Dolce far niente, Max Dauthendey, Hugh MacDiarmid, Ernst Stadler, Yoshikawa Eiji, Fernando Arrabal, Andre Dubus, Alex Haley
Dolce far niente
Regenstimmung door Otto Modersohn, 1884
Regen
Da draußen regnet es weit und breit.
Es regnet graugraue Verlassenheit.
Es plaudern tausend flüsternde Zungen.
Es regnet tausend Erinnerungen.
Der Regen Geschichten ums Fenster rauscht.
Die Seele gern dem Regen lauscht.
Der Regen hält dich im Haus gefangen.
Die Seele ist hinter ihm hergegangen.
Die Insichgekehrte ist still erwacht,
Im Regen sie weiteste Wege macht.
Du sitzt mit stummem Gesicht am Fenster,
Empfängst den Besuch der Regengespenster.
Max Dauthendey (25 juli 1867 – 29 augustus 1918)
Würzburg. De Alte Mainbrücke in de regen. Max Dauthendey werd geboren in Würzburg.
De Schotse dichter Hugh MacDiarmid werd geboren op 11 augustus 1892 als Christopher Marray Grieve in Langholm. Zie ook alle tags voor Hugh MacDiarmid op dit blog.
Stony Limits (Fragment)
(In Memoriam: Charles Doughty, 1843-1926)
How should we have anything to give you
In death who had nothing in life,
Attempting in our sand-riddles to sieve you
Who were with nothing, but the sheer elements rife?
Anchor of truth, facile as granite you lie,
A plug suspended in England's false dreams.
Your worth will be seen by and by,
Like God's purpose in what men deem their schemes,
Nothing ephemeral can seek what lies in this ground
Since nothing can be sought but the found.
The poem that would praise you must be
Like the glass of some rock, sleek brown, crowded
With dark incipient crystal growths, we see;
Or a glimpse of Petavius may have endowed it
With the tubular and dumb-bell-shaped inclusions surrounded
By the broad reaction rims it needs.
I have seen it in dreams and know how it abounded
—Ah! would I could find in me like seeds!—
As the north-easterly garden in the lunation grows,
A spectacle not one man in ten millions knows.
I belong to a different country than yours
And none of my travels have been in the same lands
Save where Arzachel or Langrenus allures
Such spirits as ours, and the Straight Wall stands,
But crossing shear planes extruded in long lines of ridges,
Torsion cylinders, crater rings, and circular seas
And ultra-basic xenoliths that make men look midges
Belong to my quarter as well, and with ease
I too can work in bright green and all the curious interference
Colours that under crossed nicols have a mottled appearance.
Let my first offering be these few pyroxenes twinned
On the orthopinacoid and hour-glass scheme,
Fine striae, microline cross-hatchings, and this wind
Blowing plumes of vapour forever it would seem
From cone after cone diminishing sterile and grey
In the distance; dun sands in ever-changing squalls;
Crush breccias and overthrusts; and such little array
Of Geology's favourite fal-de-lals
And demolitions and entrenchments of weather
As any turn of my eyes brings together.
Hugh MacDiarmid (11 augustus 1892 – 9 september 1978)
Portret door Robert Heriot Westwater, 1962
De Duitse dichter Ernst Stadler werd geboren op 11 augustus 1883 in Colmar (Kolmar). Zie ook alle tags voor Ernst Stadler op dit blog.
Im Treibhaus
Gefleckte Moose· bunte Flechten schwanken
um hoher Palmen fächerstarre Fahnen·
und zwischen glatten Taxusstauden ranken
sich bleich und lüstern zitternde Lianen.
Gleich seltnen Faltern schaukeln Orchideen·
und krause Farren ringeln ihr Gefieder·
glitzernd von überwachsnen Wänden wehn
in Flocken wilde Blütenbüschel nieder.
Und kranke Triebe züngeln auf und leuchten
aus jäh gespaltner Kelche wirrem Meer·
und langsam trägt die laue Luft den feuchten
traumschlaffen Duft der Palmen drüberher.
Und schattenhaft beglänzt im weichen
gedämpften Feuer strahlt der Raum·
und ahnend dämmern Bild und Zeichen
für seltne Wollust· frevlen Traum.
Evokation
O Trieb zum Grenzenlosen, abendselige Stunde,
Aufblühend über den entleerten Wolkenhülsen, die in violetter Glut zersprangen,
Und Schaukeln gelber Bogenlampen, hoch im Bunde
Mit lauem Flimmer sommerlicher Sterne. Wie ein Liebesgarten nackt und weit
Ist nun die Erde aufgetan . . o, all die kleinen kupplerischen Lichter in der Runde . .
Und alle Himmel haben blaugemaschte Netze ausgehangen –
O wunderbarer Fischzug der Unendlichkeit!
Glück des Gefangenseins, sich selig, selig hinzugeben,
Am Kiel der Dämmerung hangend mastlos durch die Purpurhimmel schleifen,
Tief in den warmen Schatten ihres Fleisches sich verschmiegen,
Hinströmen, über sich den Himmel, weit, ganz weit das Leben,
Auf hohen Wellenkämmen treiben, nur sich wiegen, wiegen –
O Glück des Grenzenlosen, abendseliges Schweifen!
