De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver William Saroyan werd geboren op 31 augustus 1908 in Fresno, Californië. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor William Saroyan op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Human Comedy

 

“Dear Homer: First of all. everything of mine at home is yours – to give to Ulysses when you no longer want them : my books, my phonogram, my records, my clothes when you’re ready to fit into them, my bycicle, my microscope, my fishing tackle, my collection of rocks from Piedra, and all the other things of mine at home. They’re yours because you are now the man of the Macauley family of Ithaca. The money I made last year at the packing house I have given to Ma of course, to help out. It is not nearly enough, though. I don’t know how you are going to be able to keep our family together and go to high school at the same time, But I believe you will find a way. My army pay goes to Ma, except for a few dollars that I must have, but this money is not enough either. It isn’t easy for me to hope for so much from you, when I myself did not begin to work until I was 19, but somehow I believe that you will be able to do what I didn’t do.

I miss you of course and I think of you all the time. I am OK and even though I have never believed in wars – and know them foolish even when they are necessary – I am proud that I am involved, since so many others are and this is what’s happening. I do not recognize any enemy which is human, for no human being can be my enemy. Whoever he is, he is my friend. My quarrel is not with him, but with that unfortunate part of him which I seek to destroy in myself first.

I do not feel like a hero. I have no talent for such feelings. I hate no one. I do not feel patriotic either, for I have always loved my country, its people, its towns, my home, and my family. I would rather I were not in the Army. I would rather there were no War. I have no idea what is ahead, but whatever it is I am resigned and ready for it.

I’m terribly afraid – I must tell you this – but I believe that when the time comes I shall do what is right for me. I shall obey no command other than the command of my own heart.”

 

 

 

William Saroyan (31 augustus 1908 – 18 mei 1981)

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De Duitse dichter en schrijver Wolfgang Hilbig werd geboren in Meuselwitz op 31 augustus 1941. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2009.

Mittag

Balance der eingelegten reglos ruhenden Ruder
von denen blendend weiße Tropfen fallen
auf den zitternden Spiegel der See
in der unwirklichen Stille des lotrechten Lichts –
während in der Tiefe die Nacht sich wälzt mit ihrem Gewürm –
o dieser Augenblick im Gleichgewicht der den Atem anhält
bevor das Bild kentert.

 

Hinter Mir

Hinter meiner Mauer
im Rücken meiner Undurchdringlichkeit
im Licht
drehen sich Gottes Spielzeuge um sich selbst …
Hinter mir diese Karusselle von Desastern: grell bemalt
und von den blauen Netzen der Sonne verhüllt
und fern in verstockter Musik.

 

Matière de la poésie

Das Meer verhüllt von Licht: verhüllt von Helligkeit …
im Sinn von Licht: ein Lilienweiß um nichts zu sein
als Weiß der Lilien – und Meer um nichts als Meer
zu sein und ohne Maß: und Mond-Abwesenheit –
welch Leuchten das seine langer Überfahrt antritt
und jedes Land vergisst auf nichts bedacht als Ewigkeit –
das Meer: das nicht mehr Tag noch Nacht ist sondern Zeit.

 

Wolfgang Hilbig (31 augustus 1941 – 2 juni 2007)

 

 De Amerikaanse dichter, criticus en tijdschriftredacteur Raymond P. Hammond werd geboren op 31 augustus 1964 in Roanoke, Virginia. Hij volgde William Packard op bij de New York Quarterly na diens overlijden in 2002. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2009.

 

I love how the snow slightly

I love how the snow slightly
salts on shoulders, in hair
of the darkly draped women
whose sole earlier accent
of color was powder blue
pink, red, green, fuchsia scarves, hats
a contrast of dark to light
daguerreotype to color
old, young, ancient to modern
a colorized timelessness
of vision that I can pass
through and get chillingly wet

 

Crows Crouched

Crows crouched
on Southern Crosses
erected by some other
crazy christian

whose pyrrhic vision
told him to paint
the two smaller ones blue
and the center one gold

whose base is now rotten
and leaning toward
the theif who didn’t
repent

Richard of St. Victor’s
dark and fluttering souls
held fast
to this earth
by the weightless
gravity of sin

Raymond P. Hammond (Roanoke, 31 augustus 1964)

 

De Engelse schrijfster Elizabeth von Arnim werd op 31 augustus 1866 geboren in Kirribilli Point in de buurt van Sydney. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2009.

