Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Hongerwinter
het is vreemd maar ook vreemd mooi te bedenken
dat ooit niemand meer zal weten
dat we hebben geleefd
te bedenken hoe nu we leven, hoe hier
maar ook hoe niets ons leven zou zijn zonder
de echo's van de onbekende diepten in ons hoofd
niet de tijd gaat voorbij, maar jij, en ik
buiten onze gedachten is geen tijd
we stonden deze zomer op de rand van een dal
om ons heen alleen wind.
from 'Tijd' by Rutger Kopland
(it is strange but strangely beautiful to reflect
that one day no one any more will know
we ever lived
to reflect on how now we live, how here
but also on how our life would be nothing without
the echoes from the unknown depths in our heads
it’s not time that passes, it’s you, it’s I
outside our thinking there is no time
this summer we stood on the edge of a valley
around us only wind.)
Monday, December 27, 2004
Lindsay
A Vegemite toast drops onto the forest floor
where the easel slants / in dried tractor ruts / a snake's
ribcage fossilises consistently / a printed tortilla / a dry
knock repeating / under the ceramic planted lumber/
a syrup tablature tethering / broom planks / tree-stops /
the timber's warm ring / the tinny insects muffled in
amber / in a foliage of receipts / the mahout rides
the foam of undergrowth / a lizard-sinewy syntax
mucks-up his beak / off-course into the mulch /
he strikes and comes up with / a hairy toast /
a froth of leaves / a crust of cyclones / a pinch
of speakies on a Hessian screen / kiddies syncopating
the mahogany staircase / the mother-in-law crying in the kitchen /
the soufflé caves-in / the fruit-bat scratched night / the intermittent
frou-frou of muslin / the jawfuls of millefeuille / the hundreds
and thousands snowing gently on the Vegemite
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Matthew Arnold
