Tag: Mark Harris

Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Alan Tate, Anna Seghers, Elise Bürger, Girolamo de Rada, Veronika Aydin

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist en essayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Scott Cairns op dit blog.

 

Embalming

You’ll need a corpse, your own or someone else’s.
You’ll need a certain distance; the less you care about
your corpse the better. Light should be
unforgiving, so as to lend a literal
aspect to your project. Flesh should be putty,
each hair of the brows, each lash, a pencil mark.

If the skeleton is intact, its shape may
suggest beginnings of a structure, though even here
modification might occur; heavier
tools are waiting in the drawer, as well as wire,
varied lengths and thicknesses of doweling.
Odd hollows may be filled with bundled towel.

As for the fluids, arrange them on the cart
in a pleasing manner. I prefer we speak
of ointments. This notion of one’s anointing
will help distract you from a simpler story
of your handiwork. Those people in the parlor
made requests, remember? Don’t be concerned.

Whatever this was to them, it is all yours now.
The clay of your creation lies before you,
invites your hand. Becoming anxious? That’s good.
You should be a little anxious. You’re ready.
Hold the knife as you would a quill, hardly at all.
See that first line before you cross it, and draw.

 

Eremite

—Katounakia, 2007

The cave itself is pleasantly austere,
with little clutter—nothing save
a narrow slab, a threadbare woolen wrap,
and in the chipped-out recess here
three sooty icons lit by oil lamp.
Just beyond the dim cave’s aperture,
a blackened kettle rests among the coals,
whereby, each afternoon, a grip
of wild greens is boiled to a tender mess.
The eremite lies prostrate near
two books—a gospel and the Syrian’s
collected prose—whose pages turn
assisted by a breeze. Besides the thread
of wood smoke rising from the coals,
no other motion takes the eye. The old
man’s face is pressed into the earth,
his body stretched as if to reach ahead.
The pot boils dry. He feeds on what
we do not see, and may be satisfied.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

 

De Amerikaanse dichteres Sharon Olds werd geboren op 19 november 1942 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Sharon Olds op dit blog.

 

The Death of Marilyn Monroe

The ambulance men touched her cold
body, lifted it, heavy as iron,
onto the stretcher, tried to close the
mouth, closed the eyes, tied the
arms to the sides, moved a caught
strand of hair, as if it mattered,
saw the shape of her breasts, flattened by
gravity, under the sheet
carried her, as if it were she,
down the steps.

These men were never the same. They went out
afterwards, as they always did,
for a drink or two, but they could not meet
each other’s eyes.

Their lives took
a turn-one had nightmares, strange
pains, impotence, depression. One did not
like his work, his wife looked
different, his kids. Even death
seemed different to him-a place where she
would be waiting,

and one found himself standing at night
in the doorway to a room of sleep, listening to a
woman breathing, just an ordinary
woman
breathing.

 

Japanese-American Farmhouse, California, 1942

Everything has been taken that anyone
thought worth taking. The stairs are tilted,
scattered with sycamore leaves curled
like ammonites in inland rock.
Wood shows through the paint on the frame
and the door is open–an empty room,
sunlight on the floor. All that is left
on the porch is the hollow cylinder
of an Albert’s Quick Oats cardboard box
and a sewing machine. Its extraterrestrial
head is bowed, its scrolled neck
glistens. I was born, that day, near there,
in wartime, of ignorant people.

 

 
Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver en literaire biograaf Mark Harris (eig. Mark Harris Finklestein) werd geboren op 19 november 1922 in Mount Vernon, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Mike Harris op dit blog.