Uit: The Enchanted April

„It began in a Woman’s Club in London on a February afternoon–an uncomfortable club, and a miserable afternoon–when Mrs. Wilkins, who had come down from Hampstead to shop and had lunched at her club, took up The Times from the table in the smoking-room, and running her listless eye down the Agony Column saw this:

To Those Who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small mediaeval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be Let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, Box 1000, The Times.

That was its conception; yet, as in the case of many another, the conceiver was unaware of it at the moment.

So entirely unaware was Mrs. Wilkins that her April for that year had then and there been settled for her that she dropped the newspaper with a gesture that was both irritated and resigned, and went over to the window and stared drearily out at the dripping street.

Not for her were mediaeval castles, even those that are specially described as small. Not for her the shores in April of the Mediterranean, and the wisteria and sunshine. Such delights were only for the rich. Yet the advertisement had been addressed to persons who appreciate these things, so that it had been, anyhow addressed too to her, for she certainly appreciated them; more than anybody knew; more than she had ever told. But she was poor. In the whole world she possessed of her very own only ninety pounds, saved from year to year, put by carefully pound by pound, out of her dress allowance. She had scraped this sum together at the suggestion of her husband as a shield and refuge against a rainy day. Her dress allowance, given her by her father, was L100 a year, so that Mrs. Wilkins’s clothes were what her husband, urging her to save, called modest and becoming, and her acquaintance to each other, when they spoke of her at all, which was seldom for she was very negligible, called a perfect sight.

Mr. Wilkins, a solicitor, encouraged thrift, except that branch of it which got into his food. He did not call that thrift, he called it bad housekeeping. But for the thrift which, like moth, penetrated into Mrs. Wilkins’s clothes and spoilt them, he had much praise. “You never know,” he said, “when there will be a rainy day, and you may be very glad to find you have a nest-egg. Indeed we both may.”

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 augustus 1866 – 9 februari 1941)
Cover

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Saroyan werd geboren op 31 augustus 1908 in Fresno,Californië. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006  Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2009.

Uit: One Day in the Afternoon of the World

“You didn’t come to New York to tell the man you don’t want to make a deal, did you?”

“I came to New York because he sent me a check for a thousand dollars, with no strings attached. I came to meet him, to hear him out, to examine the contract.”

“What kind of contract do you want?”

“What kind does he want? This is his idea, not mine. All he’s got to do is put a deal in writing. All I’ve got to do is read it carefully and say yes or no. I made that very clear in my letter.”

“What about the play?”

“What about it?”

“What kind of a play is it going to be?”

“If the contract’s okay, and I sign it, it’s going to be a play that I write.”

“What kind of play, though?”

“The play isn’t written. We’ll know the kind it is when it is written.”

“He wants you to write a play something like one of the plays of Shaw. I forget which one, but he feels you’re the only playwright in the world who can write a play like that.”

“I don’t write a play like a play somebody else once wrote. I write a play, that’s all.”

“Have you got an idea for a play?”

“I don’t need an idea. For fifteen years I’ve written at least one new play a year. I haven’t earned a penny from any of them. You’ve looked up this man in Dun and Bradstreet, and he’s worth a lot of money. He wants me to write a play. He wants me to do something for him, for money, that I do anyway, for no money. I don’t ask him how he’s going to make his next million. I don’t ask him anything. Until you phoned and wired and wrote, and he phoned and wired, I didn’t even know he was alive. Now it turns out he is, and for some reason he wants me to write a play. All he’s got to do is let me see the contract.”

“Suppose you don’t like the contract?”

“I won’t sign it.”

