Tag: Miklós Radnóti

Roni Margulies, Miklós Radnóti, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Richard Watson Dixon, Catullus

De Turkse schrijver, dichter, vertaler en journalist Roni Margulies werd geboren op 5 mei 1955 in Istanbul. Zie ook alle tags voor Roni Margulies op dit blog.

 

Begane Grond

Our lift talks to me, as I go up
or down, in a gentle, protective tone.
“We are here,” she says “you may go”.
She tells me the floor we have reached,
always lets me know where I am.

But whenever I descend to go out
into these streets I do not belong to,
“Begane grond” she intones, in a voice
which sounds to me slightly concerned,
“Here,” I think she says, “here’s the world,

open the door, go. And do not fret,
everyone here is as foreign as you are.
No one belongs. Not anywhere.”

 

Vertaald door Roni Margulies

 

Wear And Tear

I had a blue pullover,
a cross between turquoise and sky blue.
It was my favourite, the one I wore most often.
We went through a lot together, it and I,
its colour let friends recognise me from afar.

It was a gift from Elsa;
time took its toll on it.

It thinned at the elbows, the cuffs became slack,
it sagged, wouldn’t fit me properly,
holes could no longer be darned.
Finally, together with other old clothes,
my mother sent it off to a home for the elderly.

It was on a day
years after I had last seen Elsa.

Now, I suppose, there’s an old man
wandering the streets of Istanbul,
walking into shops, gazing at the sea,
on his aged frame a blue pullover:
proof Elsa once loved me.

 

Vertaald door Savkar Altinel

 

 
Roni Margulies (Istanbul, 5 mei 1955)

 

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Miklós Radnóti op dit blog.

 

Letter To My Wife

Beneath, the nether worlds, deep, still, and mute.
Silence howls in my ears, and I cry out.
No answer could come back, it is so far
From that sad Serbia swooned into war.
And you’re so distant. But my heart redeems
Your voice all day, entangled in my dreams.
So I am still, while close about me sough
The great cold ferns, that slowly stir and bow.

When I’ll see you, I don’t know. You whose calm
Is as the weight and sureness of a psalm,
Whose beauty’s like the shadow and the light,
Whom I could find if I were blind and mute,
Hide in the landscape now, and from within
Leap to my eye, as if cast by my brain.
You were real once; now you have fallen in
To that deep well of teenage dreams again.
Jealous interrogations: tell me; speak.
Do you still love me? Will you on that peak
Of my past youth become my future wife?
– but now I fall awake to real life
And know that’s what you are: wife, friend of years
– just far away. Beyond three wild frontiers.
And Fall comes. Will it also leave with me?
Kisses are sharper in the memory.

Daylight and miracles seemed different things.
Above, the echelons of bombers’ wings:
Skies once amazing blue with your eyes’ glow
Are darkened now. Tight with desire to blow,
The bombs must fall. I live in spite of these,
A prisoner. All of my fantasies
I measure out. And I will find you still;
For you I’ve walked the full length of the soul,

The highways of countries! – on coals of fire,
If needs must, in the falling of the pyre,
If all I have is magic, I’ll come back;
I’ll stick as fast as bark upon an oak!
And now that calm, whose habit is a power
And weapon to the savage, in the hour
Of fate and danger, falls as cool and true
As does a wave: the sober two times two.

 

Vertaald door Zsuzsanna Ozsvath en Frederick Turner

 


Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)
Miklós Radnóti met zijn geliefde vrouw Fanni Gyarmati voor WO II

 

De Nederlandse dichteres Petra Else Jekel werd in Arnhem geboren op 5 mei 1980. Zie ook alle tags voor Petra Else Jekel op dit blog.

 

uren zat ik naast je op een treinbank, ik had

2

uren zat ik naast je op een treinbank, ik had
het mes in de mond: herkende je me niet?
het buikmeisje dat je brieven schrijft en jij

pijl in de hand, ik moet je ophalen denk ik
maar ik weet nooit waar, in amsterdam
zag je de gifmenger en je zei het tegen mij

drie woorden heb ik: kling en punt en vuur
we zeggen niets, we zitten, je haar heb je
kort afgesneden van verdriet, in berlijn

ben je content nu heb ik je zien dansen
zeg je, ik alle passen heb ik zelf bedacht
bedronken, arm in arm, de laatste nacht

 


Petra Else Jekel (Arnhem, 5 mei 1980)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Morton Rhue (pseudoniem van Todd Strasser) werd geboren op 5 mei 1950 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Morton Rhue op dit blog.

Uit: Give a Boy a Gun

“About Gary
Mrs. Searle and Gary moved into the house next to ours the day before second grade began. So the first time I actually saw him was at the bus stop. He was kind of quiet, but friendly enough. Some of the kids at the bus stop would play soccer in the street in the morning. I was glad when Gary came along, because I wasn’t into that, and with Gary there it gave me something to do. We’d most-ly talk about stuff like Magic cards and video games and what we saw on TV. If you want to know the truth, I think Mrs. Searle was a little overprotective. I guess because she was the only parent. She always wanted to know where Gary was going, and would he be warm enough, and junk like that. Gary would just roll his eyes. Until Brendan came along, I think I was pretty much Gary’s best friend. The thing about Gary was that mysterious part of him that you never knew. It was like something he kept hidden and private. I can’t explain it, but I could feel it when I was with him. He’d just get quiet and you knew he was a dillion miles away. I always thought maybe it was some-thing about his parents getting divorced. — Ryan Clancy, a friend of both Gary’s and Brendan’s
Gary Searle was a very sweet little boy with slightly reddish brown hair and big, round eyes. He was polite and quiet and always did what he was told. I do recall that some of the children teased him about his weight. But you know how kids are at that age. — Ruth Hollington, Gary’s fourth-grade teacher at Middletown Elementary School
I didn’t move to Middletown until fifth grade, so I didn’t know Gary before that.
After we started hanging out, he’d sometimes talk about what it was like when he was younger. About the divorce and how com-pletely nasty it was, and how after it was over, his dad just left and never paid child support or called or anything. That was a huge thorn in Gary’s side. He just couldn’t get over that. —Allison Findley, Gary’s on-and-off girl-friend at Middletown High School
It was an ugly divorce. All that yelling and fighting. Arguing over money. Gary was caught in the middle, and sometimes I guess I used him to get what I thought I needed. What we both needed. It’s a terrible thing to put a child through, but I didn’t know what else to do. —Cynthia Searle, Gary’s mother
“As parents, teachers, and other adults look for ways to reach out to young people, some see a common thread in the disappointments and isolation students experience when they lose a sense of place, lose a parental figure, or lose a girlfriend.”

