Tag: Scott Cairns

Don DeLillo, Scott Cairns

De Amerikaanse schrijver Don DeLillo werd op 20 november 1936 geboren in New York City als zoon van Italiaanse immigranten. Zie ook alle tags voor Don DeLillo op dit blog.

Uit: Zero K

“When I got here I was met by two armed escorts. Took me through security, took me to the room, said next to nothing. That’s all I know. And the name, which sounds religious.”
“Faith-based technology. That’s what it is. Another god. Not so different, it turns out, from some of the earlier ones. Except that it’s real, it’s true, it delivers.”
“Life after death.”
“Eventually, yes.”
“The Convergence.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a meaning in mathematics.” “There’s a meaning in biology. There’s a meaning in physiology. Let it rest,” he said.
When my mother died, at home, I was seated next to the bed and there was a friend of hers, a woman with a cane, standing in the doorway. That’s how I would picture the moment, narrowed, now and always, to the woman in the bed, the woman in the doorway, the bed itself, the metal canc. Ross said, “Down in an area that serves as a hospice I some-times stand among the people being prepared to undergo the process. Anticipation and awe intermingled. Far more palpable than apprehension or uncertainty. There’s a reverence, a state of astonishment. They’re together in this. Something far larger than they’d ever imagined. They feel a common mission, a destination. And I find myself hying to imagine such a place centuries back. A lodging, a shelter for travellers. For pilgrims.”
“Okay, pilgrims. We’re back to the old-time religion. Is it possible for me to visit the hospice?” “Probably not,” he said.
He gave me a small flat disk appended to a wristband. He said it was similar to the ankle monitor that kept police agencies informed of a suspect’s whereabouts, pending trial. I’d be allowed entry to certain areas on this level and the one above, nowhere else. I could not remove the wristband without alerting security.
“Don’t be quick to draw conclusions about what you see and hear. This place was designed by serious people. Respect the idea. Respect the setting itself. Artis says we ought to regard it as a work-in-progress, an earthwork, a form of earth art, land art. Built up out of the land and sunk down into it as well. Restricted access. Defined by stillness, both human and environmental. A little tomblike as well. The earth is the guiding principle,” he said. “Return to the earth, emerge from the earth.”
I spent time walking the halls. The halls were nearly empty, three people, at intervals, and I nodded to each, receiving only a single grudging glance. The walls were shades of green. Down one broad hall, turn into another. Blank walls, no windows, doors widely spaced, all doors shut. These were doors of related colours, subdued, and I wondered if there was meaning to be found in these slivers of the spectrum. This is what I did in any new environment. I tried to inject meaning, make the place coherent or at least locate myself within the place, to confirm my uneasy presence.”

 

Don DeLillo (New York City, 20 november 1936)

 

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.

Uit: Idiot Psalms

3. Een psalm van Isaak, gefluisterd te midden van de Filistijnen, zachtjes.

Meester, zowel onzichtbaar als notoir
…..traag met handelen, mocht u geneigd zijn
……Uw genereuze aandacht op dit moment te houden
……bij de bekrompen scène van deze, de ons toegewezen
……saaiheid, mocht U – zodra onze vriendelijke
……secretaris naar behoren genoteerd heeft wie van ons
……aanwezigheid veinzen, en wie verontschuldigd is, wie niet,
……vindt U het misschien leuk om te horen hoeveel we te zeggen hebben
……over zo weinig. Tussen deze andere middelmatigen,
……vangt Uw middelmatige dienaar een glimp op van hoe
……zijn slappe en magere aanbidding eruit zou kunnen zien
……vanwaar U eindeloos onze droefgeestigheid volgt.
Heilige, vergeef, zie af en, zo U wilt, weer
……uit mijn hart het gevoel dat ik hier aan het verdrinken ben
……te midden van de roering, de discussies, de vele
……vragen, eindeloos herschikt, onze papieren stemmen.

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 20e november ook mijn blog van 20 november 2018 en eveneens mijn blog van 20 november 2017.

Sharon Olds, Scott Cairns

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 End

We decided to have the abortion, became
killers together. The period that came
changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple
who had been for life.
As we talked of it in bed, the crash
was not a surprise. We went to the window,
looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming
curved shears of glass as if we had
done it. Cops pulled the bodies out
Bloody as births from the small, smoking
aperture of the door, laid them
on the hill, covered them with blankets that soaked
through. Blood
began to pour
down my legs into my slippers. I stood
where I was until they shot the bound
form into the black hole
of the ambulance and stood the other one
up, a bandage covering its head,
stained where the eyes had been.
The next morning I had to kneel
an hour on that floor, to clean up my blood,
rubbing with wet cloths at those glittering
translucent spots, as one has to soak
a long time to deglaze the pan
when the feast is over.

 

The Ferryer

Three years after my father’s death
he goes back to work. Unemployed
for twenty-five years, he’s very glad
to be taken on again, shows up
on time, tireless worker. He sits
in the prow of the boat, sweet cox, turned
with his back to the carried. He is dead, but able
to kneel upright, facing forward
toward the other shore. Someone has closed
his mouth, so he looks more comfortable, not
thirsty or calling out, and his eyes
are open, there under the iris the black
line that appeared there in death. He is calm,
he is happy to be hired, he’s in business again,
his new job is a joke between us and he
loves to have a joke with me, he keeps
a straight face. He waits, naked,
ivory bow figurehead,
ribs, nipples, lips, a gaunt
tall man, and when I bring people
and set them in the boat and push them off
my father poles them across the river
to the far bank. We don’t speak,
he knows that this is simply someone
I want to get rid of, who makes me feel
ugly and afraid. I do not say
the way you did. He knows the labor
and loves it. When I dump someone in
he does not look back, he takes them straight
to hell. He wants to work for me
until I die. Then, he knows, I will
come to him, get in his boat
and be taken across, then hold out my broad
hand to his, help him ashore, we will
embrace like two who were never born,
naked, not breathing then up to our chins we will
pull the dark blanket of earth and
rest together at the end of the working day.

