Meeting Benches World art in all forms
His nickname is “Mr. 1830”, but the Belgian writer born in one day in February of 1896 called Paul, Paul van Ostaijen. That Flemish poet, also living in Berlin, has filled pages of surrealism and modernism, continuing to walk in the streets of Antwerp dress eccentrically, before dying of tuberculosis as a young man in the year 1928.
POLONAISE – by Paul van Ostaijen
“I saw come Cecilia
In a summer night
Two ears to hear
Two eyes to see
Two hands to grasp
And ten fingers away.
We come Cecilia
In a summer night
For right hand has Hansel
To the left he Gretel
Hansel has a wreath of roses
Gretel a do not forget me
The ogre he has not eaten
I have not forgotten
Hey, hey, you and I
The donkey plays the bagpipes
Hansel and Gretel
Hansel with the chaplet of roses
Gretel with its do not forget me
They passed to the stars
Venus is made of brass
The others are less dear
The others are tin
And Giannina moon
is saffron
Two ears to hear
Two eyes to see
Two hands in a vacuum
And ten fingers away.”
MARC WELCOMES THE MORNING THE THINGS – by Paul van Ostaijen
“Hello little man with the bicycle
On the vase with the flower Piore Piore
Hello chair beside the table
Hello bread on the table
Hello angler-fish with his pipe.
And hello angler-fish with cap
Cap and pipe
Fisher-fish
good Morning
Hello fish
Hello dear fish
Hello my little fish.”
Melopoeia – by Paul van Ostaijen
“Under the moon glides along the river
Over the long river glides tired moon
Under the moon along the river
The canoe slips into the sea
Along the upper reed bed
Along the lawn low
The canoe slips into the sea
Slips with the moon
That the canoe slips into the sea
So are companions to the sea
The canoe and the moon man
Why slip the moon and man
Both docile towards the sea.”