 

 
Morton Rhue / Todd Strasser (New York, 5 mei 1950)
Cover

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en journalist Christopher Morley werd geboren op 5 mei1890 in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Zie ook alle tags voor Christopher Morley op dit blog.

 

When I A Householder Became

Early in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horses hoofs;
You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!

The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet’s heart-
I’d rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
And hang my reigns upon a hook, as I’ve seen Casey do.

 

Washing The Dishes

WHEN we on simple rations sup
How easy is the washing up!
But heavy feeding complicates
The task by soiling many plates.

And though I grant that I have prayed
That we might find a serving-maid,
I’d scullion all my days I think,
To see Her smile across the sink!

I wash, she wipes. In water hot
I souse each pan and dish and pot;
While taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,
And rubs himself against my legs.

The man who never in his life
Has washed the dishes with his wife
Or polished up the silver plate-
He still is largely celibate.

One warning: there is certain ware
That must be handled with all care:
The Lord Himself will give you up
If you should drop a willow cup!

 

 
Christopher Morley (5 mei 1890 – 28 maart 1957)

 

De Franse dichter, schilder en criticus George Albert Aurier werd geboren op 5 mei 1865 in Châteauroux. Zie ook alle tags voor George Albert Aurier op dit blog.

Uit: Les Isolés, Vincent van Gogh 

« Au reste ; ce respect et cet amour de la réalité des choses ne suffisent point, seuls, à expliquer et à caractériser l’art profond, complexe, très-à-part, de Vincent Van Gogh. Sans doute, comme tous les peintres de sa race, il est très conscient de la matière, de son importance et de sa beauté, mais aussi, le plus souvent, cette enchanteresse matière, il ne la considère que comme une sorte de merveilleux langage destiné à traduire l’Idée. C’est, presque toujours, un symboliste. Non point, je le sais, un symboliste à la manière des primitifs italiens, ces mystiques qui éprouvaient à peine le besoin de désimmatérialiser leurs rêves, mais un symboliste sentant la continuelle nécessité de revêtir ses idées de formes précises, pondérables, tangibles, d’enveloppes intensément charnelles et matérielles. Dans presque toutes ses toiles, sous cette enveloppe morphique, sous cette chair très chair, sous cette matière très matière, gît, pour l’esprit qui sait l’y voir, une pensée, une Idée, et cette Idée, essentiel substratum de l’œuvre, en est, en même temps, la cause efficiente et finale. Quant aux brillantes et éclatantes symphonies de couleurs et de lignes, quelle que soit leur importance pour le peintre, elles ne sont dans son travail que de simples moyens expressifs, que de simples procédés de symbolisation. Si l’on refusait, en effet, d’admettre sous cet art naturaliste l’existence de ces tendances idéalistes, une grande part de l’œuvre que nous étudions demeurerait fort incompréhensible. Comment expliquerait-on, par exemple, le Semeur, cet auguste et troublant semeur, ce rustre au front brutement génial, ressemblant parfois et lointainement à l’artiste lui-même, dont la silhouette, le geste et le travail ont toujours obsédé Vincent Van Gogh, et qu’il peignit et repeignit si souvent, tantôt sons des ciels rubescents, de couchant, tantôt dans la poudre d’or des midis embrasés, si l’on ne veut songer à cette idée fixe qui hante sa cervelle de l’actuelle nécessité de la venue d’un homme, d’un messie, semeur de vérité, qui régénèrerait la décrépitude de notre art et peut-être de notre imbécile et industrialiste société ? Et aussi cette obsédante passion pour le disque solaire, qu’il aime à faire rutiler dans l’embrasement de ses ciels et, en même temps, pour cet autre soleil, pour cet astre végétal, le somptueux tournesol, qu’il répète, sans se lasser, en monomane, comment l’expliquer si l’on refuse d’admettre sa persistante préoccupation de quelque vague et glorieuse allégorie héliomythique ? »

 


George Albert Aurier (5 mei 1865 – 5 oktober 1892)
Op de drempel van de eeuwigheid door Vincent van Gogh, 1890

 

De Poolse schrijver en journalist Henryk Sienkiewicz werd geboren in Wola Okrzejska op 5 mei 1846. Zie ook alle tags voor Henryk Sienkiewicz op dit blog.

Uit: Quo vadis? (Vertaald door Jeremiah Curtin)

“Of course they do. Thou wilt not pass any basilica, bath, library, or book-shop without seeing a poet gesticulating like a monkey. Agrippa, on coming here from the East, mistook them for madmen. And it is just such a time now. Cxsar writes verses; hence all follow in his steps. Only it is not permitted to write better verses than Cxsar, and for that reason I fear a little for Lucan. But I write prose, with which, however, I do not honor myself or others. What the lector has to read are codicilli of that poor Fabricius Veiento.” “Why ‘poor’?” “Because it has been communicated to him that he must dwell in Odyssa and not return to his domestic hearth till he receives a new command. That Odyssey will be easier for him than for Ulysses, since his wife is no Penelope. I need not tell thee, for that matter, that he acted stupidly. But here no one takes things otherwise than superficially. His is rather a wretched and dull little book, which people have begun to read passionately only when the author is banished. Now one hears on every side, `Scandala! scandala!’ and it may be that Veiento invented some things; but I, who know the city, know our patres and our women, assure thee that it is all paler than reality. Meanwhile every man is searching in the book,—for himself with alarm, for his acquaintances with delight. At the book-shop of Avirnus a hundred copyists are writing at dictation, and its success is assured.” “Are not thy affairs in it?” “They are; but the author is mistaken, for I am at once worse and less flat than he represents me. Seest thou we have lost long since the feeling of what is worthy or unworthy,—and to me even it seems that in real truth there is no difference between them, though Seneca, Musonius, and Trasca pretend that they see it. To me it is all one!”