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William Saroyan (31 augustus 1908 – 18 mei 1981)
Portret door Nareh Balian

 

De Franse dichter en schrijver Théophile Gautier werd op 31 augustus 1811 geboren in Tarbes (departement Hautes-Pyrénées). Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006  Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2009.

Albertus, I

Sur le bord d’un canal profond dont les eaux vertes
Dorment, de nénufars et de bateaux couvertes,
Avec ses toits aigus, ses immenses greniers,
Ses tours au front d’ardoise où nichent les cigognes,
Ses cabarets bruyants qui regorgent d’ivrognes,
Est un vieux bourg flamand tel que les peint Teniers.
– Vous reconnaissez-vous ? – Tenez, voilà le saule,
De ses cheveux blafards inondant son épaule
Comme une fille au bain, l’église et son clocher,
L’étang où des canards se pavane l’escadre ;
– Il ne manque vraiment au tableau que le cadre
Avec le clou pour l’accrocher. –

 

Albertus, II

Confort et far-niente ! – toute une poésie
De calme et de bien-être, à donner fantaisie
De s’en aller là-bas être Flamand ; d’avoir
La pipe culottée et la cruche à fleurs peintes,
Le vidrecome large à tenir quatre pintes,
Comme en ont les buveurs de Brawer, et le soir
Près du poêle qui siffle et qui détonne, au centre
D’un brouillard de tabac, les deux mains sur le ventre,
Suivre une idée en l’air, dormir ou digérer,
Chanter un vieux refrain, porter quelque rasade,
Au fond d’un de ces chauds intérieurs, qu’Ostade
D’un jour si doux sait éclairer !

 

Théophile Gautier (31 augustus 1811 – 23 oktober 1872)
Portret door Auguste de Châtilon

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Wolfgang Hilbig werd geboren in Meuselwitz op 31 augustus 1941.

 

Palimpsest     

 

Die Klage? – Sie liegt still über den Dächern im August –

wir haben sie nicht vernommen sie hat uns vernommen.

Lautlos haben sich die Tage geordnet: sie schwimmen

weit hinaus der Sommer ist entlassen aus der Macht.

Ein Sprung ein unsichtbarer Haarriss im Azur

hoch über uns: mißtönend Glas

                                           Ein Sicheln von Zikaden

hoch über uns im verschleuderten Licht …

vorbei das Jahrhundert mehr als hundert Jahre alt –

das Jahrhundert der Männer: am Ende verkommen

zu Neurasthenie. Der Rubikon ist überschritten!

 

Und bald gehört die Stadt den Stimmen unbekannter Sterne –

Der Hafen glimmt: ein Licht zur Ausfahrt angeschirrt …

Ausfahrt unentwegt wenn das Jahr zu enden anfängt

Bei Tag und Nacht herrscht aufgeräumte Fahrt von Farben

Ausfahrt von Sonnen still über den Dächern im August

Sommers Ausfahrt all jene erbleichenden Bläuen hinab

Und über die maßlosen Wasserfälle der Horizonte hinab –

o diese Gleitbahnen der Zeit diese unsichtbaren Ränder

hoch über uns in der großen Lichtvergeudung vor Abend –

und wir allein sind festgemacht in unentwegter Flaute:

wir haben die Klage den sterblichen Göttern überlassen.

 

 

 

Hier ist der Hafen ohne Hoffnung auf die Wiederkehr der Schiffe –

August vorbei

                      o noch ein letzter Tag vor dem September

der eintrifft wie ein Abend in wüster Verstimmung

dessen Sonne noch einmal die Zwietracht von Anfängen sät –

Anfänge die in schneller Flucht durch alle Flure eilen

ein Ende suchend in der Wirrsal von Treppenhäusern ohne Mitte

vor dem Rotbraun von Brandmauern aufgetakelt mit Schrott

wo wir entmannt sind festgemacht im Staub der Etagen

und es tritt der Mond auf oben am
Rand des Jahrhunderts

konturlos glimmend

                                 ein optischer Zufall vor Nachtbeginn –

und nun hebt ein toter Baum seine Kandelaber herauf

und zündet sich an: die schwarze Explosion des September

unaufhörlich in den Hinterhöfen tief wie Brunnen ohne Widerhall.

