De Engelse dichter Walter John de la Mare werd geboren op 25 april 1873 in Charlton, Kent. Zie ook alle tags voor Walter John de la Mare op dit blog.
John Mouldy
I spied John Mouldy in his celler,
Deep down twenty steps of stone;
In the dusk he sat a-smiling
Smiling there all alone.
He read no book, he snuffed no candle;
The rats ran in, the rats ran out,
And far and near, the drip of water
Went whisp’ring about.
The dusk was still, with dew a-falling,
I saw the Dog-star bleak and grim,
I saw a slim brown rat of Norway
Creep over him.
I spied John Mouldy in his celler,
Deep down twenty steps of stone;
In the dusk he sat a-smiling
Smiling there all alone.
Brueghel’s Winter
Jagg’d mountain peaks and skies ice-green
Wall in the wild, cold scene below.
Churches, farms, bare copse, the sea
In freezing quiet of winter show;
Where ink-black shapes on fields in flood
Curling, skating, and sliding go.
To left, a gabled tavern; a blaze;
Peasants; a watching child; and lo,
Muffled, mute–beneath naked trees
In sharp perspective set a-row–
Trudge huntsmen, sinister spears aslant,
Dogs snuffling behind them in the snow;
And arrowlike, lean, athwart the air
Swoops into space a crow.
But flame, nor ice, nor piercing rock,
Nor silence, as of a frozen sea,
Nor that slant inward infinite line
Of signboard, bird, and hill, and tree,
Give more than subtle hint of him
Who squandered here life’s mystery.
Walter John de la Mare (25 april 1873 – 22 juni 1956)
De Engelse dichter, schrijver, criticus en letterkundige James Fenton werd geboren op 25 april 1949 in Lincoln. Zie ook alle tags voor James Fenton op dit blog.
A German Requiem (Fragment)
It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It is the spaces in between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.
It is not your memories which haunt you.
It is not what you have written down.
It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.
And with any luck oblivion should discover a ritual.
You will find out that you are not alone in the enterprise.
Yesterday the very furniture seemed to reproach you.
Today you take your place in the Widow’s Shuttle.
*
The bus is waiting at the southern gate
To take you to the city of your ancestors
Which stands on the hill opposite, with gleaming pediments,
As vivid as this charming square, your home.
Are you shy? You should be. It is almost like a wedding,
The way you clasp your flowers and give a little tug at your veil. Oh,
The hideous bridesmaids, it is natural that you should resent them
Just a little, on this first day.
But that will pass, and the cemetery is not far.
Here comes the driver, flicking a toothpick into the gutter,
His tongue still searching between his teeth.
See, he has not noticed you. No one has noticed you.
It will pass, young lady, it will pass.
*
How comforting it is, once or twice a year,
To get together and forget the old times.
As on those special days, ladies and gentlemen,
When the boiled shirts gather at the graveside
And a leering waistcoast approaches the rostrum.
It is like a solemn pact between the survivors.
They mayor has signed it on behalf of the freemasonry.
The priest has sealed it on behalf of all the rest.
Nothing more need be said, and it is better that way-
James Fenton (Lincoln, 25 april 1949)
De Amerikaanse dichter Ted Kooser werd geboren op 25 april 1939 in Ames, Iowa. Zie ook alle tags voor Ted Kooser op dit blog.
Porch Swing in September
The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.
Dishwater
Slap of the screen door, flat knock
of my grandmother’s boxy black shoes
on the wooden stoop, the hush and sweep
of her knob-kneed, cotton-aproned stride
out to the edge and then, toed in
with a furious twist and heave,
a bridge that leaps from her hot red hands
and hangs there shining for fifty years
over the mystified chickens,
over the swaying nettles, the ragweed,
the clay slope down to the creek,
over the redwing blackbirds in the tops
of the willows, a glorious rainbow
with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.
Ted Kooser (Ames, 25 april 1939)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Ross Franklin Lockridge Jr. werd geboren op 25 april 1914 in Bloomington, Indiana. Zie ook alle tags voor Ross Franklin Lockridge Jr.op dit blog.
Uit: Raintree County
„The death of fathers is a common theme, but the suicide on Saturday evening, March 6, 1948, of Ross Lockridge, Jr., author of the novel Raintree County, was improbable enough to be the subject of many editorials. At his death his novel was first on the New York Herald Tribune’s best-seller list, had won the enormous MGM Novel Award, had been excerpted in Life, and had recently been the Main Selection of Book-of-the-Month Club. He left a wife and four children.
“The death, apparently by suicide, of Ross Lockridge, Jr., author of Raintree County, has stirred a wave of shocked speculation among his countrymen,” noted the Washington Evening Star. “What more, they wonder, could a man ask of life than had been granted this 33-year-old writer, whose first book, an unabashed attempt at the great American novel, brought him wealth and fame and recognition…. Curiously enough, one of the book’s most notable aspects was its staunch repudiation, through its hero, of materialism, its repeated affirmation of faith in the American dream and the American destiny. How did the author lose the hope and optimism expressed by the hero who was presumably his spokesman? . . . We shall never know, since evidently the only testament he left is his questing, vital, sprawling book. He seems to have gained the whole world and then to have wondered what it profited a man. We can only pity the desolation and confusion of his going.”
Ross Franklin Lockridge Jr. (25 april 1914 – 6 maart 1948)
Vader en zoon
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Richard Anders werd geboren op 25 april 1928 in Ortelsburg, tegenwoordig Szczytno, Polen. Zie ook alle tags voor Richard Anders op dit blog.
Sacre du printemps
für Fred Apke
Kurz wie ein Rock ist der Rausch
eine Zunge ohne Gesicht
ein Rätsel das sein Gedächtnis sucht
die Mitternacht zwischen zwei Engeln
wo man Rosen jagt
im Hinterkopf
und lange Blicke
geworfen werden
Du bist hinuntergesprungen
zwischen die Augen
und dein schwarzer Anzug
folgt dir auf dem Fuß
Die Laternen schielen
mit großen Ohren
zu den bewimperten Perlen
die aus der Haut fahren
wie ein Schrei der lautlos
über die Lippen kommt
wenn es im Hitzkopf
von Einfällen hagelt
die im buttrigen Körper
stecken bleiben
der auf flacher
Pfanne schmilzt
Die Spitze einer Flamme
berührt dein Herz
das bis zum zerspringen
in lauter Blutstropfen hämmert
So viel du auch kochst
es wird Spitze sein
landläufig jedenfalls
wie die Esser behaupten
denen die Zungen
auf den Strich gehen
wie geschürte Mädchen
die es in sich haben
Im Frühling wenn Liebe stinkt
Richard Anders (Ortelsburg, 25 april 1928)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 25e april ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.