Uit: Bang the Drum Slowly

“It was Joe’s wife later left the cat out of the barn. Usually I do not hang with the coaches much, but me and Joe become fairly friendly on account of Tegwar, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules, T-E-G-W-A-R, which nobody on the club can play but me and Joe because nobody can keep a straight face long enough. I will be hilarious on the inside but with a straight face on the outside, and I was smiling while his phone was ringing while poor Goose’s wife was probably still crying in a dead phone at her end which shows you the kind of a thoughtless personality I have. Joe was out baby-sitting his grandchildren. His wife give me his number, but I did not even take it down. “My Lord,” she said, “Joe has got insurance with 3 or 4 different outfits.” “You do not have insurance,” said I, “unless you have got Arcturus.” She laughed. She asked me how long I planned to be in town, and I said I did not know. There were the pictures of Holly and the pictures of the stewardess curled on the bed plus more pictures now of Joe Jaros baby-sitting his grandchildren, all cozy and warm with a snowstorm outside, not tramping the streets like Goose nor with girls in a number of towns, not drinking up all his credit in the saloons until all of a sudden one day the girls and the credit begin to give out at once. I seen it happen. I seen too many old-time ballplayers hanging around clubhouses telling you what a great game you just pitched (though you might of just got the hell shelled out of you) and could you by any chance loan them 5 to tide them over, which I used to loan them, too, before I was in so damn deep I was playing winter ball and hitting the banquet circuit and still getting in deeper with every passing day until Holly took a hold of things. I said, “Henry, look at Joe. He did not flub his life away chasing after every pair of big white teeth he run across,” and I slid open the door again and circled around and went out a side door saying “Positively No Admission” and listing a number of fines and penalties and prison terms you could get for passing through that one door, and out in the snowstorm and back up in the air.”

 

 
Mark Harris (19 november 1922 – 30 mei 2007)
Cover

 

De Vlaamse dichter, essayist en toneelschrijver Karel van den Oever werd geboren in Antwerpen op 19 november 1879. Zie ook alle tags voor Karel van den Oever op dit blog.

 

Geloovige Avond

Is de avond oud van tijd
en loom van kreuple uren
(ach, dat geen stuip’ge hekse heur berijd’
en over ’t bezemstoksken naar den Oosten ture)
zie dan hoe zonder orgelronk noch belgerink
het allerstilste Lof begint.

Overal rijst de kranke maan,
sacramenteel geheven,
men blaast de koolge keersen wilder aan:
de starren in den kelderdonkren tochtig beven.
De wolken smeulen zwaar langs ’t wijd verwulf
als wierooksmoor in Sint Gerulf..

De gulden lusters der
gesternten ruchtloos sintlen
de koele en donkre koor uit naamloos ver..
’t Is of hun gouden glimge schaaklen nimmer tinklen.
Die lusters hangen windstil toch uit de oude lucht
vóor iedren Heilge, zonder gerucht..

’t Geboomt der bosschen helt
in ’t schimmrend licht voorover,
’t gestruik hukt in den keersenschijn en kwelt
de sluikge grassen; prevelt iemand in den loover?
De heiplas is een gure kerke-ruit:
de Lofplecht kwijnt er dieper uit.

Als de avond, oud van duur,
vervaakt van zacht vervelen
(ach, dat het groene hostievuur
der ronde maan er eerst tot guldenheid vergele!)
zie dan hoe zonder orgelronk noch belgerink
het allerstilste Lof begint.

 

 
Karel van den Oever (19 november 1879 – 6 oktober 1926)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter Alan Tate werd geboren op 19 november 1899 in de buurt van Winchester, Kentucky. Zie ook alle tags voor Alan Tate op dit blog.

 

Sonnets Of The Blood

III

Then, brother, you would never think me vain
Or rude, if I should mention dignity;
Think little of it. Dignity’s the stain
Of mortal sin that knows humility.
Let me design the hour when you were born
Since, if that’s vain, it’s only childlike so:
Like an attempting frost on April corn
Considerate death would hardly let you go.
Reckon the cost-if you would validate
Once more our slavery to circumstance
Not by contempt of a prescriptive fate
But in your bearing towards an hour of chance.
It is a part so humble and so proud
You’ll think but little of it in your shroud.

IV

The times have changed. Why do you make a fuss
For privilege when there’s no law of form?
Who of our kin was pusillanimous,
A fine bull galloping into a storm?
Why, none; unless you count it arrogance
To cultivate humility in pride,
To look but casually and half-askance
On boots and spurs that went a devil’s ride.
There was, remember, a Virginian
Who took himself to be brute nature’s law,
Cared little what men thought him, a tall man
Who meditated calmly what he saw
Until he freed his Negroes, lest he be
Too strict with nature and than they less free.