 

Ach welch düsteres Geäderzeichen für das Jahrhundert –

dieser Gespensterbaum dieser entgeisterte Illuminator

der jetzt die Lichter der Sterne anbrennt vielarmig verzweigt

dem Ende des Sommers zu leuchten dem Ende der mannhaften Fahrt.

Und er schreibt seine unlesbaren Runen in den leeren Azur …

Umschrift des Sommers

                                 Sie bedeckt den Kurs der Männer

Löst auf der Sonne Ausgeburt entmachtet Ziel und Klage …

Wir haben sie den Zikaden überlassen dem irren Abhub ihres Lieds –

Der Rubikon ist überschritten.

 

 

Dunstküste. Lautlos ziehn die Tage im Geleit.

Sie schwinden weit ins Offne mit dem Strom. Am Abend

Das flüchtige Gelichter der Wasser. Davor ein Baum im Rauch

Im kurzen Atem der Zikaden die sich widerrufen.

Und dann die Nacht in der wir nicht mehr sichtbar sind.

 

Wolfgang Hilbig (31 augustus 1941 – 2 juni 2007)

 

 

 De Amerikaanse dichter, criticus en tijdschriftredacteur Raymond P. Hammond werd geboren op 31 augustus 1964 in Roanoke, Virginia. Hij volgde William Packard op bij de New York Quarterly na diens overlijden in 2002.

 

Uit: The New York Quarterly, Number 64

 

“Poetry proved upon the pulses, the pulse of life, the pulse of the l
ife of the poet. How can one experience a poem if the poet has not experienced life? One of the greatest achievements of the last thirty some years of The New York Quarterly is the close association of its poets and poetry to the real world. The vast majority of the poems published in The New York Quarterly over those years were born in the dirt, grime or rainbow of reality. The poets have come from diverse backgrounds and experiences: from postal workers, like Bukowski, to lawyers, to cops, to factory workers, to strippers, to housewives; real people leading real lives.
In his Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke admonishes: “Write about what your everyday life offers you,” but then he goes on to interject, “if your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself.” We have as much responsibility to live a life to “the ripest, fullest experience that one is capable,” as John Keats said, as we do to writing the best poetry. In fact, the two are inseparable.
To be a poet like Archilochos who, as a mercenary, led troops into battle only to leave his shield behind and then write a poem about it:

Some Saian mountaineer
Struts today with my shield.
I threw it down by a bush and ran
When the fighting got hot.
Life seemed somehow more precious.
It was a beautiful shield.
I know where I can buy another
Exactly like it, just as round.

To know that life is precious, poetry is precious, and when to fight and when to run! To be the Renaissance of Renaissance. Not just to write a poem to be writing a poem, but to write the poetry of poetry, to be a man or woman among mankind. As William Packard always reminded us, Aeschylus’s epitaph only mentioned his bravery at the Battle of Marathon—not that he was a great playwright.
Keeping our poetry and ourselves real, having lives, living them, remembering that the sunset, sunrise, midday on a Manhattan sidewalk, the human touch of the one true lover, a major league baseball game, children, dogs barking in the alleyway, a dying father, scuba diving, working overtime, seafoam, moonbeams, dirty jobs, filthier sex, duty – are all poetry in and of themselves. It is up to us, the poets, to glean the beauty.
And then write.”

 

Raymond P. Hammond (Roanoke, 31 augustus 1964)
Boekomslag (Geen porttret beschikbaar)

 

 

De Engelse schrijfster Elizabeth von Arnim werd op 31 augustus 1866 geboren in Kirribilli Point in de buurt van Sydney.

