Tag Archives: schrijver
Martin Adan – Sea and Shell
A woman and a ball: out of a sudden agreement
the world forms, in its inane rotation.
It begins with the fish, which inhabits the wasteland.
A curve sighs. Nothing swells immediately.
A mathematical point: the sphere,
void, terrestrial, a cloud of breath.
If the chimera doesn’t declare itself
in service and pure verse,
it will wail its words of truth.
The world revolves in an animal rush.
The most humble fish, of all the mud,
mired in the eye, bearing the colure.
A leg, or terror, arises, expands:
the air is the passion of the bather:
light, in recess, flashes and dies out.
A woman and a ball drop from a bristle,
a thin line of ice in which everything concludes,
matter the hand raises into view.
World in the air, simple being and aspect:
algae rising boldly within the descent.
A fish that bites its own tail bleeds mud.
Fabio, this passage and flow and writhing I’m thinking of
is the world: element, eruption: everything, nothing,
in the immense power.
From the rhythm: figures and the first creed,
and happiness, a lesson for the universe as it rolls
into time, pulling along its shell and ancient verse.
translated by Katie Silver and Rick London
descent and decay
iron blanket drawn
over graveyards shoulder,
time grizzles in the wind,
on haunches leaving flowers
new ones that repair the vase
to a certain brightness,
tattooed hand
pores darkened by labor
fingers stained by cigarette,
a tear would not fall
enough had shown at the time,
those fingers took a kiss
pressed it to headstone
no inhibition
despite the rumors that had become
a fiction contorted on nights breath,
driven within hours
in a landscape changing
mesh of community falling
into disrepair,
his longing had seen violence
memory carried weapons
and he could only think of
retribution,
slate wiped of all marks
that defined a normal history,
he still had a key
that room there own,
now cleansed and let to someone
else,
he visited sometimes
walking amongst others possessions
picturing his own
and her blood
scarring the walls
Charles Bukowski – Last Straw
Charles Bukowski one of his last readings in 1980
Stones Thrown as the Crow Flies
midnight had crawled
out of his head leaving the
early hours to do their work,
fingers manipulate
keyboard screen aglow
in transcript of the mind,
his patience a short tether
to the excitement of creation,
as if dawn light brought revelation
a first fledged sun of
the day,
radiated warmth
mist lifting,
stimulants left aside
progressing in a way he knew best,
hunching slightly,
a splinter of memory
curdled color at the corner
of his eye,
tear appeared,
but only of tiredness,
not happiness
love remorse or regret
compacting much of the mind
this way and ball it up
upon a printed page
gave it a name,
then abandon it
let it become a piece thrown aside,
to be read again one
future day,
at completion a certain smile
pleasure heightened
few could ever see,
it was written
it was done,
exhale pull away
tremors in the arms
till the next moment.
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