 


Henryk Sienkiewicz (5 mei 1846 – 15 november 1916)
Cover audioboek

 

De Engelse dichter Richard Watson Dixon werd geboren in Islington op 5 mei 1833. Zie ook alle tags voor Richard Watson Dixon op dit blog.

 

Too Much Friendship. The Story Of Septimius And Alcander (Fragment)

Alas, as soon as ever Septimius set eyes on the lady
Hypatia — or rather she set eyes on him — he knew
that he was madly in love with her ! At this point
the srave Alcander becomes inhuman in the correct-
ness of his attitude. That magnanimity should
forbid anger, may be right, though we should have
chosen a warmer word — his ‘large firm eyes filled
with concern and pity,’ are well enough — but the
philosophic turn of mind which makes him instantly
recall every work that he had ever read on Friend-
ship, the arithmetical nicety with which he balances
his emotional account without a thought of the lady,
is altogether too Gibbonian. He does not even
‘sigh as a lover’ Avhile he ‘obeys’ as a friend. This
is not ‘Too Much Friendship,’ it is ‘Too Much
Philosophy.’ No doubt the problem, for any one
Avho cares about friendship, is harder than it looks
at first sight. Shakespeare himself came to grief
over it in The Two Gentlemeii of Verona ; but
Valentine’s impetuous offer of Sylvia to Proteus,
though loyalty cries out against it, rings true beside
this calculated and selfish self-denial. Hypatia, very
naturally, seems to have been glad of the exchange ;
but Hypatia’s kinsmen took a different view, and
they made the life of Alcander a burden to him.
‘The words the words pursued.’
His own words were not of the least avail, and at
last he was sold for a slave; but still Apollo went
smiling on, and Alcander communed with books and
wrote on frizzled skins and kept himself alive with Hope.
‘ Hope who still drops her anchor in life’s sand,
And to firm hold the atoms loose would band,
That life’s tossed ship outride the tempest’s rage ;
Hope, that to ease turns pain, to youth turns age :
Hope, that in mortal nature so is fixed,
That no damned wretch in misery’s mortar mixed,
No sodden villain brought to extreme shame.
Would change to other, and not be the same :
Albeit both high and low would willingly
Add to themselves another’s share of good,
Desiring this man’s fame, and that man’s Avealth,
Yonder man’s beauty, and that other’s health;
So they these goods upon their own might pile.
But never cease to be themselves the while :
Hope bade him live.’

 

 
Richard Watson Dixon (5 mei 1833 – 23 januari 1900)
Cover

 

Onafhankelijk van geboortedata:

De Romeinse dichter Gaius Valerius Catullus werd geboren in 87 v. Chr, in Sirmione bij Verona Zie ook alle tags voor Catullus op dit blog.

 

Carmina

III

Rouwt Lieflijkheden, rouwt Begeerlijkheden,
rouwt menschen van beschaving en gevoel!
Het sijsje van mijn meisje is gestorven,
het sijsje waar mijn meisje meer van hield,
meer zelfs misschien dan van haar eigen oogen.
Zoo snoezig was het, en het kende haar,
de vrouw, zoo goed als ieder kind zijn moeder.
Het was niet weg te lokken van haar schoot;
daar hippelde het aldoor heen en weer
en tjilpte maar om haar, zijn lieve vrouw.
Nu gaat het zieltje langs de duistre baan,
vanwaar men zegt dat geen terugkeer is.
Vervloekt, gij duisternissen van de hel,
die alles opslokt wat bekoorlijk is!
Zoo’n aardig sijsje hebt gij mij ontrukt.
O wandaad! O arm sijsje! ’t Is om jou,
dat nu de oogjes van mijn zoetelief
rood en gezwollen van de traantjes zijn.

IV

O wandelaars, het jacht dat gij hier voor u ziet,
beweert het allersnelste schip geweest te zijn
en mededinging van geen enkel drijvend hout
gevreesd te hebben, ’t zij door riemen voortgestuwd,
of met de bolle zeilen vliegend voor den wind.
Dat zal, zoo zegt het, noch de kust der Adria,
noch der Cycladen archipel ontkennen, noch
’t roemruchtig Rhodos, ’t onherbergzaam Thracisch oord
der Dardanellen of het Zwartezeegebied,
waar dat wat nu een jacht is, een bosschage was.
Want op den kam van den Cytorus placht zijn kruin,
zijn bladerdos, te ruischen in den avondwind.
Amastris en Cytorus aan de Zwarte Zee,
gij, zegt het jacht, dat dit heel goed geweten hebt
en nog wel weet; dat sedert menschenheugenis
het op uw top gestaan heeft en uw watervlak
heeft op doen spatten door der riemen plassend spel
en toen vandaar door al dat bruisend zeegeweld
zijn baas gevoerd heeft, ’t zij de wind van bakboord blies,
het zij van stuurboord, dan wel zonder onderscheid
van achteren de beide schooten strak deed staan,
en nooit een schietgebedje noodig heeft gehad,
ook op zijn laatste reis niet, toen het van de zee
zijn weg vond naar de oevers van dit blanke meer.
Dat was weleer. Maar nu is het gepensioneerd
en wijdt den kalmen levensavond die nog rest,
aan broeder Castor en aan Castors tweelingbroer.

 

Vertaald door A. Rutgers van der Loeff

 

 
Catullus (87 v. Chr – 54 v. Chr.)
Catullus at Lesbia’s door Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 5e mei ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2018 deel 2.

Roni Margulies, Miklós Radnóti, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier

De Turkse schrijver, dichter, vertaler en journalist Roni Margulies werd geboren op 5 mei 1955 in Istanbul. Zie ook alle tags voor Roni Margulies op dit blog.

 

Anniversary

Nearly as many years ago as my age,
the Germans razed this city to the ground.
Not that there’d have been much resistence,
but the Nazis were in something of a rush.