 

Uit: The Solitary Summer

 

„May 2nd.—Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, “I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if any one calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick. I shall spend the months in the garden, and on the plain, and in the forests. I shall watch the things that happen in my garden, and see where I have made mistakes. On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forests, where the pine needles are everlastingly dry, and when the sun shines I’ll lie on the heath and see how the broom flares against the clouds. I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no one to worry me. Out there on the plain there is silence, and where there is silence I have discovered there is peace.”

“Mind you do not get your feet damp,” said the Man of Wrath, removing his cigar.

It was the evening of May Day, and the spring had taken hold of me body and soul. The sky was full of stars, and the garden of scents, and the borders of wallflowers and sweet, sly pansies. All day there had been a breeze, and all day slow masses of white clouds had been sailing across the blue. Now it was so still, so motionless, so breathless, that it seemed as though a quiet hand had been laid on the garden, soothing and hushing it into silence.

The Man of Wrath sat at the foot of the verandah steps in that placid after-dinner mood which suffers fools, if not gladly, at least indulgently, and I stood in front of him, leaning against the sun-dial.

“Shall you take a book with you?” he asked.

“Yes, I shall,” I replied, slightly nettled by his tone. “I am quite ready to admit that though the fields and flowers are always ready to teach, I am not always in the mood to learn, and sometimes my eyes are incapable of seeing things that at other times are quite plain.”

“And then you read?”

“And then I read. Well, dear Sage, what of that?”

But he smoked in silence, and seemed suddenly absorbed by the stars.

“See,” he said, after a pause, during which I stood looking at him and wishing he would use longer sentences, and he looked at the sky and did not think about me at all, “see how bright the stars are to-night. Almost as though it might freeze.”

 

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 augustus 1866 – 9 februari 1941)

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Saroyan werd geboren op 31 augustus 1908 in Fresno, Californië. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006 

Uit: The Time Of Your Life

 

“In the time of your life, live — so that in good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

 

William Saroyan (31 augustus 1908 – 18 mei 1981)

 

 

De Franse dichter en schrijver Théophile Gautier werd op 31 augustus 1811 geboren in Tarbes (departement Hautes-Pyrénées). Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006 

 

 

A deux beaux yeux

 

Vous avez un regard singulier et charmant ;

Comme la lune au fond du lac qui la reflète,

Votre prunelle, où brille une humide paillette,

Au coin de vos doux yeux roule languissamment ;

 

Ils semblent avoir pris ses feux au diamant ;

Ils sont de plus belle eau qu’une perle parfaite,

Et vos grands cils émus, de leur aile inquiète,

Ne voilent qu’à demi leur vif rayonnement.

 

Mille petits amours, à leur miroir de flamme,

Se viennent regarder et s’y trouvent plus beaux,

Et les désirs y vont rallumer leurs flambeaux.

 

Ils sont si transparents, qu’ils laissent voir votre âme,

Comme une fleur céleste au calice idéal

Que l’on apercevrait à travers un cristal

 

 

La chimère

 

Une jeune chimère, aux lèvres de ma coupe,
Dans l’orgie, a donné le baiser le plus doux
Elle avait les yeux verts, et jusque sur sa croupe
Ondoyait en torrent l’or de ses cheveux roux.

Des ailes d’épervier tremblaient à son épaule
La voyant s’envoler je sautai sur ses reins ;
Et faisant jusqu’à moi ployer sou cou de saule,
J’enfonçai comme un peigne une main dans ses crins.

Elle se démenait, hurlante et furieuse,
Mais en vain. Je broyais ses flancs dans mes genoux ;
Alors elle me dit d’une voix gracieuse,
Plus claire que l’argent : Maître, où donc allons-nous ?

Par-delà le soleil et par-delà l’espace,
Où Dieu n’arriverait qu’après l’éternité ;
Mais avant d’être au but ton aile sera lasse :
Car je veux voir mon rêve en sa réalité.

 

Théophile Gautier (31 augustus 1811 – 23 oktober 1872
Illustratie door Laurent Paturaud

 

Zie voor bovenstaande schrijversook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Wolfgang Hilbig werd geboren in Meuselwitz op 31 augustus 1941. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007.