 

 
Allen Tate (19 november 1899 – 9 februari 1979)
Cover

 

De Duitse schrijfster Anna Seghers werd op 19 november 1900 geboren in Mainz als Anna Reiling. Zie ook alle tags voor Anna Seghers op dit blog.

Uit: Das siebte Kreuz

„Mancher hatte bei sich gedacht “Arme Teufel”. Aber man hatte auch bald gedacht, was sie da eigentlich buddelten. Damals war es vorgekommen, dass auch in Liebau ein junger Schiffer offen auf das Lager fluchte. Den hatten sie dann gleich geholt. Er war auf einige Wochen eingesperrt worden, damit er sehen könnte, was drinnen los sei. Als er herauskam, hatte er sonderbar ausgesehen und auf keine Frage geantwortet. Er hatte Arbeit auf einem Schleppkahn gefunden und war später, wie seine Leute erzählten, ganz in Holland geblieben, eine Geschichte, über die das Dorf damals erstaunt war. Einmal waren zwei Dutzend Häftlinge durch Liebau gebracht worden, die waren schon vor der Einlieferung so zugerichtet, dass es den Menschen graute und eine Frau im Dorf offen weinte. Aber am Abend hatte der neue junge Bürgermeister des Dorfs die Frau, die seine Tante war, zu sich bestellt und ihr klargemacht, dass sie mit ihrer Flennerei nicht nur sich selbst, sondern auch ihren Söhnen, die zugleich seine Vettern waren, und ein Vetter war zugleich auch sein Schwager, für ihr Leben lang Schaden zufügte. Überhaupt hatten die jüngeren Leute im Dorf, Burschen um Mädchen, ihren Eltern genau erklären können, warum das Lager da sei und für wen, junge Leute, die immer alles besser wissen wollen – nur dass die Jungen in früheren Zeiten das Gute besser wissen wollten, jetzt aber wussten sie das Böse besser. Da man dann doch nichts gegen das Lager tun konnte, waren allerlei Aufträge auf Gemüse und Gurken gekommen und allerlei nützlicher Verkehr, wie es die Ansammlung und Verpflegung vieler Menschen mit sich bringt.
Doch als gestern früh die Sirenen heulten, als die Posten an allen Strassen aus der Erde wuchsen, als das Gerücht von der Flucht sich verbreitete, als dann mittags im nächsten Dorf ein richtiger Flüchtling gefangen wurde, da war auf einmal das Lager, an das man sich längst gewöhnt hatte, gleichsam neu aufgebaut worden, warum grad hier bei uns? Neue Mauern waren errichtet worden, neue Stacheldrähte gezogen. Jener Trupp Häftlinge, der von der nächsten Bahnstation kürzlich durch die Dorfgasse getrieben wurde, – warum, warum, warum?“

 

 
Anna Seghers (19 november 1900 – 1 juni 1983)
Hier met zoontje Peter en dochtertje Ruth rond 1930

 

De Duitse schrijfster en actrice Christiane Marie Elisabeth “Elise” Bürger, (eig. Hahn) werd geboren op 19 november 1769 in Stuttgart. Zie ook alle tags voor Elise Bürger op dit blog.