Today is the fifth of May.
As I emerge for my morning walk,
I see streets festooned with flags.
It is, it seems, the anniversary
of the the end of the war for the Dutch.
Strange coincidence! Today is also
the day, long ago, I was born.

As Holland withdrew,
one would think, I
was sent to the front.

 

Vertaald door Roni Margulies

 

Slurven

Hoe kan ik het ooit vergeten, mijn allereerste vlucht.
We lieten onze tickets zien en liepen de gate uit,
links van mij mijn opa, rechts mijn moeder.
Een lichtblauwe bus bracht ons helemaal
tot onder de vleugel. Ik was elf jaar oud.
Ons vertrek en onze terugkeer stonden vast:
We gingen een weekje naar Izmir.

Ook de tweede, zes jaar later, staat in mijn geheugen gegrift:
Ik ga om te studeren: met in mijn hand een ticket,
voor me een nieuwe wereld die op me wacht.
Deze keer gingen we door een slurf
van de wachtruimte naar het vliegtuig.
Mijn gang leek op die van een hinkelend kind.

Toen ik zat en uit mijn raampje keek
leek de lange rij slurven achter mij
op net zovele reuzenvingers die
naar iets leken te wijzen.
Wat was het dat ze wilden zeggen?
Waarop wilden ze me wijzen?
Soms vraag ik me dat nog steeds af.

 

Vertaald door Erik-Jan Zürcher

 

Roni Margulies (Istanbul, 5 mei 1955)

 

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Miklós Radnóti op dit blog.

 

A Hesitant Ode

How long I have prepared, dear, to describe to you
the secret constellation of my love,
perhaps its substance only, just in a single image.
Your teeming sense within me floods like life itself
and sometimes it is timeless, certain and secure:
eternal like a fossil shell within a rock.
The silken, feline moonlit night above my head
begins the hunt for buzzing tiny dreams in flight.
And still I have not managed to describe to you
how much it means to me to sense your caring gaze
as it hesitates upon my hand when I’m at work.
No similes will do. I scrap them as they come.
I will begin this whole attempt again tomorrow
because I am worth only as much as the words
within this poem, and my search will keep me going
until I am reduced to bones and tufts of hair.
You’re tired. It’s been a long day for me also.
What can I say? The objects, look! exchange their glances
in praise of you; a broken cube of sugar sings
on the table; and a drop of honey falls and, like
a ball of gold, it glitters on the tablecloth;
and spontaneously now, an empty tumbler rings out:
it’s glad it lives with you. Perhaps I’ll have the time
to tell you what it’s like when it expects you home.
Descending darkly, flocks of dreams approach you lightly,
they flit away yet keep returning to your brow.
Your drowsy eyes still send a last farewell towards me.
Your loosened hair cascades in freedom. You’re asleep.
The lengthy shadow of your eyelids softly flutters.
Your hand, a resting birch twig, falls upon my pillow.
I share your sleep: you’re not a different world;
and even here I sense as a multitude of secret
and thin, sage lines relax in the tranquil
palm of your hand.

 

Vertaald door Thomas Ország-Land

 

Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)
Cover

 

De Nederlandse dichteres Petra Else Jekel werd in Arnhem geboren op 5 mei 1980. Zie ook alle tags voor Petra Else Jekel op dit blog.

 

uren zat ik naast je op een treinbank, ik had

1

uren zat ik naast je op een treinbank, ik had
het mes in de mond: herkende je me niet?
het buikmeisje dat je brieven schrijft en jij

pijl in de hand, ik moet je ophalen denk ik
maar ik weet nooit waar, in amsterdam
zag je de gifmenger en je zei het tegen mij

drie woorden heb ik: kling en punt en vuur
we zeggen niets, we zitten, je haar heb je
kort afgesneden van verdriet, in berlijn

dwalen we door hoge zalen, praten zacht
over rogier, hij heeft je zelfportret in 1460
al genomen, god weet hoe en ook: voor wie

 

Petra Else Jekel (Arnhem, 5 mei 1980)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Morton Rhue (pseudoniem van Todd Strasser) werd geboren op 5 mei 1950 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Morton Rhue op dit blog.

