Dolce far niente, Lydia Sigourney, Irvine Welsh, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Ignace Schretlen, Nate Pritts

Dolce far niente

 

 
Indian Summer door Victor Coleman Anderson (1882 – 1937), z.j.

 

Indian Summer

When was the redman’s summer?
When the rose
Hung its first banner out? When the gray rock,
Or the brown heath, the radiant kalmia clothed?
Or when the loiterer by the reedy brooks
Started to see the proud lobelia glow
Like living flame? When through the forest gleamed
The rhododendron? Or the fragrant breath
Of the magnolia swept deliciously
Over the half-laden nerve?
No. When the groves
In fleeting colours wrote their own decay,
And leaves fell eddying on the sharpen’d blast
That sang their dirge; when o’er their rustling bed
The red deer sprang, or fled the shrill-voiced quail,
Heavy of wing and fearful; when, with heart
Foreboding or depress’d, the white man mark’d
The signs of coming winter: then began
The Indian’s joyous season. Then the haze,
Soft and illusive as a fairy dream,
Lapp’d all the landscape in its silvery fold.
The quiet rivers, that were wont to hide
‘Neath shelving banks, beheld their course betray’d
By the white mist that o’er their foreheads crept,
While wrapp’d in morning dreams, the sea and sky
Slept ‘neath one curtain, as if both were merged
In the same element. Slowly the sun,
And all reluctantly, the spell dissolved,
And then it took upon its parting wing
A rainbow glory.
Gorgeous was the time
Yet brief as gorgeous. Beautiful to thee,
Our brother hunter, but to us replete
With musing thoughts in melancholy train.
Our joys, alas! too oft were woe to thee.
Yet ah! poor Indian! whom we fain would drive
Both from our hearts, and from thy father’s lands,
The perfect year doth bear thee on its crown,
And when we would forget, repeat thy name

 


Lydia Sigourney (1 september 1791 – 10 juni 1865)
Norwich, Connecticut, de geboorteplaats van Lydia Sigourney op een oude foto

De Schotse schrijver Irvine Welsh werd geboren op 27 september 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh. Zie ook alle tags voor Irvine Welsh op dit blog.

Uit: Glue

“Davie moved into the hall with the stealthy caution of a trench soldier fearful of snipers. – Andrew, he shouted. His son thundered down the stairs, a wiry, charged life-force, sporting the same dark brown hair as Susan’s, but shorn to a minimalist crop, following Davie through to the living room. – Here eh is, he cheerfully announced for Susan’s benefit. Noting that she was studiously ignoring him, he turned to the boy and asked, – Ye still like it up in yir new room?
Andrew looked up at him and then at Susan. – Ah found a book ah never had before, he told them earnestly.
– That’s good, Susan said, moving over and picking a thread from the boy’s striped T-shirt.
Looking up at his father, Andrew asked, – When can ah get a bike, Dad?
– Soon, son, Davie smiled.
– You said when ah went tae school, Andrew said with great sincerity, his large dark eyes fixing on his father’s in a milder form of accusation than Susan’s.
– Ah did, pal, Davie conceded, – and it’s no long now.
A bike? Where was the money coming from for a bloody bike? Susan Galloway thought, shivering to herself as the blazing, sweltering summer sun beat in relentlessly, through the huge windows.
Terry Lawson
The First Day at School
Wee Terry and Yvonne Lawson sat with juice and crisps at a wooden table of the Dell Inn, in the concrete enclosure they called the beer garden. They were looking over the fence at the bottom of the yard, down the steep bank, contemplating the ducks in the Water of Leith. Within a few seconds awe turned to boredom; you could only look at ducks for so long, and Terry had other things on his mind. It had been his first day at school and he hadn’t enjoyed it. Yvonne would go next year. Terry said to her that it wasn’t very good and he’d been frightened but now he was with their Ma, and their Dad was there as well, so it was okay.
Their Ma and Dad were talking and they knew their Ma was angry.
– Well, they heard her ask him, – what is it yuv got tae say?
Terry looked up at his Dad who smiled and winked at him before turning back to address the boy’s mother. – No in front ay the bairns, he said coolly.”