Uit: Briefe an Schiller

„Weimar d. 8. Mai 1802.
Wenn ich es wage, ihnen gütiger Mann! die Einlagen zu senden, so ist es Ihr Auge, aus welchem eben so viel Freundlichkeit als Geist leuchtet, welches mich zu der Hofnung berechtigt daß Sie der Durchsicht dieser weiblichen Federprodukte einige geduldvolle Augenblike vergönnen werden.
Ein Fragment aus dem 1. Akt des ersten Teils eines Schauspiels, dessen Stoff interressant genug ist, um etwas daraus hervorzuarbeiten”, wenn anders die Kraft dazu der schwachen Hand, die es unternahm, nicht mislingt. — Dabei habe ich zu fragen: ist in dem Versbau zu viel willkührliches? — muß ich mich fester noch an Regeln binden? — Das zweite Päkchen enthält einige Gedichte, dererlei ich noch mehrere besize; sind sie wohl nicht zu uninterressant um eine kleine Sammlung davon der Lesewelt zu übergeben?) Nur Ihr Unheil soll mich entscheiden. Es kann mich nicht über mich selbst täuschen. ‘Unbekannt mit der Buchhändlerwelt, weis ich nicht, wie man dergleichen Kleinigkeiten Kaufweise verhandelt, noch an welche Buchhändler man sich deshalb am besten und vortheilhaftesten wendet; auch hierüber erbitte ich Ihren Rath. — Sie nicht in Ihren Geschäften zu stören, versage ich es mir Ihnen persönlich nochmals aufzuwarten. Morgen früh 8 Uhr denke ich nach Jena herüber zu reisen, und erwarte meine dortige Aufnahme von Ihrer Güte. Wenn sich die höchste Verehrung mit der reinsten Hochachtung vereint in Worten fühlbar machen könnte, so würden Sie, Vortrefflicher! wissen wie ich mich mit der uneingeschränktesten Ergebenheit nenne, die Ihrige .EIisa Bürger, geb. Hahn“

 

 
Elise Bürger (19 november 1769 – 24 november 1833)

 

De Italiaanse-Albanese dichter en schrijver Girolamo de Rada werd geboren op 19 november 1814 in Macchia Albanese. Zie ook alle tags voor Girolamo de Rada op dit blog.

 

Donna irene (Fragment)

There arrived a boat from the midst of the sea,
Arrived at the port of Cotrone
Of the ladies from Cotrone
Not a single one went down to it;
But for one, Lady Irena.

“Hello, Sailors!” “
Be welcome, Lady Irena!”
“Where do you have silken goods?”
“Step on board, Lady, onto the deck.”

The Lady selected a gown
For her sister-in-law’s wedding,
She selected it and put it into the hands
Of the servant, the maid.
And the sailors set off
And drifted away gently and slowly.
By the time she noticed this,
They were far out to see.

 

Vertaald door Jason Blake

 

 
Girolamo de Rada (19 november 1814 – 28 februari 1903)
Borstbeeld in Macchia Albanese.

 

Onafhankelijk van geboortedata:

De Duitse schrijfster Veronika Aydin werd in 1961 in Emmerich geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Veronika Aydin op dit blog.

Uit: Bestattungsfragen. Elfriedes zweiter Fall

„Elfriede ließ vor Schreck die Rechnung aus der Hand fallen. Das Geräusch klang, als würde jemand durch eine rostige Gießkanne Luft einsaugen. Mühsam und um sein Leben ringend. Und ganz in ihrer Nähe. Erschrocken schaute sie unter den Schreibtisch. Hugo lag auf der Seite, seine Rippen unter dem schwarz-braunen Fell hoben und senkten sich bedrohlich. »Du liebe Güte«, dachte Elfriede, »können sich Hunde auch erkälten? Und das mitten im Sommer?« Das Tier keuchte zum Gotterbarmen. Sie stopfte die Rechnungen zurück in die Schublade und beugte sich zu dem Hund hinunter. Was fehlte ihm bloß? Hugo sah sie aus seinen braunen Augen leidend an. Elfriedes Herz schmolz. Es war nicht Liebe auf den ersten Blick gewesen. Als Oliver den kurzbeinigen Sennenhund nach Hause brachte, hatte Elfriede es entschieden abgelehnt, ihm Asyl zu gewähren. Eine Detektivin war schließlich viel unterwegs und gerade erst hatte sie sich ein kleines Büro in der Hofheimer Altstadt eingerichtet, mit schicken Möbeln und einem neuen weißen Teppichboden. »Es ist doch nur für sechs Wochen, Mama«, hatte ihr Sohn gebettelt, »nur solange Leander in den Sommerferien in Kur ist.« »Nein! Kann der Hund nicht in eine Tierpension?« »Er braucht Menschen um sich. Leanders Mutter muss den ganzen Tag im Supermarkt arbeiten und den Vater sieht er kaum. Das Futter hat Leander mir gleich mitgegeben«, versuchte Oliver Einwände finanzieller Art zu entkräften. »Und ich geh auch jeden Tag mit ihm spazieren.« »Ich glaub dir kein Wort!«
Es war wieder mal Tante Ingeborg, die mit einem »Meinst du nicht, es könnte ihm guttun«-Blick der Situation eine Wende gegeben hatte. Der Junge hat es nicht leicht, schien dieser Blick zu sagen, jetzt, wo seine kleine Schwester auf der Welt ist. Gönn ihm doch das bisschen Freude! Nun, es kam, wie Elfriede es vorausgesehen hatte. Der Nach- wuchs ihres Ex-Mannes mit seiner neuen Lebensgefährtin änderte nichts daran, dass alle Hundespaziergänge an ihr hängenblieben.“