Uit: Kill You Last

“This is amazing,” Roman said, staring at her iPad. We were sitting at a table in the library, waiting for school to end. “What now?” I asked. “In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote?” Roman said. “It’s one of the best true crime stories I’ve ever read.” “Coming from you, that’s saying a lot.” “And it was written in the nineteen sixties,” she stressed. “Oh, you mean, like before the invention of the modem alphabet?” Roman gave me a droll “You’re so funny, Shels.” My BlackBerry vibrated, and I slid it into my lap to read. It was an email, which was odd, since none of my friends ever emailed anyone. Stranger still, it was from someone calling themselves vengeance137732880gmail. com. This is weird, I thought, then opened the email:
Ur such a sweet nice girl with Ur perfect house and riding around in daddys Ferrari. 2 bad U dont no what hes really up 2 Roman hooked her black hair behind her ear and looked at me curiously. She must have seen the perplexed expression on my face. “What is it?” I handed the BlackBerry to her under the table. “Creep show,” she said, handing it back. “Who sends emails? And what does he mean by what your dad’s really up to?” “How do you know it’s a he?” I asked. “The ‘sweet nice girl’ part. A girl wouldn’t write that.” Roman was my best friend and really smart, but sometimes the stuff that came out of her mouth was off-the-charts bizarre. “Why not?” “She just wouldn’t.” “That makes no sense.” “Says you,” Roman replied with a dismissive shrug. “What should I do?” I nodded at the BlackBerry. “Write back,” Roman said. “And say what? Who are you, and why did you write this? If he wanted me to know who he was, he wouldn’t have used this creepy vengeance at gmail address.” “Say that you already know what your dad does and that you’re dealing with it, thank you very much.” “Good idea.” I thumbed in the message and pressed “Send”.
Roman looked past me. “Guess who just came in.” I turned to see Chris Clarke, the tall and broad-shoul-dered all-state tight end with a 3.9 GPA, signing on to a computer. When he saw me, he smiled and waved. I did the same. “He’s interested,” Roman whispered. “I know.” Chris and I had been exchanging looks and smiles for the past week. “You’d be such a perfect couple,” Roman said. “Has he said anything?” I shook my head. “So far it’s been all smiles and nods.” “Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move.” Before I could respond, my BlackBerry vibrated again. It was another message from vengeance I 37732880gmail.““This is amazing,” Roman said, staring at her iPad. We were sitting at a table in the library, waiting for school to end. “What now?” I asked. “In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote?” Roman said. “It’s one of the best true crime stories I’ve ever read.” “Coming from you, that’s saying a lot.” “And it was written in the nineteen sixties,” she stressed. “Oh, you mean, like before the invention of the modem alphabet?” Roman gave me a droll “You’re so funny, Shels.” My BlackBerry vibrated, and I slid it into my lap to read. It was an email, which was odd, since none of my friends ever emailed anyone. Stranger still, it was from someone calling themselves vengeance137732880gmail. com. This is weird, I thought, then opened the email:
Ur such a sweet nice girl with Ur perfect house and riding around in daddys Ferrari. 2 bad U dont no what hes really up 2 Roman hooked her black hair behind her ear and looked at me curiously. She must have seen the perplexed expression on my face. “What is it?” I handed the BlackBerry to her under the table. “Creep show,” she said, handing it back. “Who sends emails? And what does he mean by what your dad’s really up to?” “How do you know it’s a he?” I asked. “The ‘sweet nice girl’ part. A girl wouldn’t write that.” Roman was my best friend and really smart, but sometimes the stuff that came out of her mouth was off-the-charts bizarre. “Why not?” “She just wouldn’t.” “That makes no sense.” “Says you,” Roman replied with a dismissive shrug. “What should I do?” I nodded at the BlackBerry. “Write back,” Roman said. “And say what? Who are you, and why did you write this? If he wanted me to know who he was, he wouldn’t have used this creepy vengeance at gmail address.” “Say that you already know what your dad does and that you’re dealing with it, thank you very much.” “Good idea.” I thumbed in the message and pressed “Send”.
Roman looked past me. “Guess who just came in.” I turned to see Chris Clarke, the tall and broad-shoul-dered all-state tight end with a 3.9 GPA, signing on to a computer. When he saw me, he smiled and waved. I did the same. “He’s interested,” Roman whispered. “I know.” Chris and I had been exchanging looks and smiles for the past week. “You’d be such a perfect couple,” Roman said. “Has he said anything?” I shook my head. “So far it’s been all smiles and nods.” “Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move.” Before I could respond, my BlackBerry vibrated again. It was another message from vengeance I 37732880gmail.

Morton Rhue / Todd Strasser (New York, 5 mei 1950)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en journalist Christopher Morley werd geboren op 5 mei1890 in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Zie ook alle tags voor Christopher Morley op dit blog.

 

Two O’Clock

Night after night goes by: and clocks still chime
And stars are changing pattrns in the dark
And watches tick, and over-puissant Time
Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,
The trains that roar and rattle in the night,
The very cats that prowl, all quiet find
And leave the darkness empty, silent quite:
Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.

So all things end: and what is left at last?
Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,
A memory of easy days gone past,
A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore-
And in the darkened room I lean to know
How her dreamless breath doth pause and flow.

 

Song In A Dentists Chair

All joys I bless, but I confess
There is one greatest thrill
What the dentist does when he stops the buzz
And puts away the drill.

His engine hums along my gums
its excavating drone,
I salivate and gurgling wait
Vibrating to the bone.

Oh will he save this tooth concave
Or will he now decide
To grind away some more decay?
He murmurs, Open wide.

So I must feel the burning steel,
The hot and fragile twinge
And mutely bide till he push aside
The bracket on its hinge.

But will he swerve toward that nerve?
I wonder, gagged, agape:
He sees me gulp and spares the pulp-
My God, a close escape!

The creosote is in my throat,
I weep against my will;
My nostrils itch, sensation which
I can’t relieve until
He stops the buzz and packs the fuzz
And puts away the drill.

I grant the bliss of love’s warm kiss
Or wealth, or fame, or skill:
These i esteem but yet I deem
There is one greater thrill-
When he stops the buzz, as at last he does,
And puts away the drill.

 

Christopher Morley (5 mei 1890 – 28 maart 1957)
Hier in het midden met collega schrijvers Fletcher Pratt (links) en Rex Stout (rechts) in 1944

 

De Franse dichter, schilder en criticus George Albert Aurier werd geboren op 5 mei 1865 in Châteauroux. Zie ook alle tags voor George Albert Aurier op dit blog.

Uit: Les Isolés, Vincent van Gogh 

« Et d’abord, en effet, comme tous ses illustres compatriotes, c’est un réaliste, un réaliste dans toute la force du terme. Ars est homo, additus naturæa dit le chancelier Bacon, et M. Émile Zola a défini le naturalisme « la nature vue à travers un tempérament ». Or, c’est cet homo additus c’est cet « à travers un tempérament », c’est ce moulage de l’objectif, toujours un, dans des subjectifs, toujours divers, qui compliquent 1a question, et suppriment la possibilité de tout irréfragable critérium des degrés de sincérité de l’artiste. Le critique en est donc fatalement réduit, pour cette détermination, à des inductions plus ou moins hypothétiques, mais toujours contestables. Néanmoins, j’estime que, dans le cas de Vincent Van Gogh, malgré la parfois déroutante étrangeté de ses œuvres, il est difficile, pour qui veut être impartial et pour qui sait regarder, de nier ou de contester la véracité naïve de son art, l’ingénuité de sa vision. Indépendamment, en effet, de cet indéfinissable parfum de bonne foi et de vraiment-vu qu’exhalent tous ses tableaux, le choix des sujets, le rapport constant des plus excessives notes, la conscience d’étude des caractères, la continuelle recherche du signe essentiel de chaque chose, mille significatifs détails nous affirment irrécusablement sa profonde et presqu’enfantine sincérité, son grand amour de la nature et du vrai – son vrai, à lui.
Il nous est donc permis, ceci admis, de légitimement induire des œuvres même de Vincent Van Gogh, à son tempérament d’homme, ou plutôt d’artiste — induction qu’il me serait possible, si je le voulais, de corroborer par des faits biographiques. Ce qui particularise son œuvre entière, c’est l’excès, l’excès en la force, l’excès en la nervosité, la violence en l’expression. Dans sa catégorique affirmation du caractère des choses, dans sa souvent téméraire simplification des formes, dans son insolence à fixer le soleil face à face, dans la fougue véhémente de son dessin et de sa couleur, jusque dans les moindres particularités de sa technique, se révèle un puissant, un mâle, un oseur, très souvent brutal et parfois ingénûment délicat. Et, de plus, cela se devine, aux outrances quasiment orgiaques de tout ce qu’il a peint, c’est un exalté, ennemi des sobriétés bourgeoises et des minuties, une sorte de géant ivre, plus apte à des remuements de montagnes qu’à manier des bibelots d’étagères, un cerveau en ébullition, déversant sa lave dans tous les ravins de l’art, irrésistiblement, un terrible et affolé génie, sublime souvent, grotesque quelquefois, toujours relevant presque de la pathologie. »

