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De Engelse dichter en schrijver Mario Petrucci werd geboren op 29 november 1958 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Mario Petrucci op dit blog.
THE LIBERATION OF BERLIN ZOO
(1945)
"Whenever you see a green space in Berlin be very suspicious." Pieke Biermann
A shell ladders the wire fence top to bottom -
skids to its middle in mud, a huge sizzling clove.
And out they stalk under wide noonlight –
wary at first, casting this way and this
with the yellow of hunger that winks
in phosphorescent coins. The cats currmurr –
a liquid that beats in their throats low and thick,
almost a cello. Movement stirs instinct -
ankles, wrists, pale exposures of neck.
Jaguar begins. Her continents of muscle
flinch. She unwinds her crouch into the convoy's
parallel herd - embraces from behind, full pelt,
a traffic policeman, his white-gloved salute
the flash of a doe's tail. In the act of being
savaged his hands signal on - and for seconds
diverted trucks respond without dent or screech.
On Tiergartenstrasse, Panther is surprised
onto its haunches by Oberkommandierender Guttmann
rounding a bend. Animal meets animal. Panther
grins - lifts a black velvet claw. Guttmann
raises a hand. And for a moment they are old
co-conspirators slapping pad to palm - before
a single swipe opens a flap in Guttmann's pot
neatly through the buttonhole, spills his coils
into winter which at last he feels, threading him.
Panther swills bloodwine. Fangs the sweet cakes
of a half-digested Limburger lunch.
Orang-utan has mounted a tram. Points back
at children, one arm trailed in a mockery of style,
chin cocked to velocity's breeze. Tonight she'll drag
knuckles right up the Reichstag steps, plant
a trained suck on the cheek of the porter. His look
will pale her into intelligence. On Potsdamer Platz
Zho crops turf. Her eyes betray a sidewise disposition
towards predators louche in the alleys behind speakeasy
and bar. Yet something is missing from the maw
of buildings - a tooth pulled from history to make
this square of sward, which Zho crops simply because
it grows, because it ranks so unnaturally green.
Last is Python. Her anvil head, by degrees,
jacks towards dim hammerings of free air, grim
to push the die-cast snout into any nest of blood.
The cold slides into her. She slops into culverts
heavy as a rope of copper - moulds to the sewers,
wraps the city in coils of intention. Develops
a rattle for Russia, a string of diamond yellows
for Poland. She winds up a tension. And Berlin ticks
inwards, becomes a city breathless, a gasp of dust
where Volkswagens are specks, circling crazily.
But there is nothing to fear. Not now. The cats
have had their fill - only pawprints lead through snow
down to the mouths of alleys. A white-gloved
claw is on the kerb. The people walk round it, pull
tight their collars. Eventually, from a windowbox
in Charlottenburg Palace, a single petal of phlox
will bear down into the shallow cup of its palm
with all the weight of a snowflake.
Mario Petrucci (Londen, 29 november 1958)
De Italiaanse schrijver, schilder, arts en politicus Carlo Levi werd geboren op 29 november 1902 in Turijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Carlo Levi op dit blog.
Uit: Christus kwam niet verder dan Eboli (Vertaald door Margriet Agricola)
“Giulia was als een berg die door de wind en de regens gegeseld wordt, en waaruit een vriendelijk groen heuveltje oprijst. Giulia’s zoontje was namelijk rond en mollig en altijd even vriendelijk en goedlachs. Hij kon nog niet zo goed praten en ik begreep lang niet alles wat hij zei als hij door mijn kamers struinde en achter Barone aan zat. Nino deelde alles wat hij kreeg met Barone: zijn gedroogde vijgen, zijn stukken brood en ook het lekkers dat ik hem gaf. Hij ging dan op zijn tenen staan en hield de hand met het hapje voor Barone zo hoog mogelijk, zodat die er niet bij kon. De hond was echter veel groter dan hij, en al spelend en vrolijk springend ontfutselde hij Nino de lekkernijen, maar hij lette altijd goed op dat hij het kind geen pijn deed. Als Barone op de grond ging liggen, ging Nino over hem heen liggen en dan lagen ze samen te spelen. Na een tijdje viel Nino moe van het spelen in slaap, en dan bleef Barone als een kussentje onbeweeglijk onder hem liggen en durfde nauwelijks adem te halen uit angst hem wakker te maken. Zo brachten zij uren door op de keukenvloer.”