Irvine Welsh (Edinburg, 27 september 1958)

De Nederlandse dichter, performer, journalist en toneelschrijver Ko de Laat werd geboren op 27 september 1969 in Goirle. Zie ook alle tags voor Ko de Laat op dit blog.

Onomkeerbaar september

De scholen zijn nu állemaal begonnen
Het laatste staartje van vakantiepret
Maakt plaats voor de vertrouwde vaste tred
Plichtmatig wordt de weerzin overwonnen

Naar school of werk sjokt héél het peloton
Bij regen, hagel of de laatste zon

 

Onuitwisbaar wazig

Verbanden tussen nachtrust en geheugen
Zijn thans door onderzoekers blootgelegd
Wie langer slaapt onthoudt meer, wordt gezegd
Tenminste, voorzover geheugens deugen

Want hoe men het ook nameet of berekent
Het was voor men het wist vaak al vertekend

 

Monkey Business

Gebarentaal beheerst hij sowieso
En straks leert hij waarschijnlijk converseren
Zo blijft men een gorilla transformeren:
De vlees-noch-vis-noch-aap-noch-mens Koko

Totdat men horen kan of lip kan lezen:
“Rot op en laat mij een gorilla wezen!”

 
Ko de Laat (Goirle, 27 september 1969)

 

De Amerikaanse dichteres Kay Ryan werd geboren op 27september 1945 in San Jose, California. Zie ook alle tags voor Kay Ryan op dit blog.

Repetition

Trying to walk
the same way
to the same store
takes high-wire
balance:
each step
not exactly
as before
risks chasms
of flatness.
One stumble
alone and
nothing
happens.
Few are
the willing
and fewer
the champions.

 

Why we must struggle

“If we have not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us,
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble,
how loss activates
a latent double, how
we can feed
as upon nectar
upon need?”

 
Kay Ryan (San Jose, 27 september 1945)

De Nederlandse dichter, schrijver, kunstenaar en huisarts Ignace Schretlen werd geboren in Tilburg op 27 september 1952. Zie eveneens alle tags voor Ignace Schretlen op dit blog.

Haiku

Jonge narcissen
Fris op het venster, sneeuwwit
Halsreikend naar wie

 

Vrienden

Vrienden treft men op een bergweg
niet aan zee, noch op een ladder

nergens rechte lijnen en men weet,
dat zelfs cirkels niet bestaan

verweesd, verloren en in de verte
dekken wolken de bergpas af:

kennen planten een moment van sterven
hoe gaan dieren dood en hoe wij?

wie heeft ons tot dit tempo opgejaagd?
de huid weekt ziek los van vlees en bloed

nooit zullen wij onze moedertaal verleren
echt onze onbekende metgezel begrijpen

allengs verworden we tot contouren,
lossen op en trekken zielloos weg

wat valt er nu nog op het laatst te leren
anders dan dat zwijgen vele talen kent?

 
Ignace Schretlen (Tilburg, 27 september 1952)
Cover

De Amerikaanse dichter en letterkundige Nate Pritts werd geboren in Syracuse, New York, op 27 september 1974. Zie ook alle tags voor Nate Pritts op dit blog.

Human Pets

The tree uprooted. Sinister music.
Dangling, helpless, I find myself poised
for action when there is no clear warrant.

Impression is what’s important;
you should be aware that, at any second,
I could pounce into the thick of things,

I could explore the unknown with such
finesse & vigor that it would gladly yield up
its most secretest of secrets to me. Let me fly

through the pale green sky of forgetfulness
& you’d better believe all those hands
that make a clumsy grab for me will have

their fingers printed. I’ll know who’s
taking a swipe at me out of the clouds.
When my errant space pod crash lands

in your new life, watch me burn
the lovely vegetation to the ground, smoke
& cinder & regret wafting.

Night time is when I get like this, always
the most challenging time for me—trying to keep it all
together when I can’t even see myself.

 Yellow beams of light projected from an object called the sun
hold me in place; ditto the look of concern on your face.
Willingly, I entered into the giant glass container

of a life with you & you alone. My torment
is that I can see out. I build a ladder one ruin
at a time, each of the one million moments

of shame & rage I feel every day
taking me higher & higher, but never over
the walls I’ve trapped myself behind.