George Albert Aurier (5 mei 1865 – 5 oktober 1892)
Vincent van Gogh, Boomgaard omzoomd door cipressen, Arles, april 1888

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 5e mei ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

Miklós Radnóti, Roni Margulies, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Richard Watson Dixon, Catullus

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Miklós Radnóti op dit blog. 

Before the storm

You sit upon the peak and on your knees asleep
that youthful woman ripened for your love; behind,
the bristly deeds of war; beware! hold dear and keep

your life, hold dear your world which you with hardened hands
have built around your life while all about you death
in circles hovered around and around above the lands –

behold, it has returned! the garden’s nests from the high
treetops come plunging down in terror stricken flight,
all things are about to break! and keep an eye on the sky

because already lightning shakes the firmament;
wind tussles, drags the cradles as the men-folk whimper
asleep as weakly as the helpless innocent;

the wind blows on their dreams, they grumble and turn around,
they wake with a start and stare at you who’s been awake
and sitting up amid the fleeting thunder, the sound

of roaring future battles being prepared; above,
the splendid wind speaks of the storm and so do the clouds;
it’s time to wrap your woman warmly in your love.

 

Fragment

I lived upon this earth in such an age
when man was so debased he sought to kill
for pleasure, not just to comply with orders,
his faith in falsehoods drove him to corruption,
his life was ruled by raving self-deceptions.

I lived upon this earth in such an age
that idolized the sly police informers,
whose heroes were the killers, spies, the thieves —
and the few who held their peace or only failed
to cheer were loathed like victims of the plague.

I lived upon this earth in such an age
when those who risked protest were wise to hide
and gnaw their fists in self-consuming shame —
the crazed folk grinned about their terrifying
doomed future, wild and drunk on blood and mire.

I lived upon this earth in such an age
when the mother of an infant was a curse,
when pregnant women were glad to abort,
the living envied the corpses in the graves
while on the table foamed their poisoned cup.

 

Vertaald door Thomas Ország-Land

 
Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)

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Miklós Radnóti, Roni Margulies, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier, Henryk Sienkiewicz

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Miklós Radnóti op dit blog. 

Portrait

I’m nearly twenty-two years old. Thus
Christ too might have appeared in the autumn
at the same age when he
still had no beard, he was blond and maidens
dreamt of him nightly!

 

The Bull

Hitherto, I lived the throbbing life of a youthful bull
bored in the noonday heat among pregnant cows in the field,
running around in unending circles declaring his powers
and waving amid his game a foaming flag of saliva.
He shakes his head and turns with the splitting, thick air on his horns
and behind his stamping hooves the tormented grass and earth
spatters widely about the terrified green pasture.

And still I live like a bull, but a bull that suddenly stops
in the heart of the meadow singing with crickets, stops nostrils lifted
and sniffing the air. For he senses that far in the mountain forests
the roebuck too stops and listens and lightly flees with the wind,
the hissing wind that carries the stench of a distant wolf pack —
thus the bull snorts, but he will not escape like the deer
and considers that when his time is to come, he will fight and fall
and his bones will be scattered about in the district by the horde —
and slowly and sadly the bull bellows through the fat air.

Thus I will struggle and thus I will fall when the hour is come,
and the district will treasure my bones for reminders to future ages

 

Vertaald door Thomas Land

 
Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)
Standbeeld in Boedapest

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Miklós Radnóti, Roni Margulies, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier, Henryk Sienkiewicz

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook alle tags voor Miklós Radnóti op dit blog.

Brief an die Gattin

Schweigende, stumme Weiten in der Tiefe.
Die Stille heult. Ich schreie. Doch wer riefe
mir Antwort zu in diesem todumhauchten
serbischen Land, des Täler blutig rauchten;
und du bist fern. Nur nachts durch meine Träume
klingt deine Stimme noch. In heiße Räume
des Herzens berg ich sie, ihr tags zu lauschen,
indes um mich die schlanken Farne rauschen.

Wann ich dich wiederseh, kann ich nicht wissen,
du Hort, stark wie ein Psalm in Ärgernissen,
wie Licht und Schatten schön! Ach, selbst mit blinden
Augen würd ich unfehlbar zu dir finden;
die Landschaft birgt dich, doch von innen schwebst du
mir vor das Aug, und unzerstörbar lebst du:
Wirklichkeit warst, Traum wirst du, Wunderbare,
erneut im Brunnen meiner Knabenjahre.

Voll Eifersucht dring ich in dich: Sag, liebst du
mich? Und, am Gipfel meiner Jugend, gibst du
die Hand als Gattin mir? Ich hoff’s; erneut im
Wachsein weiß ich: Du bist’s: Ehfrau und Freundin,
nur fern bist du. Jenseits drei wilder Grenzen.
Auch wird’s September, bunt schon Kronen glänzen.
Vergißt mich selbst der Herbst? Ins Ungewisse
treib ich und schmeck noch taumelnd unsre Küsse.