 

Verlaine

Hingekauert an den schwarzen Beton in Stuttgart in der Fußgängerzone dort wo niemand vorbeikommt wo das käufliche Niemandsvolk in sicherer Entfernung vorbeizieht dort triffst du mich Arthur. Dort siehst du mich: fett und verdreckt Schorf und Kohle im Bart Aussatz auf der Glatze einen schmierigen Rosenkranz in den Pfoten. Und murmelnd zahnlos speichelnd zwischen den versalzenen Lippen:

 

Eine milde Gabe bitte eine milde Gabe bitte … eine milde Gabe für einen Diener Gottes!

 

Und du gibst es mir Arthur du triffst mich und du triffst mich genau. Deine Fäuste schlagen ein dumpf in den Schwamm meines Leibs in den Zunder meiner Visage und ich sehe sie noch einmal leuchten die Sterne. Die schöngefärbten milden Sterne die Schmerzenssterne die mich nie geliebt haben. Süßer Morgenstern Venus ich sehe sie noch einmal strahlen von deinen harten Fäusten Arthur und dann versinke ich in meinem Dasein in die Nacht. Und falle in den bodenlosen Grund des K.o. aus dem man vielleicht nie zurückkommt. Dafür werden sie eine Tafel anbringen an den schwarzen Beton. Viele Jahre nach denen das alles vergessen ist.

 

Nachdem du längst wieder fort bist Arthur Rimbaud und ich allein. Und ich kehre zurück in die Regionen der Wasserlöcher und Straßengräben ins finstere gesträubte Gras das bepisst ist von Hunden und das mein Reich ist.

 

Eine milde Gabe bitte eine milde Gabe für einen Diener Gottes!

 

 

 

Aqua alba

 

Ach, der ganze Garten überschwemmt vom Mond –
und Schwärme von Fischen am Weg
wie Federn leicht wie zuckende Klingen aus Licht.
Sie kennen sich aus sie kennen den Trost
der Gemeinsamkeit.
Und die weißen Hortensien blühen die ganze Nacht –
noch wenn der Mond in seinen Abgrund steigt
leuchten sie weiter: wie Phosphor weiß und grün
und Wassergeister
wenn die Fische durch den Zaun entfliehn
haben endlich Heimstatt hier in diesem Blühn.

 

 

 

Noch

 Ferne Versammlung bleicher Gedanken

die noch schweigen

                                    von alten Grenzen abgeschirmt

vom Grenzenlosen eingeschneit –

von Zeit

            und Wind bestürmt –

noch will sich nicht ihr dunkler Ursprung zeigen.

 

Brennende Schneegestöber flogen durch das Lampenschwanken

und eine Fußspur führte

                                                noch unverloren übers Eis –

nichts von Erinnrung rührte sich im dunklen Weiß.

 

Es war der letzte Schnee aus dem vergangnen Jahr

er stellte nur den Wirbel um sich selber dar

nicht mehr: und nicht mein Ich im weißen Kreis.

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, criticus en tijdschriftredacteur Raymond P. Hammond werd geboren op 31 augustus 1964 in Roanoke, Virginia. Hij volgde William Packard op bij de New York Quarterly na diens overlijden in 2002.

 

 

sitting at 14th and Broadway

 

sitting at 14th and Broadway
staring up at steeple on Grace Church
I often wonder if Pascal smoked
contemplating spires watching smoke

rise like wagering thoughts in white
bursts of heat climbing crockets until
field of vision diminishes to
point of vanishment from earth cross

perched on pyramid sight passes
infinity streaming stratosphere
into nothingness of space and on
and on and on directly to

void of sound, color and reason
uncrossed by paths until it reaches
outer limits of understanding
and intuitively arrives

at same spark in electric thought
that is the origin of our soul

 

 

 

my buddha

 

i met myself
on the road the other day
oh god I was so beautiful
most perfect just as I had
always imagined myself

i pulled a knife
and thrust it into an un-
suspecting heart and as we both
lay dying morning sun glist-
ened on the commingling blood
between

 

Raymond P. Hammond (Roanoke,31 augustus 1964)
„His tree“

 

De Engelse schrijfster Elizabeth von Arnim werd op 31 augustus 1866 geboren in Kirribilli Point in de buurt van Sydney. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007.

