Pé Hawinkels, Hristo Smirnenski, Elizabeth Gaskell, Miguel de Unamuno

De Nederlandse dichter, schrijver, songwriter en vertaler Pé Hawinkels werd geboren op 29 september 1942 in Heerlen. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Pé Hawinkels op dit blog.

 

Back (in your love)

when the wind is crawlin’
at my basement floor
and the rats are runnin’ round
tryin’ to get underneath my chamber door
anything I can think of
won’t seem to be enough

when I smell the stench
of your sweatstained sheet
and I see this french chick lickin’ my speed
friends with your daddy & your dog
it won’t seem to be enough

when the snow is wettin’
my old wooden chair
and the crabs are paddin’& runnin’ around
in my pubic hair
anything I can think of
won’t seem to be enough

damn this cruel November
days shift into nights
I wish I could remember
how you drifted from my sight
anything I can think of
won’t seem to be enough

when all my old sollicitors
come around, only have needles for a pay
and all me brand-new visitors
only have spoons to give away
anything, anything
won’t seem to be enough

all my precious pleasures
she took away with all her charms
and all my solitary treasures
made a strainer of my arms
friends with your daddy & your dog
that won’t seem to be enough

when the wind is crawlin’
at my basement floor
and the rats are tryin’
to get underneath my chamber door
anything I can think of
never seems to be enough

 

(Tekst: Pé Hawinkels, Muziek: Herman Brood)



Pé Hawinkels (29 september 1942 – 16 augustus 1977)

Cover van een Hawinkels bundel

 

De Bulgaarse dichter en schrijver Hristo Smirnenski werd geboren op 29 september 1898 in Koukoush. Zie ook ook mijn blog van 29 september 2006 en ook mijn blog van 29 september 2009 en ook mijn blog van 29 september 2010

A youth

I do not know why I was born into this world,

I do not ask why I shall die.

When I was born the delicate May morn unfurled

its flowery freshness to the eye.

I greeted youthful Spring, I greeted vernal youth

and opened eager eyes to see

how life would come to me, beautiful and smooth,

amid a joyous rhapsody.

But no, I wasn’t hailed by Spring with merry sounds

and showers of fragrant petals,

instead, a villain met me with a pack of hounds

to put my hands and feet in fetters.

Through clouds of fiendish greed and wicked spite,

a sinister shadow crept near,

a gold-armoured monster reared his height

dripping with blood and human tears.

In the falling gloom loomed faces pale and lea,

I heard laments in plaintive strains

and threats to repay for pain and vileness mean,

I also heard the clatter of chains.

I recognized my brothers who were kept enslaved

by the ungodly god of gold,

I saw the spirit of man: abased, depraved

and crucified a thousandfold.

I cried out in iron words and wrathful indignation:

May this be the dire day of doom!

The day of ruin and of new creation!

May fires blaze in this icy gloom!

May this, our earth, begin a fiery feast!

May the thunder roll and glow!

The slaves will unite to fight the monstrous beast,

and hurricanes of souls will blow!

I’ll raise the banner of brotherhood unfurled,

and I will keep it flying high,

and then I’ll know why I’ve come into the world,

I’ll also know for what to die.

 

Hristo Smirnenski (29 september 1898 – 18 juni 1923)

Standbeeld in Yambol

 

De Britse schrijfster Elizabeth Gaskell werd geboren op 29 september 1810 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Eilzabeth Gaskell op dit blog.

 

Uit: Mary Barton

„There are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as “Green Heys Fields,” through which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant.In spite of these fields being flat, and low, nay, in spite of the want of wood (the great and usual recommendation of level tracts of land), there is a charm about them which strikes even the inhabitant of a mountainous district, who sees and feels the effect of contrast in these commonplace but thoroughly rural fields, with the busy, bustling manufacturing town he left but half-an-hour ago.Here and there an old black and white farmhouse, with its rambling outbuildings, speaks of other times and other occupations than those which now absorb the population of the neighbourhood.Here in their seasons may be seen the country business of haymaking, ploughing, etc., which are such pleasant mysteries for townspeople to watch: and here the artisan, deafened with noise of tongues and engines, may come to listen awhile to the delicious sounds of rural life: the lowing of cattle, the milkmaid’s call, the clatter and cackle of poultry in the farmyards.You cannot wonder, then, that these fields are popular places of resort at every holiday time; and you would not wonder, if you could see, or I properly describe, the charm of one particular stile, that it should be, on such occasions, a crowded halting place.Close by it is a deep, clear pond, reflecting in its dark green depths the shadowy trees that bend over it to exclude the sun.The only place where its banks are shelving is on the side next to a rambling farmyard, belonging to one of those old world, gabled, black and white houses I named above, overlooking the field through which the public footpath leads.The porch of this farmhouse is covered by a rose-tree; and the little garden surrounding it is crowded with a medley of old-fashioned herbs and flowers, planted long ago, when the garden was the only druggist’s shop within reach, and allowed to grow in scrambling and wild luxuriance–roses, lavender, sage, balm (for tea), rosemary, pinks and wallflowers, onions and jessamine, in most republican and indiscriminate order.“

 

Elizabeth Gaskell (29 september 1810 – 12 november 1865)

Rond 1860

 


De Spaanse dichter en filosoof
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo werd geboren op 29 september 1864 in Bilbao. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo op dit blog.

 

Uit: Mist (Vertaald door Warner Fite)

“”Very well, then. The truth is, my dear Augusto,” I spoke to him the softest of tones, “you can’t kill yourself because you are not alive; and you are not alive—or dead either—because you do not exist.”
“I don’t exist! What do you mean by that?”
“No, you do not exist except as a fictitious entity, a character of fiction. My poor Augusto, you are only a product of my imagination and of the imagination of those of my readers who read this story which I have written of your fictitious adventures and misfortunes. You are nothing more than a personage in a novel, or a nivola, or whatever you choose to call it. Now, then, you know your secret.”
Upon hearing this the poor man continued to look at me for a while with one of those perforating looks that seem to pierce your own gaze and go beyond; presently he glanced for a moment at the portrait in oil which presides over my books, then his colour returned and his breathing became easier, and gradually recovering, he was again master of himself. He rested his elbows on the arm of the sofa opposite me, against which he was leaning; and then with his face in the palms of his hands he looked at me with a smile and he said slowly:
“Listen to me, Don Miguel—it can’t be that you are mistaken, and that what is happening is precisely the contrary of what you think and of what you have told me?”
“And what do you mean by the contrary?” I asked, rather alarmed to see him regaining his self-possession.
“May it not be, my dear Don Miguel,” he continued, “that it is you and not I who are the fictitious entity, the one that does not really exist, who is neither living nor dead? May it not be that you are nothing more than a pretext for bringing my history into the world?”

 


Miguel de Unamuno (29 september 1864 – 31 december 1936)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 29e september ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.