Jan Wolkers, Andrew Motion, Stephen L. Carter
De Nederlandse dichter, schrijver en beeldend kunstenaar Jan Wolkers werd geboren in Oegstgeest op 26 oktober 1925. Zie mijn blog van 19 oktober 2007 en mijn blog van 26 oktober 2006 en ook ook mijn blog van 26 oktober 2007 en ook mijn blog van 26 oktober 2008.
De zomer kan me gestolen worden I
De zomer kan me gestolen worden.
Fris groen verschrompelt zinderend tot as.
Mijn vader die vurig gelooft
Dat God zijn goudreinetten stooft
In zonlicht van miljarden jaren oud.
De larf vreet zich tot worm des verderfs,
Begeerlijk vruchtvlees roest tot op het bot,
Het klokhuis wordt een tongewelf van smet.
De ledigheid van liggen in het gras,
De zonnebrand van Onans stuifmeel,
Verkleeft tot donorgift op het gewas.
Op blote voeten zijn de sintels scherp,
De boetedoening is geen vorm van straf
Een legpuzzel van woede stroomt de helling af.
Kalkstenen vlinders
kalkstenen vlinders vliegen naar je toe
de stad zegt met één oog de nacht gedag
straks vlieg ik op de vleugels van je rode haar
over de blauwe halswervel der stad
als een dragonder ga ik in de wolken rijden
maar jij wenkt met je kleine witte hand
een twijfeltorentje van vrees en beven
rijst uit de zwarte bronnen van je ogen
en als ik dichter doffer donkerder je aanrand
sta je te bloeien als een pruimenboom.
De Engelse dichter, schrijver en biograaf Andrew Motion werd geboren op 26 oktober 1952 in Braintree in Essex. Zie ook mijn blog van 26 oktober 2007 en ook mijn blog van 26 oktober 2008.
Ice
When friends no longer remembered
the reasons we set forth,
I switched between nanny and tartar
driving us on north.
Will you imagine a human hand
welded by ice to wood?
And skin when they chip it off?
I don’t think you should.
By day the appalling loose beauty
of prowling floes:
lions’ heads, dragons, crucifix-wrecks,
and a thing like a blown rose.
By night the seething hiss
of killers cruising past -
the silence after each fountain-jet,
and our hearts aghast.
Of our journey home and the rest
there is nothing more to say.
I have lived and not yet died.
I have sailed in the Scotia Sea.
The Last Call
Death called me,
I did not hear.
He spoke again:
Come near.
I went to look
for pity.
Poor death, I thought,
he loves me.
I guessed right,
he does.
And now I love him too,
just because.
De Amerikaanse schrijver Stephen L. Carter werd geboren op 26 oktober 1954 in Washington, D.C. Zie ook mijn blog van 26 oktober 2008.
Uit: Jericho's Fall
“Darkness bore down on her as the car shuddered up the mountain. Distant lights danced at the edge of her vision, then vanished. Beck wondered how bad it would be. In her mind, she saw only the Jericho she had loved fifteen yeas ago and, in some ways, still did: the dashing scion of an old New England family that had provided government officials since the Revolution. One of his ancestors had a traffic circle named for him in Washington. A cousin served in the Senate. The family’s history was overwhelming; the Jericho for whom Beck had fallen had certainly overwhelmed her. He had been brilliant, and powerful, and confident, and fun, ever ready with eternal wisdom, or clever barbs. She did not like to think of that mighty man ravaged by disease. She had no illusions. She remembered what cancer had done to her own father.
Whatever was waiting, she had to go.
On Saturday afternoon, having cleared her decks with Pfister, Beck took the shuttle from Boston to Washington. She lived in Virginia, a stone’s throw from Reagan National Airport. Her daughter was at a church retreat, church being a thing that Beck did because she had been raised that way, and her mother would be offended if Rebecca dared differ. Beck decided to let Nina stay the night with the other kids. The two of them could ride together to the airport on Sunday, then enplane for their different destinations. Rebecca’s mother, Jacqueline, had been after her for weeks to send Nina for a visit, and maybe this was the time. The child was only in second grade; missing a few days of instruction would do her no harm. Beck hesitated, then made the inevitable call to Florida, to ask if her mother could look after Nina. The conversation soon turned into a battle.
I don’t know how you could even think about taking a six-year-old to visit a man like that.
I’m not taking her, Mom. That’s why I’m calling you.
You said you decided not to take her. That means you thought about it. I don’t understand how your mind works sometimes.
She tried, and failed, to remember a time when she and her mother had not been at odds. Because, in the eyes of her eternally disappointed mother, Beck would never be more than ten years old. Certainly their animosity predated Jericho; and perhaps it had played some sort of role (as every one of the therapists Rebecca had consulted over the years seemed to think) in her falling in love, as a college sophomore, with a married man thirty-two years her senior who tossed away his remarkable career in order to possess her.
I appreciate your help, Mom.
Oh, so you appreciate me now. Does that mean you’ll call more often?”
