Dis al weer November. Sowat ‘n jaar gelede het ek Tony Hoagland se gedig ‘Reasons to Survive November’ op hierdie blog geplaas; gaan lees dit gerus weer, dit is ‘n fantastiese gedig! Laasjaar het ek rede gehad om so te voel: ‘November like a train wreck – / as if a locomotive made of cold / had hurtled out of Canada / and crashed into a million trees, / flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.’
Hierdie jaar is dinge darem ‘n bietjie rustiger… En tog kan ek nie help om op 1 November saam met Tom Waits te neurie nie (oftewel, saam met hom te grom en tjank nie):
no moon no cars
November
it only believes
in a pile of dead leaves
and a moon
that’s the color of bone
to linger longer
stick your spoon in the wall
we’ll slaughter them all
to an old dead tree
get word to April
to rescue me
November’s cold chain
made of wet boots and rain
and shiny black ravens
on chimney smoke lanes
November seems odd
you’re my firing squad
November
with my hair slicked back
with carrion shellac
with the blood from a pheasant
and the bone from a hare
tied to the branches
of a roebuck stag
left to wave in the timber
like a buck shot flag
go away you rainsnout
go away blow your brains out
November
‘November’ het op Waits se CD ‘The Black Rider’ verskyn. Dit is ‘n wonderlike, waansinnige album, ‘n reeks ateljeeopnames deur Waits van musiek wat hy oorspronklik in 1990 in samewerking met Robert Wilson (veral bekend as regisseur van Philip Glass se ‘Einstein on the Beach’) en William Burroughs vir ‘n verhoogproduksie geskryf het. Jy kan ‘n fantastiese lewendige opname (tydens sy onlangse ‘Glitter & Doom’ toer opgeneem) van Waits se ‘November’ hier op Youtube hoor.