Wort, von Sensen gesprochen,
neigt sie ins Leben.
Stumm wie sie
wehn wir der Welt entgegen:
unsere Blicke,
getauscht, um getröstet zu sein,
tasten sich vor,
winken uns dunkel heran.
Blicklos
schweigt nun dein Aug in mein Aug sich,
wandernd
heb ich dein Herz an die Lippen,
hebst du mein Herz an die deinen:
was wir jetzt trinken,
stillt den Durst der Stunden;
was wir jetzt sind,
schenken die Stunden der Zeit ein.
Munden wir ihr?
Kein Laut und kein Licht
schlüpft zwischen uns, es zu sagen.
O Halme, ihr Halme.
Ihr Halme der Nacht.
ZWIEGESTALT
Laß dein Aug in der Kammer sein eine Kerze,
den Blick einen Docht,
laß mich blind genug sein,
ihn zu entzünden.
Nein.
Laß anderes sein.
Tritt vor dein Haus,
schirr deinen scheckigen Traum an,
laß seine Hufe reden
zum Schnee, den du fortbliest
vom First meiner Seele.
AUS VERLORNEM Gegossene du,
maskengerecht,
die Lid-
falte entlang
mit der eignen
Lidfalte dir nah sein,
die Spur und die Spur
mit Grauem bestreun,
endlich, tödlich
VRIJGEGEVEN ook deze
start.
Neuswielgezang met
corona.
Het schemerroer reageert,
jouw wakker-
gescheurde ader
raakt uit de knoop,
wat je nog bent, gaat schuin liggen,
je wint aan
hoogte.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Gayl Jones werd geboren op 23 november 1949 in Lexington, Kentucky. Zie ook alle tags voor Gayl Jones op dit blog.
Uit: The Healing
“I open a tin of Spirit of Scandinavia sardines, floating in mustard sauce. The woman on the bus beside me grunts and leans toward the aisle. She’s a smallish, youngish, short-haired woman, small Gypsy earrings in her ears, looks kinda familiar. I offer her some of them sardines, but she grunts and leans farther toward the aisle. I nibble the sardines with one of those small plastic forks and stare out the window. The sun hitting the window makes a rainbow across a field of straw pyramids. There’s a few horses and cows grazing in the meadow, a whitewashed barn and a farmhouse, one of them three-story farmhouses, and there’s one of them little tinroofed sheds built onto the farmhouse. It looks like one of them painted scenes, you know the sorta landscape paintings you can buy at them flea markets. Or the sort of landscapes that you see on television, where the different artists teach you how to paint pictures. You can learn how to paint pictures in oil or watercolor, and they teach you the secrets of painting and make it seem like almost anyone can be an artist, at least be able to paint pictures in their style of painting. A Bible’s open in my lap. I’m holding it cater-cornered, trying to keep the sardine oil off the pages, or the mustard sauce. When I finish the tin of sardines, I drink the mustard sauce. The woman beside me grunts again. I glance over at her, at them Gypsy earrings. She’s got smallish, almost perfect-shaped ears, and is a little but full-mouthed woman. Most people likes sardines, or likes the taste of them sardines, but maybe she thinks it’s too countrified to be eating them sardines on the Greyhound bus, even Spirit of Scandinavia sardines. Ever since I seen that movie about the middle passage, though, and they talked about them Africans coming to the New World being packed in them slave ships like sardines in a can, and even showed a drawing of them Africans, that’s supposed to be a famous drawing, so every time I eat sardines I think of that. Of course, I still likes the taste of that, and I don’t think she refuse them sardines on account of that metaphor, though, ’cause I’m sure there’s plenty of people eats sardines and don’t think of that metaphor. I deposit the tin in a plastic bag that’s already brimming with paper cups, Coke cans, and crumbled paper napkins, then I open a bag of corn tortillas, you know the ones usedta use the bandito to advertise themselves, till the Mexican-American people protested about that bandito, though I remember hearing a song once about a real bandito, not one of those commercialized banditos, but one of those social bandits that the people themselves sing about, like they’re heroes.”
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 23e november ook mijn blog van 23 november 2018 en eveneens mijn blog van 23 november 2014 deel 2.