Carlo Levi (29 november 1902 – 4 januari 1975)
De Belgische schrijver Jean-Philippe Toussaint werd op 29 november 1957 geboren in Brussel. Zie ook alle tags voor Jean-Philippe Toussaint op dit blog.
Uit: The Bathroom (Vertaald door Nancy Amphoux en Paul De Angelis)
« 5. Edmondsson finally alerted my parents.
6. Mom brought me pastries. Sitting on the bidet with the open box wedged between her legs, she arranged the pastries in a soup plate. I thought she seemed ill at ease, she'd been avoiding my eyes ever since she came in. She raised her head with a weary sadness, made as if to say something but didn't, picked out the eclair, and bit into it. You need some distraction, she told me, sports, I don't know. She wiped the corners of her mouth with her glove. There's something suspicious about the need to be diverted, I replied. When I added, almost smiling, that there was nothing I feared less than diversions, she saw there was no use arguing with me and, mechanically, held out a napoleon.
7. Twice a week I would listen to the radio broadcast of the day's play for the French soccer championship. The program lasted two hours. From a studio in Paris the announcer would orchestrate the voices of the reporters covering the matches in the different stadiums. Believing that soccer gains in the imagining, I never missed these dates. Lulled by warm human voices, I would listen to their reports with the lights off, sometimes with my eyes close. »
Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Brussel, 29 november 1957)
De Ierse schrijver C.S. Lewis werd geboren op 29 november 1898 in Belfast. Zie ook alle tags voor C. S. Lewis op dit blog.
Uit:Till We Have Faces
“And now we are coming to that part of my history on which my charge against the gods chiefly rests; and therefore I must try at any cost to write what is wholly true. Yet it is hard to know perfectly what I was thinking while those huge, silent minutes went past... Anyway, my whole heart leaped to shut the door against something monstrously amiss; not to be endured. And to keep it shut. Perhaps I was fighting not to be mad myself.
But what I said when I got my breath (and I know my voice came out in a whisper) was simply, "We must go away at once. This is a terrible place."
Was I believing in her invisible palace? A Greek will laugh at the thought. But it's different in Glome. There the gods are too close to us... No door could be kept shut. Yes, that was it; not plain belief, but infinite misgiving – the whole world (Psyche with it) slipping out of my hands.
(…)
She was as certain of her palace as of the plainest thing... This valley was indeed a dreadful place; full of the divine, sacred, no place for mortals. There might be a hundred things in it that I could not see.... A sickening discord, a rasping together of two worlds, like the two bits of a broken bone.”
C.S. Lewis (29 november 1898 – 22 november 1963)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Wilhelm Hauff werd geboren inStuttgart op 29 november 1802. Zie ook alle tags voor Wilhelm Hauff op dit blog.
Bin einmal ein Narr gewesen...
Bin einmal ein Narr gewesen,
Hab geträumet, kurz doch schwer;
Wollt in schönen Augen lesen,
Daß von Lieb was drinnen wär.
Selig von der Vahr bis Bremen
Schwatzt ich zu der Holden mein;
Muß mich wahrlich heut noch schämen,
Daß ich solch ein Narr konnt sein.
Und die Glut, die in mir brannte,
Barg ich unter heitrem Scherz.
Von dem lieben Schwabenlande
Sprach ich zu dem kalten Herz.
Wollte sie zur Heimat locken,
Wollte alles ihr gestehn,
Doch sie sprach ganz kalt vom Brocken,
Dort sei alles gar zu schön.
Meine Lieb, mein Herz, mein Schwaben
Sind für dich zu eng, zu klein,
Größer willst du alles haben,
Nun so mag dein Harz dich freun!
Fahre wohl, du kaltes Wesen,
Freier blick ich um mich her,
Bin einmal ein Narr gewesen,
Hab geträumet kurz, doch schwer.
Wilhelm Hauff (29 november 1802 - 18 november 1827)
Monument inLichtenstein-Honau (detail)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 29e november ook mijn blog van 29 november 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2 en ook deel 3.
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