 
Nate Pritts (Syracuse, 27 september 1974)

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 27e september ook mijn blog van 27 september 2017 en eveneens mijn blog van 27 september 2015 deel 2 en eveneens deel 3.

Irvine Welsh, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Esther Verhoef, Ignace Schretlen, Josef ¦kvorecký, Christian Schloyer, Tanja Kinkel, Edvard Kocbek

De Schotse schrijver Irvine Welsh werd geboren op 27 september 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Irvine Welsh op dit blog.

Uit:The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs

“She Came to Dance, 20 January 1980
– THIS IS THE fuckin Clash! The green-haired girl had screamed into the face of the flinty-eyed bouncer, who’d shoved her back into her seat. — And this is a fuckin cinema, he’d told her. It was the Odeon cinema, and the security personnel seemed determined to stop any dancing. But after the local band, Joseph K, had finished their set, the main act had come out all guns blazing, blasting out ‘Clash City Rockers’, and the crowd immediately surged down to the front of the house. The girl with the green hair scanned around for the bouncer, who was preoccupied, then sprang back up. For a while the security staff tried to stem the tide, but finally capitulated about halfway through the set, between ‘I Fought the Law’ and ‘(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais’. The crowd was lost in the thrashing noise; at the front of the house they bounced along in rapture, while those at the back climbed on to their seats to dance. The girl with green hair, now right at the front centre of the stage, seemed to be rising higher than the rest, or perhaps it was just her hair, and the way the strobes hit it, making it appear as if a spectacular emerald flame was bursting from her head. A few, only a few, were gobbing at the band and she was screaming at them to cut it out as he – her hero – had only just recovered from hepatitis. She’d been to the Odeon only a few times before, most recently to see Apocalypse Now, but it wasn’t like this and she could bet that it had never been. Her friend Trina was a few feet from her, the only other girl so near the front that she could almost smell the band. Taking a last gulp from the plastic Im Bru bottle she’d filled with snakebite, she killed it and let it fall to the sticky, carpeted floor. Her brain fizzed with the buzz of it working in tandem with the amphetamine sulphate she’d taken earlier. She roared the words of the songs as she leapt, working herself into a defiant frenzy, going to a place where she could almost forget what he had told her earlier that afternoon. Just after they’d made love when he’d gone so quiet and distant, his thin, wiry frame shivering on the mattress. — What’s up, Donnie? What is it? she’d asked him. — It’s all fucked, he’d said blankly. She told him not to be daft, everything was brilliant and the Clash gig was happening tonight, they’d been waiting for this for ages. Then he turned round and his eyes were moist and he looked like a child. It was then that her first and only lover had told her that he’d been fucking someone else earlier; right there on the mattress they shared every night, the place where they’d just made love. It had meant nothing; it was a mistake, he immediately claimed, panic rising in him as the extent of his transgression became apparent in her reaction.”

 
Irvine Welsh (Edinburg, 27 september 1958)

Lees verder “Irvine Welsh, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Esther Verhoef, Ignace Schretlen, Josef ¦kvorecký, Christian Schloyer, Tanja Kinkel, Edvard Kocbek”

Irvine Welsh, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Josef Škvorecký, Esther Verhoef, Christian Schloyer

De Schotse schrijver Irvine Welsh werd geboren op 27 september 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Irvine Welsh op dit blog.

Uit: Skagboys

“We head oot and dive oantae a 16, bound fir Johnny’s pad at Tolcross. It’s a blindin hot day so we sit doonstairs at the back for a better view ay the passin fanny. Back top deck wi Begbie, tae intimidate wideos, back bottom wi Sick Boy tae leer at lassies. Life has its simple codes.
– This is gaunny be so much fun, Sick Boy says, and rubs his hands thegither. – Drugs are always fun. Do you believe in cosmic forces, destiny n aw that shite?
– Nup.
– Me neither, but bear one thing in mind: today was a ‘T’ day.
– What … ? ah ask, then it dawns on us. – Yir dictionary thingy.
– All will be revealed, he nods, then starts talking about heroin.
Smack’s the only thing ah huvnae done, ah’ve never even smoked or snorted it. And ah must confess that ah’m fuckin shitein it. Ah wis brought up tae believe that one joint ay hash would kill me. And, of course, it wis bullshit. Then one line ay speed. Then one tab ay acid; aw lies, spread by people hell-bent on self-extermination through booze and fags.
But heroin.
It’s crossing a line.
But as the boy said, anything once. And Sick Boy doesnae seem concerned, so ah bullshit tae keep ma front up. – Aye, ah cannae wait tae dae some horse.
– What? Sick Boy looks at me in horror as the bus growls up the hill. – What the fuck are you talking aboot, Renton? Horse? Dinnae say that in front ay yir dealer mate or he’ll laugh in yir face. Call it skag, for Papa John-Paul’s sake, he snaps, then stares oot at a short-skirted lassie meandering wi seductive intent up Lothian Road. – She’s a peach … far too carefree in bearing and expression tae be a baboon …
– Right … ah feebly respond.”