 

 
Veronika Aydin (Emmerich, 1961)
Hier met collega schrijfster Kerstin Klamroth (links)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 19e november ook mijn blog van 19 november 2017 deel 2.

Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist en essayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Scott Cairns op dit blog.

 

Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous

You could almost think the word synonymous
with mind, given our so far narrow
history, and the excessive esteem

in which we have been led to hold what is,
in this case, our rightly designated
nervous systems. Little wonder then

that some presume the mind itself both part
and parcel of the person, the very seat
of soul and, lately, crucible for a host

of chemical incentives—combinations
of which can pretty much answer for most
of our habits and for our affections.

When even the handy lexicon cannot
quite place the nous as anything beyond
one rustic ancestor of reason, you might

be satisfied to trouble the odd term
no further—and so would fail to find
your way to it, most fruitful faculty

untried. Dormant in its roaring cave,
the heart’s intellective aptitude grows dim,
unless you find a way to wake it. So,

let’s try something, even now. Even as
you tend these lines, attend for a moment
to your breath as you draw it in: regard

the breath’s cool descent, a stream from mouth
to throat to the furnace of the heart.
Observe that queer, cool confluence of breath

and blood, and do your thinking there.

 

Draw Near

προσέλθετε

For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered
far to find. And near is where you’ll very likely see
how far the near obtains. In the dark katholikon
the lighted candles lent their gold to give the eye
a more than common sense of what lay flickering
just beyond the ken, and lent the mind a likely
swoon just shy of apprehension. It was then
that time’s neat artifice fell in and made for us
a figure for when time would slip free altogether.
I have no sense of what this means to you, so little
sense of what to make of it myself, save one lit glimpse
of how we live and move, a more expansive sense in Whom.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

Lees verder “Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner” →

Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist en essayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Scott Cairns op dit blog.

 

Another Road Home
After Stevens

It was when he said expansively There is
no such thing as the truth that his thick thumbs
thickened and his lips, purple as grapes,
further purpled. When I also spun such
spinning facilities as these, my own
vines ripened with what I hoped might prove

more promising fruit. Yios mou, set the large
man’s handsome books aside and sit with me
on the airy balcony beside our kind
and loving Father Iakovos. Truth may
prove to be no such a thing as matter
for our mulling; still, this evening spread out

before our mountain, above our mountain tea
suggests in its late, cypress-scented air
a pressing density, a wine-like, whelming
cup, ksinómavro—deep and dark, substantial.
And the road? Meandering, manifestly
inconclusive, and for that reason not
so likely to ferment blithe disregard.

 

Early Frost

This morning the world’s white face reminds us
that life intends to become serious again.
And the same loud birds that all summer long
annoyed us with their high attitudes and chatter
silently line the gibbet of the fence a little stunned,
chastened enough.

They look as if they’re waiting for things
to grow worse, but are watching the house,
as if somewhere in their dim memories
they recall something about this abandoned garden
that could save them.

The neighbor’s dog has also learned to wake
without exaggeration. And the neighbor himself
has made it to his car with less noise, starting
the small engine with a kind of reverence. At the window
his wife witnesses this bleak tableau, blinking
her eyes, silent.

