De Vlaamse dichter Jan Lauwereyns werd geboren op 13 mei 1969 in Antwerpen. Zie ook alle tags voor Jan Lauwereyns op dit blog.

Licht onder de hersenpan

Het stapeltje bladeren waar ik me voor had gezet is alweer
tot nul herleid. Nul: niets, problematisch oorsprong van alles.

Zie ik nu ijskoude staaltjes werkelijkheid?

Verklaren oogbewegingen in het donker welke beelden
zich vormen onder de hersenpan? Ik bedoel,
werpen ze er een licht op?

Of juist niet?

Blijf ik gedoemd snappshots te schieten met waar ik
veel kegeltjes heb op mijn netvlies.

Van dit landschap zie ik wat bloesem op een tak
van een - alles bij elkaar genomen -
verbluffende kersenboom.

Van je gezicht zie ik de komma, rechts,
vlak naast je mondhoek.

Gedicht/Niet-gedicht deel 2

Bij Rainer Maria Rilkes 'Lied vom Meer'

Oeroud waaien van meer, zeewind bij nacht
Jou ontgaat geen die wacht of zien zal hoe
Oeroud waaien van meer, zeewind des nachts
Jij zult weerstaan! Oeroud waaien van meer
Jou ontgaat wachten niet, noch verwijzen
Verstenigd weze van ruimte rijzen
Jij zult weerstaan! Aldoor waaien van meer
Zo gevoel je varen, diep in maanschijn
Verstrengeld wezen van ruimte rijze
Zo gevoel je varen, in maanschijn diep

Tijger

In een wereld

van goud,

dit askleurige

vloeiend

water,

daarvan

drinken,

(natuurlijk!)

een tijger.

Jan Lauwereyns (Antwerpen, 13 mei 1969)

De Vlaamse dichter Reinout Verbeke werd geboren op 13 mei 1981 in Roeselare. Zie ook alle tags voor Reinout Verbeke op dit blog.

Sonar

Waar woon ik nog als jij morgen langzaam een klein eiland wordt,
zee vreet aan je rand

Wie ben ik nog als jij morgen langzaam een witte kamer wordt,
in een eindeloze gang

Wat ben ik nog als jij morgen langzaam een harde winter wordt,
masker van sneeuw

Waarom werkt jouw sonar niet?
Spreek! Zing! Schreeuw!
Waarom hoor ik nu mijn stem?
Echo wordt een wiegelied

Waarom krijg ik geen geluid?
Spreek! Zing! Schreeuw!
Waarom werkt jouw sonar niet?

Wat zijn wij nog als jij morgen voor altijd een vleermuis bent,
omgekeerd in mijn hoofd

Wat zijn wij nog als jij morgen voor altijd een wakke plek bent
in het ijs van de tijd

Reinout Verbeke (Roeselare, 13 mei 1981)

De Engelse schrijver Bruce Chatwin werd op 13 mei 1940 in Sheffield geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Bruce Chatwin op dit blog.

Uit: In Patagonia

“And I saw myself, out alone on a green head land, scanning the horizon for the advance of the cloud.

And yet we hoped to survive the blast. We started an Emigration Committee and made plans to settle in some far corner of the earth. We pored over atlases. We learned the direction of prevailing winds and the likely patterns of fall-out. The war would come in the Northern Hemisphere, so we looked to the Southern. We ruled out Pacific Islands for islands are traps. We ruled out Australia and New Zealand, and we fixed on Patagonia as the safest place on earth.

I pictured a low timber house with a shingled roof, caulked against storms, with blazing log fires inside and the walls lined with the best books, somewhere to live when the rest of the world blew up.

Then Stalin died and we sang hymns of praise in chapel, but I continued to hold Patagonia in reserve.”

(…)

Roberts added that Wilson had been a companion of Duffy (Harvey Logan), in Patagoniaand in Montana where they had done a train robbery. This can only be the Wagner TrainHold-up on June 3rd 1901. The composition of the gang was: Harvey Logan, ButchCassidy, Harry Longabaugh, Ben Kilpatrick ‘The Tall Texan’, with O. C. Hanks and Jim Thornhill in charge of horses.