 

Sharon Olds (San Francisco, 19 november 1942)

 

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.

 

Vroege vorst

Vanmorgen doet het witte gezicht van de wereld ons eraan denken
dat het leven weer de neiging heeft om serieus worden.
En dezelfde luidruchtige vogels die ons de hele zomer lang
irriteerden met hun verheven attitude en gekwetter
zitten stil langs de galg van het hek, een beetje verbluft,
deemoedig genoeg.

Ze zien eruit alsof ze erop wachten dat
alles erger wordt, maar kijken naar het huis,
alsof ze ergens in hun vage herinneringen
iets kunnen vinden over deze verlaten tuin,
dat hen zou kunnen redden.

De hond van de buurman heeft ook geleerd te waken
zonder overdrijving. En de buurman zelf
heeft zijn auto met minder lawaai bereikt en start
de kleine motor met een soort eerbied. Bij het raam
is zijn vrouw getuige van dit sombere tafereel, knipperend
met haar ogen, zwijgend.

Ik vul de voerbakken tot de rand en rij ze
naar de boom, haast me weer naar binnen
om de ochtend aan deze belachelijke
vogels over te laten, die het weer te binnen schiet, de simpele huisjes vinden,
zich voorover buigen, en dan eten.

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 19e november ook mijn blog van 19 november 2018 en eveneens mijn blog van 19 november 2017 deel 3.

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)

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Advent (Scott Cairns)

Bij de vierde zondag van de Advent

 

 
Weihnachtsmarkt Am Hof in Wien door Emil Barbarini, z.j.

 

Advent

Well, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas — everywhere, children eyeing the bright lights and colorful goods, traffic a good deal worse than usual, and most adults in view looking a little puzzled, blinking their eyes against the assault of stammering bulbs and public displays of goodwill. We were all embarrassed, frankly, the haves and the have-nots — all of us aware something had gone far wrong with an entire season, something had eluded us. And, well, it was strenuous, trying to recall what it was that had charmed us so, back when we were much smaller and more oblivious than not concerning the weather, mass marketing, the insufficiently hidden faces behind those white beards and other jolly gear. And there was something else: a general diminishment whose symptoms included the Xs in Xmas, shortened tempers, and the aggressive abandon with which most celebrants seemed to push their shiny cars about. All of this seemed to accumulate like wet snow, or like the fog with which our habitual inversion tried to choke us, or to blank us out altogether, so that, of a given night, all that appeared over the mess we had made of the season was what might be described as a nearly obscured radiance, just visible through the gauze, either the moon disguised by a winter veil, or some lost star — isolated, distant, sadly dismissing of us, and of all our expertly managed scene.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)
Tacoma

 

Zie voor de schrijvers van de 21e december ook mijn drie vorige blogs van vandaag.

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” →

Scott Cairns

De Amerikaanse dichter, librettist enessayist Scott Cairns werd geboren op 19 november 1954 in Tacoma, Washington. Cairns behaalde zijn Bachelor of Arts aan de Western Washington University (1977), een Master of Arts aan Hollins University (1979), een Master of Fine Arts aan Bowling Green State University (1981) en een PhD aan de Universiteit van Utah (1990). Momenteel doceert hij Engels aan de Universiteit van Missouri en geeft hij jaarlijks gedurende 4 weken in juni workshops schrijven in Griekenland, Op Cairns naam staan zeven dichtbundels, een verzameling van de vertalingen van de christelijke mystici, spirituele memoires, een groot essay over het lijden, en ook is hij co-editor van The Sacred Place (met Scott Olsen), een bloemlezing van poëzie, fictie en non-fictie. Deze won de inaugurele National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literatuur categorie) in 1997. Hij schreef het libretto voor ” The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp,”, een oratorium gecomponeerd door JAC Redford, en het libretto voor “A Melancholy Beauty ‘, een oratorium gecomponeerd door Georgi Andreev. Cairns’s gedichten zijn verschenen in tijdschriften zoals The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Image, and Poetry en in diverse bloemlezingen.

 

Idiot Psalms

1  
       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by Jew’s harp.

O God Belovéd if obliquely so,
                     dimly apprehended in the midst
                     of this, the fraught obscuring fog  
                     of my insufficiently capacious ken,  
                     Ostensible Lover of our kind—while
                     apparently aloof—allow
                     that I might glimpse once more
                     Your shadow in the land, avail
                     for me, a second time, the sense
                     of dire Presence in the pulsing
                     hollow near the heart.  
Once more, O Lord, from Your enormity incline
                     your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy
                     of immolation, if You will.

2  
       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by baying hounds.

O Shaper of varicolored clay and cellulose, O Keeper
                     of same, O Subtle Tweaker, Agent
                     of energies both appalling and unobserved,  
                     do not allow Your servant’s limbs to stiffen
                     or to ossify unduly, do not compel Your servant  
                     to go brittle, neither cramping at the heart,  
                     nor narrowing his affective sympathies
                     neither of the flesh nor of the alleged soul.
Keep me sufficiently limber that I might continue
                     to enjoy my morning run among the lilies  
                     and the rowdy waterfowl, that I might
                     delight in this and every evening’s intercourse  
                     with the woman you have set beside me.
Make me to awaken daily with a willingness
                     to roll out readily, accompanied
                     by grateful smirk, a giddy joy,  
                     the idiot’s undying expectation,  
                     despite the evidence.

 

 
Scott Cairns (Tacoma, 19 november 1954)