Translated poems from
SOL E LUNA
(reflections and mirrors)
Made during the half year I was not allowed to see my son Solune
until court decided when and how much I could see him.
translations done with help of Bob Theil
PS. Also incluided were some Garcia Lorca texts about moon reflections.
As an invention in the eyes of the surprised
I think discovery takes us further
than for those whose expectations
are readily fulfilled.
Although the image is of a friend with whom you
can countenance longer supporting
than the small gift that I thought to be so valuable
in influencing mentality,
I could have been more present
but I did not have the time to become this constant
thus I betrayed your trust with a small gift of love.
dec.15th 1997 (inspired by Bridget St.John : “Silver Coin”).
A pool of thoughts is a garment.
My visions only swill in
where the drops return out from the water
and something streams after us.
dec. 15th 1997.
The labour pain bulge of the sea cannot hold itself.
Trampled down by small horses, the feelings break in me.
Freed, the white riders break through.
In long stretched shallow water, the waves subside.
“Why hast thou forsaken me ?”, she cried.
Not wishing to steer her course, I become separate.
Engulfed by the merest current of independence.
I don’t feel like fleeing, although I don’t cry with her difficult birth.
In the limits of my being prepared
I am not dying, though my face may be.
From my true self, sacrificing itself to live,
where I don’t have to be,
my essence still streams through.
A sea does not have to be felt
with the same depth everywhere.
From the light of her shadow, where she seeths,
she has not got depth yet.
Although we exist,
as well, in our dreamscapes and
in all that we can offer in our prayer in grief,
in this joy in the splashings and the sounds like song.
dec. 16th,17th 1997 (inspired by Heather McLeod : “True Fortune”)
Every night a memory vanishes
just as another star is born.
Our world notices them less,
as I continue the day with other lights.
I let myself forget people and their procreation.
So many things that I didn’t notice,
untill I observed the talking of others,
as a star appeared in the heavens
and the night reminded me
that many wounds are worth nothing
compairing the gleaming of my skin in moonlight.
Against the whole lighted phenomenon, from the becoming,
I give up something for a place, for a time, for an occurance.
You dredge the stories
from a deep pit,
you’ve brought me enough favours.
While I suffer the past in turmoil
you cannot grieve for this in silence anymore.
The Milky Way is no random spill, but a thrifty incorporated energy.
It is all kinds of worlds, all new stimuli, that describes an arc in the heavens.
Why do we forget first memory
when a renewing love can regenarate what we lost before ?
Translation dec.,15-16 th, 1997
You can barely pass me by
but you pass by me :
Carry me, surpass me,
it’s bearable.
Surrender, caring, bearing your soul.
Ask me anything,
but I will only send you answers.
Weaving the puppet strings
only leaves me colour choice.
I can bear your corporal seeing
when I disappear with my soul in the given.
Please convey what can survive.
Here are the armorial bearings without their past.
I wish you to become pure in my thoughts.
Translation dec-jan 1997/98. (inspired by Heather McLeod : Mother’s Heart).
...
The weakest is there now, in a transition to consternation.
Rosewhite flowers, from which I know no names,
while desperately crying for collaboration.
...
translation : 11 febr. 1998
Incredible birds.
Their flight is a layer that breaks through storm.
Horizontals of glass.
With crystal you can see through with clear vision.
Future (appears).
While light accompanies
Seeming is without friction.
18 dec 1997
Sweep away, sorrow.
You don’t have to turm over with wind,
like a mill.
Fly with your most amplyed thought
which is then only.
Feather and Dust,
on with movements of rising and falling and fleeing.
Even stiffness on the corner is noticable with a sparkle breath of wind.
I’ve brought me to expantion in a sigh,
for a smile like a small sigh of wind.
Making the devise visible is a small detail
in Dust, or in a Feather of freedom shunning its way like smile.
translation : febr. 4th 1998 (inspired by Fit & Limo : “Feathers and Dust”).
“Stormbringer”
About a strong relationship.
The shared time is accomplished
and the safety-nets are in place.
Moments of enfeebling power
will be shared with acceptance by each other, in the flux of time.
We are ourselves in storm,
don’t know what makes us daring
when we consume together
until we indeed choose what we want to learn.
I only see calendar leafs falling.
translation : febr. 4th,6th 1998.(as a New Years Wish).
(inspired by John & Beverly Martyn : “Stormbringer”).
We are descended from the lightly wilted until the rising of meaning.
To retain remembrance of correct defining,
we look back to that sky,
as if we can recapitulate all the time that we have passed through
in one sweep of a pen,
as if the firmanent can link our remembrance,
and enlighten, in its exposure, during observation.
translation : febr 4th,6th 1998. (inspired by John & Beverly Martin : “Go out and Get it”).