An Wunder glaubt ich und vergaß sie. Lärmend
ziehn Bomber über uns. Am Himmel, schwärmend,
sah ich dein Augenblau – nun, unter Dröhnen
trübt es sich ein, und wild die Bomben sehnen
zum Sturz sich droben. Ihnen trotzend leb ich
und bin gefangen, doch, glaub mir, bald schweb ich
zu dir und weiß, daß ich dich nicht verfehle.
Für dich legt ich die Länge meiner Seele,

der Wege all zurück. Durch Purpurgluten,
wenn es so sein muß, durch brüllende Fluten
werd ich mich zaubern, daß zu dir ich finde,
ich werde zäh sein wie am Baum die Rinde,
mit wilder Männer Ruh werd ich aufwiegen
Waffen und Macht; es lehrt die Not mich siegen
und die Gefahr, und hold wird Hoffnung schenken
die Nüchternheit des 2x 2 dem Denken.

 

Vertaald door Franz Fühmann

 
Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)
Standbeeld in Radnovce (Hongaars: Nemesradnót)

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Petra Else Jekel, Miklós Radnóti, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier, Henryk Sienkiewicz

De Nederlandse dichteres Petra Else Jekel werd in Arnhem geboren op 5 mei 1980. Zie ook alle tags voor Petra Else Jekel op dit blog.

De tweelingvrouw

1
de tweelingvrouw, de twee Frida’s
zij hebben slechts één paar voeten

haar duimen raken alle vingers
stuk voor stuk en heen en terug
als in die eerste dansles waarin
zij een cirkel van haar hand en
arm omheen haar buik maakt

de tweelingvrouw, de twee Frida’s
houden de duimen aan de borst

zij raken onder water aan elkaar
het bodemsteen naar hen geslepen
biedt als huis een grot met genoeg
onderwatergewaden om te blijven
nog net verandert zij van lichaam

2
de eerste Frida roept mij bij zich
zij roept me over water vanuit zee
maar op de wal laat ze me staan
ik zet me neer en wacht op regen

de tweede Frida praat heel zachtjes
zegt wat niet waar is aan het water
dat ik helder moet zijn van woorden
als ik geluisterd heb neemt zij me mee

neem een sjaal zegt zij, het zal er waaien
breng een jas tegen het water, vergeet
hoe te zwemmen, adem ook onder water
door, wees als het levend bloedkoraal

 
Petra Else Jekel (Arnhem, 5 mei 1980)

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Frans Pointl, Petra Else Jekel, Miklós Radnóti, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier

Bij Bevrijdingsdag

 

Nationaal Canadees Bevrijdingsmonument

door Henk Visch bij Paleis Het Loo

 

 

Moeder

hoe de doden in haar woelden
’s nachts ijlde ze hun namen af
henriëtte, fanny, vader, mams,
serah, simon, martha, sem!
ik amper dertien beluisterde
angstig ademloos die dodendraf
in haar ontmenselijkte stem
dan stond ze op
lopend dromend
trok de koffer van onder het bed
verwilderd krijsend:razzia, razzia!
dan hield ik haar staande
roepend het is 1946 1946
en voorbij voorbij
in haar bleef het klagend gaande
zoals zij gaande en klagend
blijft in mij

 

 

Frans Pointl (Amsterdam, 1 augustus 1933)

Lees verder “Frans Pointl, Petra Else Jekel, Miklós Radnóti, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier” →

J. C. Bloem, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Miklós Radnóti, Christopher Morley

 Bij 5 mei



Bevrijding

Monument door Paul Elshout, Geertruidenberg

 

Na de bevrijding

Schoon en stralend is, gelijk toen, het voorjaar,
Koud des morgens, maar als de dagen verder
Opengaan, is de eeuwige lucht een wonder
Voor de geredden.

In ’t doorzichtig waas over al de brake
Landen ploegen weder trage paarden
Als altijd, wijl nog de nabije verten
Dreunen van oorlog.

Dit beleefd te hebben, dit heellijfs uit te
Mogen spreken, ieder ontwaken weer te
Weten: heen is, en nu voorgoed, de welhaast
Duldloze knechtschap –

Waard is het, vijf jaren gesmacht te hebben,
Nu opstandig, dan weer gelaten, en niet
Eén van de ongeborenen zal de vrijheid
Ooit zo beseffen.

 


J. C. Bloem(10 mei 1887 – 10 augustus 1966)

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Miklós Radnóti, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Hans Werner Kolben, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2010.

 

 

Postcard 1

 

Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,

resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence

while here men, beasts, wagons and imagination all steadily increase;

the road whinnies and bucks, neighing; the maned sky gallops;

and you are eternally with me, love, amid all the chaos,

glowing within my conscience — incandescent, intense.

Somewhere within me, dear, you abide forever —

still, motionless, silent, like an angel stunned to complacence by death

or an insect inhabiting the heart of a rotting tree.

 

 

Postcard 4

 

I fell beside him — his body taut,

tight as a string just before it snaps,

shot in the back of the head.

“This is how you’ll end too; just lie quietly here,”

I whispered to myself, patience blossoming into death.

“Der springt noch auf,” the voice above me said

through caked mud and blood congealing in my ear.

 

 

Vertaald door Michael R. Burch

 


Miklós Radnóti(5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)

Standbeeld in Boedapest

 

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Miklós Radnóti, Petra Else Jekel, Morton Rhue, Christopher Morley, George Albert Aurier

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009.

 

War Diary

 

3. Weary Afternoon

 

A dying wasp flies in at the window,

my dreaming wife talks in her sleep,

and the hems of the browning clouds

are blown to fringes by a gentle breeze.

 

What can I talk about? Winter is coming, and war is coming;

soon I will lie broken, seen by no one;

worm-ridden earth will fill my mouth and eyes

and roots will pierce through my body.

 

                                  *

 

Oh, gently rocking afternoon, give me peace—

I will lie down too, and work later.

The light of your sun is already hanging on the hedges,

and yonder the evening comes across the hills.

 

They have killed a cloud, its blood is falling on the sky;

below, on the stems of the glowing leaves

sit wine-scented yellow berries.

