Dolce far niente
Sommerliche Flusslandschaft door Hans-Richard von Volkmann, 1897
Sommer
Zwischen Roggenfeld und Hecken
Führt ein schmaler Gang;
Süßes, seliges Verstecken
Einen Sommer lang.
Wenn wir uns von ferne sehen,
Zögert sie den Schritt,
Rupft ein Hälmchen sich im Gehen,
Nimmt ein Blättchen mit.
Hat mit Ähren sich das Mieder
Unschuldig geschmückt,
Sich den Hut verlegen nieder
In die Stirn gedrückt.
Finster kommt sie langsam näher,
Färbt sich rot wie Mohn;
Doch ich bin ein feiner Späher,
Kenn die Schelmin schon.
Noch ein Blick in Weg und Weite,
Ruhig liegt die Welt,
Und es hat an ihre Seite
Mich der Sturm gestellt.
Zwischen Roggenfeld und Hecken
Führt ein schmaler Gang;
Süßes, seliges Verstecken
Einen Sommer lang.
Detlev von Liliencron (3 juni 1875 – 22 juli 1909)
Kiel, Bootshafen. Detlev von Liliencron werd in Kiel geboren.
De Indische schrijver Vikram Seth werd geboren op 20 juni 1952 in Kolkata. Zie ook alle tags voor Vikram Seth op dit blog.
The Golden Gate – I (A Novel In Verse, fragment)
1.1.
To make a start more swift and weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John.
Successful in his field though only
Twenty-six, respected, lonely,
One evening as he walked across
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss
Of a red frisbee almost brained him.
He thought, “Who’d gloat? Who would be glad?
Would anybody? ” As it pained him,
He turned from this dispiriting theme
To ruminations less extreme.
1.2.
He tuned his thoughts to electronic
Circuitry. This soothed his mind.
He left irregular (moronic)
Sentimentality behind.
He thought of or-gates and of and-gates,
Of ROMs, of nor-gates, and of nand-gates,
Of nanoseconds, megabytes,
And bits and nibbles… but as flights
Of silhouetted birds move cawing
Across the pine-serrated sky,
Dragged from his cove, not knowing why,
He feels an urgent riptide drawing
Him far out, where, caught in the kelp
Of loneliness, he cries for help.
1.3.
John’s looks are good. His dress is formal.
His voice is low. His mind is sound.
His appetite for work’s abnormal.
A plastic name tag hangs around
His collar like a votive necklace.
Though well-paid, he is far from reckless,
Pays his rent promptly, jogs, does not
Smoke cigarettes, and rarely pot,
Eschews both church and heavy drinking,
Enjoys his garden, like to read
Eclectically from Mann to Bede.
(A surrogate, some say, for thinking.)
friends claim he’s grown aloof and prim.
(His boss, though, is well-pleased with him.)
Vikram Seth (Kolkata, 20 juni 1952)
De Ierse dichter en schrijver Paul Muldoon werd geboren in Portadown, County Armagh, in Noord-Ierland op 20 juni 1951, Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Muldoon op dit blog
The Old Country (Fragment)
I
Where every town was a tidy town
and every garden a hanging garden.
A half could be had for half a crown.
Every major artery would harden
since every meal was a square meal.
Every clothesline showed a line of undies
yet no house was in dishabille.
Every Sunday took a month of Sundays
till everyone got it off by heart
every start was a bad start
since all conclusions were foregone.
Every wood had its twist of woodbine.
Every cliff its herd of fatalistic swine.
Every runnel was a Rubicon.
II
Every runnel was a Rubicon
and every annual a hardy annual
applying itself like linen to a lawn.
Every glove compartment held a manual
and a map of the roads, major and minor.
Every major road had major roadworks.
Every wishy-washy water diviner
had stood like a bulwark
against something worth standing against.
The smell of incense left us incensed
at the firing of the fort.
Every heron was a presager
of some disaster after which, we’d wager,
every resort was a last resort.
III
Every resort was a last resort
with a harbor that harbored an old grudge.
Every sale was a selling short.
There were those who simply wouldn’t budge
from the Dandy to the Rover.
That shouting was the shouting
but for which it was all over—
the weekend, I mean, we set off on an outing
with the weekday train timetable.
Every tower was a tower of Babel
that graced each corner of a bawn
where every lookout was a poor lookout.
Every rill had its unflashy trout.
Every runnel was a Rubicon.
Paul Muldoon (Portadown, 20 juni 1951)
Zie voor meer schrijvers van de 20e juni ook mijn blog van 20 juni 2016 en ook mijn blog van 20 juni 2015 deel 2.