They who wish my head
gives me their permission to develope.
They who wish my heart
feed the opening of posibilties.
They who accept death of ideas in the head,
without wounds to their heart, a salve she will be.
translation : 4th,6th of febr. 1998. (with John Martyn : “Head and Heart”).
Dishonousty.
I have a tentacled grasp on things,
unable to tell what I don’t want.
I have a false smile and sarcastic humour to hide myself.
I have a double layer, an inability.
I hold tight, dishonousty.
My story is much too long,
I stammer too much, nervous from cowardice.
I have too many hard words, being afraid not to be taken seriously.
The unexpected paralyses me,
I want too much under my control.
I am sadly pining away, not daring to say anything.
But when I do,
renewed, I could indeed bring back everything,
even the unexpected,
and I get back into the short moment.
Then it is grounded by itself,
then I can smile easily,
and I am honest,
and everything happens the way I want it to be,
ommiting the bad luck, because I found any better way.
And then I will have this Honey-sty.
febr. 4th, 6th 1998 (inspired by John & Beverly Martyn : “Honesty”).
The concept.
The other side of the sun exists as well,
bald but not blank,
she can’t make hair grow.
I could cloth my new simplicity,
but I am not present to play the Wizard,
although I am interested in a performance,
my greatest solicitude is still
to leave behind a feeling that nobody missed their point in life
and not that they were left uplifted by it.
When I turn my face to the crowd,
I want them to remember what was behind their own words,
in a bald landscape,
that is not void nor deserted or certainly not featureless,
but where early movements are being remembered,
having discovered something with a sense to continue,
or something that is moved itself,
as if we left wind behind as our shoulders carried warmth through it.
I’d like you to offer the other side of the sun.
vertaling : 4-9 febr.1998. 20 jan. 1998. (to Solune).
The pearl-hog.
In my informing I am like a wart-hog,
burrowing till every usable thing is scattered. Then appears my voracity.
I am also human in acting while I’d like to pass on something.
I’d like to discover pearls with others.
Therefore I say give me your money, your mud, and show me the edible.
I do this like a teacher. I am less hungry than it seems. My library gauges the finding and less the collected. It moves in spheres. Glittering mud makes me the pearl-hen of management.
You can pass along, but please don’t profit much more than I do.
jan 28th 1998. (inspiation : Pearls Before Swine)
A disposition.
And again,
I did forget you.
Others lived before me.
Little cross points are left to move me.
Affection loses itself in caring.
vertaling : febr. 6th 1998.
With nothing removed from my side,
when thinking back, the hand beckoning to release the lame, is also enslaving.
...
translation : febr. 8th 1998.
which illustrates an association within this text
but which actually refers to the "Rocketman" song from Pearls Before Swine
A mirror.
Don’t lose yourself in looking.
Although the moon brightly shines here
in reality nothing is reachable.
Images that become familiar
because the eye makes views towards definitions
it is in the essence of reaching the unravelling of the wish
but also the spoiling of deed.
Better to affect the world without this !
The young man, considering his unattainable dream,
looked beyond reflectivity,
and saw in it no end,
and jumped, himself, into the depth of the stream.
jan 20st.,29, febr.2nd, 6th 1998. (vertaling met de hulp van L.Woolfe).
Visualisation and reality.
Witnesses are sharp to the eye and inevitable,
like they are being burned in our looking.
From here I’d like to choose
because the looking itself distances further.
So this existance itself is a holdfast and most welcome
because of all that has been imagined.
Because we fear what’s real, to deepen or to learn to know,
we prefer to burn out our desire in procrastination.
Now, there’s no regret,
when the surprise has become inevitable through fantasies,
I get respite from this known fact. I’m ready for more now :
you became the concrete answer to my visualisation.
(vertaling jan 29th, febr. 4th 1998, met de hulp van L.Woolfe).
The text of "Stardancer" From Tom Rapp also is very important into the concept,
so here is the original text :
and this is my own inspiration :
He was a star in the heavens
but dissapeared as shadow in night.
The son of the fallen,
is me.
I don’t like missing heaven.
Look at destiny like a taut tuned story
where wires entwine
the living through lives.
Streams will always fall with water
as the desiring, will, fades.
Me as his son, longed
with the diminishing light for another birth,
to rid the feeling of being missed.
(12,) 18 nov. 1997.(inspired by The Kitchen Cynics : “Stardancer” (Tom Rapp) ).
He was supposed to know the theatre of life so well
and made of himself and it a musical.
Each constellation indicates its signs to learn from,
not only to sojourn there as in a bed of stars,
but be adapted in the process,
to accomodate its breadth of opinions,
for enlarging the scope of perametres.
But hear me, I have to admit something.