I fill the feeders to the top and cart them
to the tree, hurrying back inside
to leave the morning to these ridiculous
birds, who, reminded, find the rough shelters,
bow, and then feed.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

Lees verder “Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner” →

Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Alan Tate

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist en essayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Scott Cairns op dit blog.

 

A Word
For A.B.

She said God. He seems to be there
when I call on Him but calling
has been difficult too. Painful.

And as she quieted to find
another word, I was delivered
once more to my own long grappling

with that very angel here — still
here — at the base of the ancient
ladder of ascent, in foul dust

languishing yet at the very
bottom rung, letting go my grip
long before the blessing.

 

Idiot Psalms

3

     A psalm of Isaak, whispered mid the Philistines, beneath the breath.

Master both invisible and notoriously  
                     slow to act, should You incline to fix  
                     Your generous attentions for the moment
                     to the narrow scene of this our appointed
                     tedium, should You—once our kindly
                     secretary has duly noted which of us
                     is feigning presence, and which excused, which unexcused,
                     You may be entertained to hear how much we find to say
                     about so little. Among these other mediocrities,
                     Your mediocre servant gets a glimpse of how
                     his slow and meager worship might appear
                     from where You endlessly attend our dreariness.
Holy One, forgive, forgo and, if You will, fend off  
                     from this my heart the sense that I am drowning here  
                     amid the motions, the discussions, the several
                     questions endlessly recast, our paper ballots.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

Lees verder “Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Alan Tate” →

Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Alan Tate

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist en essayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Scott Cairns op dit blog.

 

Imperative

The thing to remember is how
Tentative all of this really is.
You could wake up dead.

Or the woman you love
Could decide you’re ugly.
Maybe she’ll finally give up
Trying to ignore the way
You floss your teeth as you
Watch television. All I’m saying
Is that there are no sure things here.

I mean, you’ll probably wake up alive,
And she’ll probably keep putting off
Any actual decision about your looks.
Could be she’ll be glad your teeth
are so clean. The morning could
be full of all the love and kindness
you need. Just don’t go thinking
you deserve any of it.

 

Possible Answers to Prayer

Your petitions—though they continue to bear  
just the one signature—have been duly recorded.  
Your anxieties—despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope and inadvertent  
entertainment value—nonetheless serve  
to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance—all but obscured beneath  
a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more  
conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick,  
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes  
recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly  
righteous indignation toward the many  
whose habits and sympathies offend you—         

these must burn away before you’ll apprehend  
how near I am, with what fervor I adore
precisely these, the several who rouse your passions.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

Lees verder “Scott Cairns, Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Karel van den Oever, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Alan Tate” →

Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers, Alan Tate

De Amerikaanse dichteres Sharon Olds werd geboren op 19 november 1942 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Sharon Olds op dit blog.

 

Still Life in Landscape

It was night, it had rained, there were pieces of cars and
half-cars strewn, it was still, and bright,
a woman was lying on the highway, on her back,
with her head curled back and tucked under her shoulders
so the back of her head touched her spine
between her shoulder-blades, her clothes
mostly accidented off, and her
leg gone, a long bone
sticking out of the stub of her thigh—
this was her her abandoned matter,
my mother grabbed my head and turned it and
clamped it into her chest, between
her breasts. My father was driving—not sober
but not in this accident, we’d approached it out of
neutral twilight, broken glass
on wet black macadam, like an underlying
midnight abristle with stars. This was
the world—maybe the only one.
The dead woman was not the person
my father had recently almost run over,
who had suddenly leapt away from our family
car, jerking back from death,
she was not I, she was not my mother,
but maybe she was a model of the mortal,
the elements ranged around her on the tar—
glass, bone, metal, flesh, and the family.

 

Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

Lees verder “Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers, Alan Tate” →

Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner

De Amerikaanse dichteres Sharon Olds werd geboren op 19 november 1942 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Sharon Olds op dit blog.

 

I Could Not Tell

I could not tell I had jumped off that bus,
that bus in motion, with my child in my arms,
because I did not know it. I believed my own story:
I had fallen, or the bus had started up
when I had one foot in the air.