Roberts’s letter assumes that Evans and Wilson and Ryan and Place were four separateindividuals. But his descriptions tally exactly with those for Cassidy and the Kid, except inthe matter of age. This is not an insuperable problem. The Welsh policeman never sawthe outlaws face to face. And I found, in Patagonia, that people had the habit of underestimating age by ten to fifteen years.”

Bruce Chatwin (13 mei 1940 – 18 januari 1989)

Portret door de Amerikaanse schilder Shawn Yu 

De Britse schrijfster Daphne du Maurier werd geboren in Londen op 13 mei 1907. Zie ook alle tags voor Daphne du Maurier op dit blog.

Uit: Rebecca

“No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things. that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. There was another plant too, some halfbreed from the woods, whose seed had been scattered long ago beneath the trees and then forgotten, and now, marching in unison with the ivy, thrust its ugly form like a giant rhubarb towards the soft grass where the daffodils had blown.

Nettles were everywhere, the van-guard of the army. They choked the terrace, they sprawled, about the paths, they leant, vulgar and lanky, against the very windows of the house. They made indifferent sentinels, for in many places their ranks had been broken by the rhubarb plant, and they lay with crumpled heads and listless stems, making a pathway for the rabbits. I left the drive and went on to the terrace, for the nettles were no barrier to me, a dreamer, I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.

Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, even upon a dreamer's fancy. As I stood there, hushed and still, I could swear that the house was not an empty shell but lived and breathed as it had lived before.”

Daphne du Maurier (13 mei 1907 – 19 april 1989)

Cover 

De Schotse dichteres Kathleen Jamie werd geboren op 13 mei 1962 in Currie, Edinburgh. Zie ook alle tags voor Kathleen Jamie op dit blog.

The Glass-hulled Boat

First come the jellyfish:

mauve-fringed, luminous bowls

like lost internal organs,

pulsing and slow.

Then in the green gloom

swaying sideways and back

like half-forgotten ancestors

– columns of bladderwrack.

It's as though we're stalled in a taxi

in an ill-lit, odd

little town, at closing time,

when everyone's maudlin

and really, ought just to go

home, you sorry inclining

pillars of wrack, you lone,

vaguely uterine jellyfish

– whom I almost envy:

spun out, when our engines churn,

on some sudden new trajectory,

fuddled, but unperturbed.

The Whale-watcher

And when at last the road

gives out, I’ll walk –

harsh grass, sea-maws,

lichen-crusted bedrock –

and hole up the cold

summer in some battered

caravan, quartering

the brittle waves

till my eyes evaporate

and I’m willing again

to deal myself in:

having watched them

breach, breathe, and dive

far out in the glare,

like stitches sewn in a rent

almost beyond repair.

Kathleen Jamie (Currie, 13 mei 1962)

De Amerikaanse schrijver Armistead Jones Maupin Jr. werd geboren op 13 mei 1944 in Washington. Zie ook alle tags voor Armistead Maupin op dit blog.

Uit: Tales of the City

“What? I don’t . . .”

“I’m not coming home, Mom.”

For a moment, the line seemed to go dead. Then, dimly in the distance, a television announcer began to tell Mary Ann’s father about the temporary relief of hemorrhoids. Finally, her mother spoke: “Now you’re being silly, darling.”

Mary Ann tried to stay calm. “I’m not being silly, Mom. I really feel comfortable here. I mean, it seems like home to me already.”

More silence.

“Mom, I’ve thought about this for a long time.”

“You’ve only been out there five days.”

“I know, Mom, but I’m really sure about this. It’s got nothing to do with you and Daddy. I just want to start making my own life, have my own apartment . . .”

“Oh, that. Well, of course you can, darling. As a matter of fact, your Daddy and I thought those new apartments out at Ridgemont might be just perfect for you. They take lots of young people, and they’ve got a swimming pool and one of those sauna things, and I could make some of those darling curtains like I made for Sonny and Vicki when they got married. You could have all the privacy you . . .”

Mary Ann’s voice was gentle but firm. “Mom, you aren’t listening to me. It isn’t the privacy or living with you and Daddy or . . . any of that. It’s just me. I love it here. I’m grown up now and . . .”

Armistead Maupin ( Washington, 13 mei 1944)

Hier met partner Christopher Turner 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 13 mei ook mijn blog van 13 mei 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.