 

Uit: The Enchanted April

 

„And behind them, bright in sunshine, were old grey walls–the mediaeval castle –she saw it–they were there . . .

She therefore stared at Mrs. Arbuthnot and did not hear a word she said. And Mrs. Arbuthnot stared too at Mrs. Wilkins, arrested by the expression on her face, which was swept by the excitement of what she saw, and was as luminous and tremulous under it as water in sunlight when it is ruffled by a gust of wind. At this moment, if she had been at a party, Mrs. Wilkins would have been looked at with interest.

They stared at each other; Mrs. Arbuthnot surprised, inquiringly, Mrs. Wilkins with the eyes of some one who has had a revelation. Of course.”

 

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 augustus 1866 – 9 februari 1941)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver William Saroyan werd geboren op 31 augustus 1908 in Fresno, Californië. Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006  en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007.

 

Uit: And Man

„”The truth was secret, God first, the word, the word God, out of all things and beyond, spaceless and timeless, then the void, the silent emptiness, vaster than any mortal mind could conceive, abstract and precise and real and lost, the substance in the emptiness, again precise wand with weight and solidity and form, fire and fluid, and then, walking through the vineyards, I had seen it thus, the whole unverse, quietly there in the mind of man, motionless and dark and lost, waiting for man, for the thought of man, and I felt the stirring of inanimate substance in the earth, and in myself like the swift growth of the summer, life emerging from time, the germ of man springing from the rock and the fire and the fluid to the face of man, and to the form, to the motion and the thought, suddenly in the emptiness, the thought of man, stirring there. And I was man, and this was the truth I had brought of the emptiness, walking alone through the vineyards.
I had seen the universe, quietly in the emptiness, secret, and I had revealed it to itself, giving it meaning and grace and the truth that could come only from the thought and enrgy of man, and the truth was man, myself, moment after moment, and man, centry after centruy, and man, and the face of God in man, and the sound of the laughter of man in the vastness of the secret, and the sound of his weeping in the darkness of it, and the truth was myself and I was man.”

 

William Saroyan (31 augustus 1908 – 18 mei 1981)

 

De Franse dichter en schrijver Théophile Gautier werd op 31 augustus 1811 geboren in Tarbes (departement Hautes-Pyrénées). Zie ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2006  en ook mijn blog van 31 augustus 2007.

 

Dernier voeu

Voilà longtemps que je vous aime:
– L’aveu remonte à dix-huit ans! –
Vous êtes rose, je suis blême;
J’ai les hivers, vous les printemps.

Des lilas blancs de cimetière
Près de mes tempes ont fleuri;
J’aurai bientôt la touffe entière
Pour ombrager mon front flétri.

Mon soleil pâli qui décline
Va disparaître à l’horizon,
Et sur la funèbre colline
Je vois ma dernière maison.

Oh! que de votre lèvre il tombe
Sur ma lèvre un tardif baiser,
Pour que je puisse dans ma tombe,
Le coeur tranquille, reposer!

 

LIED

Au mois d'avril, la terre est rose 
Comme la jeunesse et l'amour; 
Pucelle encore, à peine elle ose 
Payer le Printemps de retour. 

Au mois de juin, déjà plus pâle 
Et le coeur de désir troublé, 
Avec l'Eté tout brun de hâle 
Elle se cache dans le blé. 

Au mois d'août, bacchante enivrée, 
Elle offre à l'Automne son sein, 
Et, roulant sur la peau tigrée, 
Fait jaillir le sang du raisin. 

En décembre, petite vieille, 
Par les frimas poudrée à blanc, 
Dans ses rêves elle réveille 
L'Hiver auprès d'elle ronflant