I would not remember the tightening of my jaw,
the irk that I’d missed my stop, the step out
into the air, the clear child
gazing about her in the air as I plunged
to one knee on the street, scraped it, twisted it,
the bus skidding to a stop, the driver
jumping out, my daughter laughing
Do it again.

I have never done it
again, I have been very careful.
I have kept an eye on that nice young mother
who lightly leapt
off the moving vehicle
onto the stopped street, her life
in her hands, her life’s life in her hands.

 

Topography

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly form the left my
moon rising slowly form the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 


Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

Lees verder “Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner” →

Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers

De Amerikaanse dichteres Sharon Olds werd geboren op 19 november 1942 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Sharon Olds op dit blog.

 

The Borders

To say that she came into me,
from another world, is not true.
Nothing comes into the universe
and nothing leaves it.
My mother—I mean my daughter did not
enter me. She began to exist
inside me—she appeared within me.
And my mother did not enter me.
When she lay down, to pray, on me,
she was always ferociously courteous,
fastidious with Puritan fastidiousness,
but the barrier of my skin failed, the barrier of my
body fell, the barrier of my spirit.
She aroused and magnetized my skin, I wanted
ardently to please her, I would say to her
what she wanted to hear, as if I were hers.
I served her willingly, and then
became very much like her, fiercely
out for myself.
When my daughter was in me, I felt I had
a soul in me. But it was born with her.
But when she cried, one night, such pure crying,
I said I will take care of you, I will
put you first. I will not ever
have a daughter the way she had me,
I will not ever swim in you
the way my mother swam in me and I
felt myself swum in. I will never know anyone
again the way I knew my mother,
the gates of the human fallen.

 

Primitive

I have heard about the civilized,
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest,

rational. But you and I are
savages. You come in with a bag,
hold it out to me in silence.
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it
and understand the message: I have
pleased you greatly last night. We sit
quietly, side by side, to eat,
the long pancakes dangling and spilling,
fragrant sauce dripping out,
and glance at each other askance, wordless,
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points
laid along the sill to show
a friend sits with a friend here.

 

Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

Lees verder “Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers” →

Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers

De Amerikaanse dichteres Sharon Olds werd geboren op 19 november 1942 in San Francisco. Zie ook mijn blog van 19 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 19 november 2007 en ook mijn blog van 19 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 19 november 2009.

 

A Week Later 

 

A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t

think I could ever write about it.

Maybe in a year I could write something.

There is something in me maybe someday

to be written; now it is folded, and folded,

and folded, like a note in school. And in my dream

someone was playing jacks, and in the air there was a

huge, thrown, tilted jack

on fire. And when I woke up, I found myself

counting the days since I had last seen

my husband-only two years, and some weeks,

and hours. We had signed the papers and come down to the

ground floor of the Chrysler Building,

the intact beauty of its lobby around us

like a king’s tomb, on the ceiling the little

painted plane, in the mural, flying. And it

entered my strictured heart, this morning,

slightly, shyly as if warily,

untamed, a greater sense of the sweetness

and plenty of his ongoing life,

unknown to me, unseen by me,

unheard, untouched-but known, seen,

heard, touched. And it came to me,

for moments at a time, moment after moment,

to be glad for him that he is with the one

he feels was meant for him. And I thought of my

mother, minutes from her death, eighty-five

years from her birth, the almost warbler

bones of her shoulder under my hand, the

eggshell skull, as she lay in some peace

in the clean sheets, and I could tell her the best

of my poor, partial love, I could sing her

out with it, I saw the luck

and luxury of that hour.

 

 

 

The Unborn 

 

Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads,

Like gnats around a streetlight in summer,

The children we could have,

The glimmer of them.

 

Sometimes I feel them waiting, dozing

In some antechamber – servants, half-

Listening for the bell.

 

Sometimes I see them lying like love letters

In the Dead Letter Office

 

And sometimes, like tonight, by some black

Second sight I can feel just one of them

Standing on the edge of a cliff by the sea

In the dark, stretching its arms out

Desperately to me.

 

 

Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

 

 

Lees verder “Sharon Olds, Mark Harris, Christoph Wilhelm Aigner, Anna Seghers” →