Ernst Stadler (11 augustus 1883 – 30 oktober 1914)
Cover
De Japanse schrijver Yoshikawa Eiji werd geboren op 11 augustus 1892 in de prefectuur Kanagawa. Zie ook alle tags voor Yoshikawa Eiji op dit blog.
Uit: Musashi
“The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object—the joy of living—is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road.”
(…)
“Fighting isn’t all there is to the Art of War. The men who think that way, and are satisfied to have food to eat and a place to sleep, are mere vagabonds. A serious student is much more concerned with training his mind and disciplining his spirit than with developing martial skills. He has to learn about all sorts of things—geography, irrigation, the people’s feelings, their manners and customs, their relationship with the lord of their territory. He wants to know what goes on inside the castle, not just what goes on outside it. He wants, essentially, to go everywhere he can and learn everything he can.”
Yoshikawa Eiji (11 augustus 1892 – 7 september 1962)
Cover
De Spaanse schrijver, dichter, dramaturg en cineast Fernando Arrabal werd geboren in Melila, Spaans Marokko op 11 augustus 1932. Zie ook alle tags voor Fernando Arrabal op dit blog.
Uit: The Burial of the Sardine (Vertaald door Patrick Bowles)
XL
« Lis came alone. She brought me a dish of lentils. I sat down and ate them. I think she was watching me. As for me, I stared at my plate. Then I wiped my lips with a paper serviette. Lis gave me a glass of water and asked me to rinse my mouth.
Then I heard a voice coming from I don't know where. It sounded like Altagora's voice. It was murmuring, 'Excite him, excite him.'
And then Lis came over to me and put my sex in her mouth. And she touched it with her tongue.
And once again I heard the voice coming from outside and saying, 'Tie him up so he can't finish.'
Lis moved away from me. I felt very hot and I begged her to go on. It was then that she handcuffed my hands behind my back and danced in front of me. I felt hotter and hotter. Outside I heard the sound of a woman's laughter. It sounded like Altagora.”
Fernando Arrabal (Melila, 11 augustus 1932)
De Amerikaanse schrijver en essayist Andre Dubus werd geboren op 11 augustus 1936 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Zie ook alle tags voor Andre Dubus op dit blog.
Uit: Dancing After Hours
“As a young man, in his first marriage, he had done some erotic dabbling: one-night stands whose causes, he now knew, were alcohol, night, and vanity. This had only scratched his marriage: a little blood showed, nothing more; for his wife had also fallen from grace, and in the same way. Theirs was a confessional marriage, and the purging of one and forgiving by the other deepened their love. The marriage ended much later, when their sexual mischief was far behind them, and Lee would never understand all of ist ending any more than he could explain why, on their first date in college, there was already enough love between them to engender the years it would take to have three children and let their love die. He learned how quickly love died when you weren’t looking; if you weren't looking.
At the restaurant a flaxen-haired young waitress flirted with him as a matter of course. This was Doreen Brodie. She was tall, and her limbs looked stronger than his. Some nights he had an afterhours drink with her, sitting at the bar, and her blue eyes and thin red lips aroused his passion and, more tempting, swelled his loneliness till it nearly brimmed over, nearly moved his arms to hold her. He did not touch her. She was younger than his children, he was old, a marital leftover wearing a jacket and tie.
He had come to believe that only young women still trusted love, believed in it. He knew this could not be true, that it was the inductive reasoning of his bad luck, that he simply had not met resilient older women because they lived someplace else, or lived here in this little town but somehow had not crossed his path. Yet even if he met such a woman, wasn’t he the common denominator in three divorces? Perhaps he was a sleeping snake.”
Andre Dubus (11 augustus 1936 - 24 februari 1999)
Hier met zijn zoon
De Amerikaanse schrijver Alexander Palmer Haley werd geboren in Ithaca (New York) op 11 augustus 1921. Zie ook alle tags voor Alex Haley op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 11 augustus 2010.
Uit: The Shadowland of Dreams
“Next time I make a sale.”
“I have a better idea,” he said, “We need a new public information assistant out here, and we’re paying $6000 a year. If you want it, you can have it.”
Six thousand a year! That was real money in 1960. I could get a nice apartment, a used car, pay off some debts, and maybe save a little something. What’s more, I could write on the side.
As the dollars were dancing in my head, something cleared my senses. From deep inside a bullheaded resolution went up. I had dreamed of being a writer—full time. And that’s what I was going to be. “Thanks, but no.” I heard myself saying, “I’m going to stick it out and write.”
Afterwards, as I paced around my little room, I started to feel like a fool. Reaching into my cupboard—an orange crate nailed to the wall—I pulled out all that was there: two cans of sardines. Plunging my hands in my pockets, I came up with 18 cents. I took the cans and the coins and jammed them into a paper bag. There, Alex, I said to myself. There’s everything you’ve made of yourself so far. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so low.
I wish I could say things started getting better right away. But they didn’t. Thank goodness I had George to help me over the rough spots.
Through him I met other struggling artists like Joe Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tenn. Often Joe lacked food money, so he’d visit a neighborhood butcher who would hand him some wilted vegetables. That’s all Joe needed to make down-home soup.”
Alex Haley (11 augustus 1921 - 10 februari 1992)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers ook mijn blog van 11 augustus 2011 deel 2.