 
Irvine Welsh (Edinburg, 27 september 1958)

Lees verder “Irvine Welsh, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Josef Škvorecký, Esther Verhoef, Christian Schloyer”

Irvine Welsh, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Josef ¦kvorecký, Esther Verhoef

De Schotse schrijver Irvine Welsh werd geboren op 27 september 1958 in Leith, Edinburgh. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Irvine Welsh op dit blog.

Uit: Trainspotting

„– Ah wisnae … ah protested.– Fling yir fuckin jaykit oan well!
At the Fit ay the Walk thir wir nae taxis. They only congregated here when ye didnae need them. Supposed tae be August, but ah’m fuckin freezing ma baws oaf here. Ah’m no sick yet, but it’s in the fuckin post, that’s fir sure.
– Supposed tae be a rank. Supposed tae be a fuckin taxi rank. Nivir fuckin git one in the  summer. Up cruising fat, rich festival cunts too fuckin lazy tae walk a hundred fuckin yards fae one poxy church hall tae another fir thir fuckin show. Taxi drivers. Money–grabbin bastards … Sick Boy muttered deliriously and breathlessly tae hissel, eyes bulging and sinews in his neck straining as his heid craned up Leith Walk.
At last one came. There were a group ay young guys in shellsuits n bomber jaykits whae’d been standin thair longer than us. Ah doubt if Sick Boy even saw them. He charged straight oot intae the middle ay the Walk screaming: – TAXI!
Hi! Whit’s the fuckin score? One guy in a black, purple and aqua shell–suit wi a flat–top asks.
Git tae fuck. We wir here first, Sick Boy sais, opening the taxi door. – Thir’s another yin comin. He gestured up the Walk at an advancing black cab.
– Lucky fir youse. Smart cunts,
– Fuck off, ya plukev–faced wee hing oot. Git a fuckin ride! Sick Boy snarled as we piled intae the taxi.
– Tollcross mate, ah sais tae the driver as gob splattered against the side windae.
– Square go then smart cunt! C’moan ya crappin bastards! the shell–suit shouted. The taxi driver wisnae amused. He looked a right cunt. Maist ay them do. The stamp–peyin self–employed ur truly the lowest form ay vermin oan god’s earth.”

 
Irvine Welsh (Edinburg, 27 september 1958)

Lees verder “Irvine Welsh, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat, Kay Ryan, Josef ¦kvorecký, Esther Verhoef”

Dolce far niente, Hans van Weely, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat

Dolce far niente

 

 
Oude ansichtkaart van Ponypark Slagharen

 

Ponypark Slagharen

Het is niet erg
dat het leven geen zin heeft

er is voedsel genoeg
en huilen mag om illusies
die verdwijnen –

ik ben een kind
uit de tijd van wederopbouw

en weet verdriet
bestaat sinds heugenis, dus lang
voordat de Duitsers kwamen.

Alles is gezegd,

maar ga nooit
naar Ponypark Slagharen,

verwek geen kinderen op
een zinkend schip.

 

 
Hans van Weely (1945)*
Slagharen (geen portret beschikbaar)

 

* De Nederlandse dichter Hans van Weely publiceerde o.a. de bundels ‘Verzuim aan dode dingen’ (1969) en ‘De ideale lijn’ (1980)

Lees verder “Dolce far niente, Hans van Weely, Ignace Schretlen, Ko de Laat”