 

4. Evening Approaches

 

Across the slick sky the sun is climbing down,

and the evening is coming early along the road.

Its coming is watched in vain by the sharp-eyed moon—

little puffs of mist are gathering.

 

The hedgerow is wakening, it catches at a weary wanderer;

the evening is spinning among the tree branches

and humming louder and louder, while these lines build up

and lean on one another.

 

A frightened squirrel springs into my quiet room,

and here a six-footed iambic couplet scampers by.

From the wall to the window, a brown moment—

and it’s gone without a trace.

 

The fleeting peace disappears with it. Silent

worms crawl over the far fields

and slowly chew to pieces the endless

rows of the reclining dead.

 

 

Vertaald door Lucy Helen Boling

 

radnoti

Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 – 9 november 1944)

 

De Nederlandse dichteres Petra Else Jekel werd in Arnhem geboren op 5 mei 1980. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009.

 

Meisje

 

Geen kind heeft mij gevonden nog,

ingevroren geraakt in rots,

mij,

met onontvlamde zwavelstok.

 

Toch kwam ik thuis op den duur uit

het sneeuwlandschap. Langzaam daalden

de bergen, het land werd een zee,

geen kind waarmee ik verdwaalde

bracht zee levend aan de over

kant. Brandstof was mijn betaalde.

 

Jekel

Petra Else Jekel (Arnhem, 5 mei 1980)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Morton Rhue (pseudoniem van Todd Strasser) werd geboren op 5 mei 1950 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009.

 

Uit: If I Grow Up (als Todd Strasser)

 

„The shouting and screaming outside started at dinnertime. We were sitting on the living room couch, eating macaroni and cheese, and watching Judge Joe Brown on the TV. Between the banging of the heat pipes and the noise outside, it was one big racket.

“DeShawn, turn up the sound,” Gramma said. I put my tray on the couch and turned up the volume. The TV was old, and no one knew where the clicker was anymore. It was just me and Gramma that night. My big sister, Nia, was out with her boyfriend, LaRue.

Outside the yelling got louder and the police sirens started. Gramma flinched and put down her fork. She shook her gray head wearily, and the skin around her eyes wrinkled. “Noise around here is gonna make me lose my mind.”

I glanced toward the thick green curtains that covered the window. Ever since gangbangers cocktailed the apartment down the hall, Gramma had kept the curtains closed all the time.

“Don’t go near that window,” she warned. “They could start shootin’.”

The curtains already had two bullet holes the size of bottle caps. There were bullet holes in the walls, too. Gramma had put a picture over one of them, and another was blocked by our little Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and candy canes. We would have been safer living on a high floor, but the elevators were always broken and it was hard for Gramma to climb the stairs after cleaning houses all day. In the projects, the older you got, the closer to the ground you wanted to live.“

 

Rhue_web

Morton Rhue/Todd Strasser (New York, 5 mei 1950)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en journalist Christopher Morley werd geboren op 5 mei1890 in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2007 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009.

 

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

 

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

And all the craggy mountain yields.

There we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

 

And I will make thee beds of roses,

With a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

 

A gown made of the finest wool,

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

 

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs;

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

 

 

 

Animal Crackers 

 

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,

That is the finest of suppers I think;

When I’m grown up and can have what I please

I think I shall always insist upon these.

What do YOU choose when you’re offered a treat?

When Mother says, ‘What would you like best to eat?’

Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?

It’s cocoa and animals that I love most!

 

The kitchen’s the cosiest place that I know;

The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,

And there in the twilight, how jolly to see

The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

 

Daddy and Mother dine later in state,

With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;

But they don’t have nearly as much fun as I

Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;

And Daddy once said, he would like to be me

Having cocoa and animals once more for tea.

 

ChristopherMorley

Christopher Morley (5 mei 1890 – 28 maart 1957)

 

 

De Franse dichter, schilder en criticus George Albert Aurier werd geboren op 5 mei 1865 in Châteauroux (Indre). Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008 en ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2009.

 

Uit: The Isolated Ones: Vincent van Gogh (Les Isolés : Vincent van Gogh )

 

“Beneath skies that sometimes dazzle like faceted sapphires or turquoises., that sometimes are molded of infernal, hot, noxious, and blinding sulfurs; beneath skies like streams of molten metals and crystals, which, at times, expose radiating, torrid solar disks; beneath the incessant and formidable streaming of every conceivable effect of light, in heavy, flaming, burning atmospheres that seem to be exhaled from fantastic furnaces where gold and diamonds and similar gems are volatilized–there is the disquieting and disturbing display of a strange nature, that is at once entirely realistic, and yet almost supernatural, of an excessive nature where everything–beings and things, shadows and lights, forms and colours–rears and rises up with a raging will to howl its own essential song in the most intense and fiercely high-pitched timbre: Trees, twisted like giants in battle, proclaiming with the gestures of their gnarled menacing arms and with the tragic waving of their green manes their indomitable power, the pride of their musculature, their blood-hot sap, their eternal defiance of hurricane, lightning and malevolent Nature; cypresses that expose their nightmarish, flamelike, black silhouettes, mountains that arch their backs like mammoths or rhinoceri; white and pink and golden orchards, like the idealizing dreams of virgins; squatting, passionately contorted houses, in a like manner to beings who exult, who suffer, who think; stones, terrains, bushes, grassy fields, gardens, and rivers that seem sculpted out of unknown minerals, polished, glimmering, iridescent, enchanting, flaming landscapes, like the effervescence of multicoloured enamels in some alchemist’s diabolical crucible; foliage that seems of ancient bronze, of new copper, of spun glass; flowerbeds that appear less like flowers than opulent jewelry fashioned from rubies, agates, onyx, emeralds, corundums, chrysoberyls, amethysts, and chalcedonies; it is the universal, mad and blinding coruscation of things; it is matter and all of Nature frenetically contorted . . . raised to the heights of exacerbation; it is form, becoming nightmare; colour, becoming flame, lava and precious stone; light turning into conflagration; life, into burning fever.”

 

Aurier

George Albert Aurier (5 mei 1865 – 5 oktober 1892)

 
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 5e mei ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.