The value of the story was changed by one glance of sun, into a shunning of night.
Where its vision was charred with shadow,
the sun posesses another power with its own established environment.
Please know, my son, that I abandoned my knowledge for a woman.
When you dream, I’ll take your hand to flee from there,
and make use of your fathers knowings
because I hope you are at least sheltered by night.
A night, which is depicted inside your coat, reflecting your hidden talents.
I undertook travels in a comparable stagnant land,
where when you move towards and within it,
your dynamism surrenders to act in acnowledgement,
while power is sun.
(for Solune ). (inspired by Pearls Before Swine : “Rocket Man”(uit “Use of Ashes”)).
PS. Also the text of "Rocket Man" still is important within the concept,
but I cannot show it to you here. In some way it's a variation of "Stardancer" in another reflective context.
“You spoke of Stardancer affecting you emotionally.
The song is about my father and these days I cannot get trough
the whole song because of the emotional affect it hase on me as well.
I love the work of Kitchen Cynics I have heard.
I was impressed with what they (he ?) did with Stardancer.
And I very much like what you did have done in your poetry
with the feelings generated by the songs. Looking forward to see the book.”
Tom Rapp
Stone circle me.
You can see but you cannot ever foretell.
While the disappearing sun uncovers earth
from fear of loosing her we dream.
Where has the light gone ?, a child asks.
Astrology is the searching for safety.
Whilst I remember its one cycle, you cannot judge any more.
In everyway that I am different I breath you out as you are passing me.
I can reach your memory even through lifeless eyes.
At the moment you saw in me what you have forgotten
I was removed from vision.
march 30, 1998.(+ april 1st, 1998).
(inspired by The Kitchen Cynics : “Stone Circle Me”). (edited at 25 april 1998).
Sunlight.
I’m the one who imagined it all.
When she is the one who wants to see results,
I will be an approved worker.
My alarm clock is ringing
for my year is but a day to the sun.
The idea evolves with the expiration on your face.
While someone else received the extension of my arms,
it is my hands that are waving.
And now I want to see into these eyes.
While it was me, looking behind them,
it was he that could reach me in the extension of memory.
This needs a soft approach that was decided in the first gift, fixed from daylight.
So, please reach me, son.
26th jan. 1998 ; translation : febr. 6th,8th 1998 & edited
dream :
(really !! a song I dreamed) :
“You Poe you Poe, you Poe Poe toe Poe,
you put sound to the song.”
Camoeflages.
(Surrealistic) Jokes from the Dreamworld.
I remembered an image. “Do you know how you can show people that you come from a castle ?”
“You put a chair underneath you and you walk as if you have a horse underneath you : That’s how they can see that you come from a castle.”
I saw also a cartoon. A head was repeated as an image at a bar several times after each other,
questioning : “Why is he acting out of character ?”
In the second image the same man was still drawn double a few times.
The answer was thus : “Because he played double.”
”Why is he acting out of character ?”
Gap-gifted in words it seems that he’s loosing himself.
His image is not fading but fleeing from him. you can layer his visualisation.
He is no longer himself but is expected to exist in different acts of behaviour which are less fitting to him. Remaining double, he appears several times again.
A solution is solidified, because you can figure out how he is now :
Unable to be himself through his repeated reappearings in renewed situations that failed before he could never again be in total, part of it any more. He became more and more less present as a person “because he had played double”.
Next one is an oral joke :
(PS. Its a joke which can only have a somewhat forced translation, cause in dutch “strangle hair” is totaly the same as strangle her”, but in english it unfortunally isn’t, so I didn’t make up any other descent translation yet. In dutch the only notticable difference by the two words is when they are put together as one word (as strangle-hair) or when they are written as two words (as strangle her)’) :
“Imagine that I know what is a strangle hair !”
"Why ? What is a strangle hair ?"
“Do you know what will happen if I knew what was a strangle hair ?
“No.”
“Then I would strangle “hair”.”
(This imagination did came just after I dreamed about camouflaging myself into other figures, in order to be able to see my son Solune).
This was continued with the song.
“You pou you pou, you pou pou tou pou,
you put sound to the song.”
(With as next sentence the following :)
“Mimi was still too young to buy little stuff.”
(Again some problems to translate this :
In Dutch the word ‘stuff’ and ‘dust’ are the same. This very much might be referring to the poem “feather and dust” again, which was a New Years wish-poem to lighten the things somewhat more. The reason I dreamed these last lines was within the association of the inability to release thoughts like in a wishful communication. I was unable to share any nice cooperative communication with an earlier girlfriend Mimi because some old past was still spreading out its results over the present).
thus my dreams.
febr. 8,9th 1998.
Information from a dream,
provided by an uncle from the other side :
“There’s vexation to the inability to express oneself
in the masks, that are the stickers of the face.”
translated : febr. 7th 1998.
