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De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver Miklós Radnóti werd geboren op 5 mei 1909 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 5 mei 2008.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
War Diary
1. Monday Evening
You see, now fear often fingers your heart,
and at times the world seems only distant news;
the old trees guard your childhood for you
as an ever more ancient memory.
Between suspicious mornings and foreboding nights
you have lived half your life among wars,
and now once more, order is glinting toward you
on the raised points of bayonets.
In dreams sometimes the landscape still rises before you,
the home of your poetry, where the scent of freedom
wafts over the meadows, and in the morning when you wake,
you carry the scent with you.
Rarely, when you are working, you half-sit, frightened
at your desk. And it's as if you were living in soft mud;
your hand, adorned with a pen, moves heavily
and ever more gravely.
The world is turning into another wara hungry cloud
gobbles the sky's mild blue, and as it darkens,
your young wife puts her arms around you,
and weeps.
2. Tuesday Evening
Now I sleep peacefully
and slowly go about my work
gas, airplanes, bombs are poised against me,
I can neither be afraid, nor cry;
so I live hard, like the road builders
among the cold mountains,
who, if their flimsy house
crumbles over them with age,
put up a new one, and meanwhile
sleep deeply on fragrant wood shavings,
and in the morning, splash their faces
in the cold and shining streams.
*
I live high up, and peer around:
it is getting darker.
As when from a ship's prow
at the flash of lightning
the watchman cries out, thinking he sees land,
so I believe in the land alsoand still I cry out life!
with a whitened voice.
And the sound of my voice brightens
and is carried far away.
Vertaald door Lucy Helen Boling
Miklós Radnóti (5 mei 1909 9 november 1944)
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.
Uit: Give a Boy a Gun
Around 10 P.M. on Friday, February 27, Gary Searle died in the gymnasium at Middletown High School. After the bullet smashed through the left side of his skull and tore into his brain, he probably lived for ten to fifteen seconds.
The brain is a fragile organ suspended in a liquid environment. Not only does a bullet destroy whatever brain tissue is in its path, but the shock waves from the impact severely jar the entire organ, ripping apart millions of delicate structures and connections. In the seconds that follow, the brain swells with blood and other fluids. The parts of the brain that control breathing and heartbeat stop. One doctor described it to me as 'an earthquake in the head.'
At the moment of Gary's death I was in the library at the state university, where I was a sophomore studying journalism. As soon as I heard the news, I went home to Middletown, determined not to leave until I understood what had happened there.
Returning to Middletown was like stepping into a thick fog of bewilderment, fury, agony, and despair. For weeks I staggered through it, searching out other lost, wandering souls. Some were willing to talk to me. Others spoke because they felt a need to defend themselves even though no one had pointed an accusing finger at them. Some even sought me out because they wanted to talk. As if speaking about it was a way of trying to figure it out, of beginning the long, painful process of grieving and moving ahead.
Morton Rhue (New York, 5 mei 1950)
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.
Nooit meer bewegen
remmend braak ik snelheidsduivelsangsten uit
zweet benzine in een spoor achteruit tot file inkookt
tolereer ik leven om mij heen, in mij, giet beweging
in mij, ontsteek mijn dorst, wrijf warmte in mijn huid en
ik zal voortbewegen van ik naar mens naar mij, opbranden
wat kost mij dit meereizen op de sissende grillstaven van tijd
kan de wereld mij echt niet missen, komt zij tot stilstand
net als de ogen die mijn rijden waarnemen, mijn rijdend
spelen met jou, mijn draaikolk om jouw standpunt, dans
uit slurpende brandstofdorst, tankwagengeladen slangen
dans uit alle macht aardlagen te persen tot beestensap
hoeveel lagen telt mijn huid na schuren nog, over
hardstenen wegen, organisch uitgesleten spoor van
dit uit volle vaart afremmen, stap voor stap voor dood
Petra Else Jekel (Arnhem, 5 mei 1980)
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.
Our House
IT should be yours, if I could build
The quaint old dwelling I desire,
With books and pictures bravely filled
And chairs beside an open fire,
White-panelled rooms with candles lit--
I lie awake to think of it!
A dial for the sunny hours,
A garden of old-fashioned flowers--
Say marigolds and lavender
And mignonette and fever-few,
And Judas-tree and maidenhair
And candytuft and thyme and rue--
All these for you to wander in.
A Chinese carp (called Mandarin)
Waving a sluggish silver fin
Deep in the moat: so tame he comes
To lip your fingers offering crumbs.
Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,
White shutters, ivy green and thick,
And walls of ruddy Tudor brick
Grown mellow with the passing years.
And windows with small leaded panes,
Broad window-seats for when it rains;
A big blue bowl of pot pourri
And--yes, a Spanish chestnut tree
To coin the autumn's minted gold.
A summer house for drinking tea--
All these (just think!) for you and me.
A staircase of the old black wood
Cut in the days of Robin Hood,
And banisters worn smooth as glass
Down which your hand will lightly pass;
A piano with pale yellow keys
For wistful twilight melodies,
And dusty bottles in a bin--
All these for you to revel in!
But when? Ah well, until that time
We'll habit in this house of rhyme.
Dedication for a Fireplace
THIS hearth was built for thy delight,
For thee the logs were sawn,
For thee the largest chair, at night,
Is to the chimney drawn.
For thee, dear lass, the match was lit
To yield the ruddy blaze--
May Jack Frost give us joy of it
For many, many days.
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.
Uit: Biribi
Bravo ! Encore un coup d'épée dans le ventre de cette vieille sacro-sainte idole : l'Armée !... - Mais, l'Armée, Monsieur, c'est la patrie ! Et puis, vous ne le nierez pas, l'Armée est nécessaire ! - Le choléra aussi est nécessaire. Est-il pour cela défendu de le blaguer ou vilipender ? Ne vaudrait-il point mieux froidement discuter telles assertions, étudier les documents présentés ? Quant à moi, ô candide bourgeois, que vous anathématisassiez ou que vous n'anathématisassiez point les sacrilèges mangeurs de guerriers, et M. Darien en particulier ! Je constate seulement ceci : que l'armée me semble un peu trop redouter critique et discussion, pour avoir la conscience aussi nette qu'elle le clame. Quoi qu'il en soit, si les épouvantables faits racontés par M. Darien, dans Biribi, sont exacts et j'ai cru reconnaître dans son livre l'indubitable accent de la vérité, - il est dès maintenant démontré qu'il existe, en plein XIXe siècle, des tortionnaires plus cruels, plus raffinés, plus atrocement lâches que les moines de l'Inquisition, et que ces répugnants torquemadas, à la fois juge s, gardes-chiourmes et bourreaux, sont des officiers, de ces courageux et nobles officiers français dont les culottes vermillon sont si chères à M. Prudhomme ! Oui, M. Prudhomme, lisez ce roman, et si, à cette tragique évocation des martyres compliqués et barbares, des féroces assassinements à coups d'épingles qu'on fait subir, là-bas, dans cette fournaise du Sud Algérien, aux pauvres Camisards, vous ne sentez pas vos moelles bouleversées d'un frisson, et si vous ne crachez point quelques injures indignées vers l'Armée et vers ceux qui vivent de l'Armée, c'est que vous êtes, ainsi que je l'ai toujours pensé, incurable. »
George Albert Aurier (5 mei 1865 5 oktober 1892)
Portret door Félix Valloton
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