No sword is meant for bearing
as the word may carry.
Mother of pearl,
the lampshade that bears,
the screening beams.
A table, the word and the sword.
My smile,
I am at boiling-point,
in the blood-earnestness of friendship,
with the idealism of the gift.
Unexpected by you, the new motion ceases.
The unexpected, desires it’s disappearance from constantly re-emergenging,
as a seawater pearl, not just a fringe of the mantle,
where the multitude of faces break with the knowing of wholeness.
Like this, the soul does not split with persecution,
but makes itself knowable in small focussed spare fragments
while even you as well, my friend are part of the garment,
I repeat myself in rolling rhythmically onwards, though I would prefer hurrying on.
The gathering together is becoming more weightless,
destining me to give.
A small confrontation, submerging slowly,
by which the dish can’t represent itself, but searches,
or pines away and withdraws.
Never the less, the power pinpoints life through, from one man and many.
Translation : April 16th,26th 1998 (with the help of L.Woolfe).
I do not weep softer I sweat softer. I see all kinds of pearls to enchant you.
Look just a while and I see just a while that I have to go for just a while.
Drop(py) drop(py), on the wallface, the wallface clings.
and with this wall, some windows to escape.
Through my skin there are pores where gas leaks with which I seduce you.
You snuffle me just a while and then you cough to excuse yourself. I snuffle myself
just a while, when I feel it’s time for selfrespect and other clothes.
Softer I do not cry. So many things are happening just afterwards.
I am at my ease with you although I make mistakes sometimes.
It’s time now to turn away my gaze, just after I have overseen it all.
Although you live beautifully and you are beautiful, myself, I live here.
April 16th 1998. inspired by Guy & Vivienne Reid-Brown "Sol E Luna".
After court..
A cosy stone through a window.
A nicely made weapon remains a weapon.
There are cuddlestones and there are throwing stones.
Stones are like good arguments. Stone- Pit. Scissor- Paper Pieces.
On a stone I see and draw a face. When I can see I cannot talk.
In between many reeds there is my stone ; and I must look after it.
I view the stone that came through the window. It is a cosy stone.
April 25th 1998
All texts : copyright 1997, 2004 Gerald Johan Van Waes
"Daddy, where are you ?
My cheakes are like sheelded glands,
insects for the outside.
My eyes are shell-fishes, fresh inside.
Daddy, where are you ?
I've got a full hand in offering.
Daddy, where are you ?
I'm small. Warm head."
"I work, on a hill.
The river is long there
and a light shines on a inhospitable forest.
The bridges are blown up in the war. A lonely."
"Daddy, where are you ?"
"My eyes are one with the window,
and outside are so many people.
I have a litle car."
"Your toys are not here.
As young as I am I have to remember already".
"My little one.
In my home my breath is open,
there the wind is empty now.
Last time I was there with you"
"The road is far,
the river is long
and many people passed by.
They don't talk much longer than smiles,
with which I offered with open hand.
On the end society remains in size.
I know that you're there,
my little one."
Sept 20th 1998 (scetch of translation)
Moonwater
Sun sinks in moonwater.
The moon shines in fullvision. Greetings, ..
common place.
Too briefly happy.
Everything passes on the parting. Bye, see you.
Jokes times times duration.
They link what passes,
and for what remains, longer,
what in fact is not so important
(and may be that's the best).
If only you were there,
as well as I,
having only a common value in extremes.
The sun sinks visibly.
The moon clings with the water, as with the clouds.
The star of the night traverses.
Okt 27th & Nov 10th 1998 (with the help of L.Woolfe).
The lack of memory
I'm comeing awake with a lack of memory.
There's a branch with skeletal hands delineating upward,
against a beautiful landscape, troubled by rain.
The whole environment is on the brink of overflowing.
It's impossible to look sharply in the eyes.
The breath nestles its longing in a coat and a scarf.
Everything with which I had pleasure yesterday seems like a movie today.
I'm incomplete, I'm dissapated from seeds lost. The progeny is discovering itself
without my experiencing it. While I can't remember myself in anything,
each recurring day.
Nov. 12th 1998 (with the help of L.Woolfe).
Le soir dans tes yeux avec lesquelles que tu m'as empli
cet après midi est ta soirée, et aussi la nôtre,
avec la pensée que la nuit survit grâce à ton sourire.
Là, je veux déposer ma verité pure
et aussi la clarté pour la conserver
où rien n'est nôtre.
Ton sourire rit pour que tout puisse
faire partie de lui-même,
ce qui me donne la liberté
d'être capable d'endurer un matin sans toi.
Nov. 28h 1998 (with the help of Isabelle Haussman). (thanks to I.H.)
